Steve Jermy is a former Royal Navy officer and naval strategist with extensive operational experience, including commanding an air-defense destroyer and serving within NATO forces. He now works in the offshore energy sector and regularly provides analysis on military strategy, maritime security, and geopolitical conflicts.
Guillaume de Sardes: American war aims are unclear. To justify the intervention, Mr. Trump stated that he wanted to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, which contradicts his address of 21 June 2025, after the first American strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, in which he declared: “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” He also seemed to hope for a rapid regime change. In your opinion, why did Mr. Trump embark on this war? In the absence of convincing arguments, should it simply be seen as the influence of Israel, which has a strategic interest in a lasting weakening of Iran, or does this intervention fit into a broader “hidden” plan?
Steven Jermy: During a war — and ideally even before entering one — it is necessary to have a clear understanding of one’s objectives. Yet it seems obvious to me that the Americans did not have, and still do not seem to have, such an understanding.
Regarding the “twelve-day war” you mentioned, my impression is that the Americans sought to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities — that was at least the stated objective. But I believe they were also pursuing another aim: to help Israel out of a difficult situation, since the Israelis were at the time under significant bombardment and looking for a way out.
This twelve-day war was something of a shadow play. The American attack had something symbolic about it. The Iranians responded in the same way: with a symbolic attack against an American air base. And that was how the episode came to an end.
As for the current war, even if the objectives that are publicly highlighted relate to the nuclear issue, it seems to me that the real objective — I will use a term and then explain why I prefer not to use it anymore — was regime change. It is an expression I prefer to avoid because it carries negative connotations: speaking of a “regime” when referring to the Iranian government suggests that it is illegitimate. Yet roughly 90 percent of the world regards the Iranian government as legitimate. I therefore prefer to speak of the overthrow of the government.
I therefore think that the Americans, and probably the Israelis as well, hoped to provoke the overthrow of the government. That was their main objective. Unfortunately, the White House did not understand the nature of the Iranian government. It did not grasp the very deep interweaving of theology and politics that exists in Iran. Had this fact been better understood, the Americans might have acted with greater reflection and caution.
There were also secondary objectives. It is clear that the Israelis, although concerned about the nuclear issue, were also — after the twelve-day war — extremely worried about Iran’s ballistic capabilities, namely its surface-to-surface missiles. The destruction of those bombardment capabilities was certainly important to them.
Another reason can also be suggested, a more subtle one. For many years there has been, both in the United States and in Israel, a desire not to be pushed out of the game. For some Israelis, this fits into the idea of a “Greater Israel” project. For the Americans, it is more difficult to describe, but it seems to go back to the moment when the Shah was overthrown and Iran came to be regarded as part of the “axis of evil.” That sentiment was reinforced by the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, when 52 diplomats were held hostage for 444 days in order to demand the extradition of the Shah of Iran. That was a humiliation.
After two weeks of war, it seems that the military campaign is not unfolding as well as expected. Despite decapitation strikes and massive bombardments, Iran is not giving in and—even if they are difficult to assess—it still retains capabilities in missiles and drones. At the same time, Israeli and American defense systems are gradually being depleted. Here again, the real level of the stocks is unknown, but there are worrying signs. For example, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is currently moving elements of a THAAD system from South Korea to the Middle East. From a military point of view, how do you see the situation evolving?
I think the Americans are evaluating the situation, which is something they often do — I know this because I have worked with them. They must have been surprised by the effectiveness of the Iranian counter-bombardment: the use of missiles against advanced systems in the Arab states of the Gulf, but also against Israel. In fact, I suspect that Israel is suffering much more than we are being told. If everything were going well in Israel, there would be no reason to impose a media blackout…
I was surprised by the very methodical way in which the Iranians have destroyed American air-defense systems, particularly the radars located in the Gulf monarchies. This matters because air defense operates according to the principle of layered defense. I myself commanded an air-defense destroyer and, within a NATO force, I served as the anti-air warfare coordinator. The principle is as follows: the closer you are to the threat — the place from which missiles or aircraft are coming — the more advanced systems you have that allow you to detect attacks early. This makes two things possible: first, warning your forces; and second, allocating your air-defense systems efficiently. For example, you might assign two aircraft approaching from the right to one destroyer, those coming from the left to another, and deploy combat air patrols. In other words, it allows you to manage the air-defense battle.
But without sensors close to the threat, this becomes extremely difficult. It therefore seems to me that the Americans and the Israelis are now much more exposed than they would like to be. They are not completely blind, because they have AWACS aircraft — radar aircraft with a large circular dome mounted on the fuselage. But it is likely that these aircraft do not properly detect certain hypersonic or ballistic missiles, because these weapons follow very high and very steep trajectories: they climb very high and then descend rapidly. In any case, now that some radars have been damaged or completely destroyed, the picture the Americans obtain is degraded.
In short, the Americans and the Israelis are suffering much more than they had anticipated from a defensive point of view. From an offensive point of view, they are achieving far fewer results than they had hoped, whether in destabilizing the Iranian government or weakening Iranian bombardment forces. I suspect that the White House — although I am not sure this was also the case for the Pentagon — thought that, as in Venezuela, the disappearance of the leader would lead to the collapse of the Iranian government, which reflects a catastrophically mistaken understanding of the nature of the Iranian political system. As for Iran’s bombardment forces, they seem to have prepared well for this conflict by establishing a highly decentralized decision-making system.
The state of the campaign must therefore, in my view, be becoming a growing source of concern for the Americans in general, and for Trump in particular. I imagine that some officials — such as Vance, Gabbard, or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — are now saying: “We warned you, Mr. President.” But their warnings were ignored, and here we are.
The open question — the answer to which is probably two to four weeks — is how long the Israelis can continue from a logistical point of view. We know that they are consuming their air-defense systems very rapidly, and that those systems are not as effective as they had hoped. What will happen next? How will Washington and Tel Aviv react if the campaign clearly turns against them? The next two weeks will be very revealing in this regard, and the following four weeks even more so.
What seems fairly clear to me is that the Iranians are prepared for a prolonged campaign — at least six months — whereas that is probably the last thing the Americans and the Israelis want. In this deteriorating context, it does not surprise me that Trump called Vladimir Putin, since he could be one of the few actors capable of acting as a mediator in this conflict.
Time indeed seems to be working in the Iranians’ favor, because to appear victorious in the eyes of the world, it only has to survive, whereas the Israeli-American coalition, as time passes and the cost of the war increases, must achieve a spectacular result. Mr. Trump is therefore demanding Iran’s “unconditional surrender” (message of 6 March 2026 on Truth Social), which could lead to a regime change and the establishment of a democracy favorable to Western interests. Does this outcome seem likely to you? If not, do you think Mr. Trump could acknowledge and accept his failure, or has he placed himself in a position that obliges him to prolong the war?
If we consider the situation from the Iranian point of view, in order to win — and I share your view — they simply need to survive. And it seems to me that they are well on their way to doing so. It even seems to me that they are now beginning to consider not only survival, but also achieving what for them is a strategic objective: the departure of the United States from the Gulf. And it is not impossible that they may succeed.
The campaign is likely to evolve in the following way — at least this seems to me the most probable scenario: we will probably see another two weeks of escalation on the part of the Americans, likely focused around the Strait of Hormuz. It is however to be feared that this will lead nowhere. The Iranians will not submit and the Americans will eventually have to accept that. I can then imagine three scenarios.
The first is that the Americans find a way to step back. That would be extremely difficult, but they have already done so in the Red Sea when they withdrew two aircraft carriers after using a large quantity of weapons against the Houthis, to no avail, and losing several aircraft (admittedly due to friendly fire). They eventually declared a largely imaginary victory and left. This could happen again.
The second scenario, completely the opposite, would be a nuclear escalation. Such an escalation would however turn the United States and Israel into pariah states. This would obviously not serve the American national interest, but the Israelis might nevertheless choose this option in order to ensure that the United States remains committed to the conflict. From a military perspective, I do not believe that the use of nuclear weapons could bring about the capitulation of the Iranians. The nature of the Iranian government, its theological dimension, and the way the Revolutionary Guards and other actors think mean that they are prepared to continue fighting whatever happens.
Finally, there is a third scenario. As it becomes increasingly clear within the American political sphere that the campaign is going badly and not in the direction that had been hoped, we could see growing concerns to the point that the leadership of the White House might be called into question. The possibility of an impeachment procedure could then emerge. Admittedly, the so-called War Powers Act can probably no longer be invoked, since Congress appears to have accepted the intervention. But if a change of political direction were eventually to appear necessary, I could imagine highly compromising Epstein files being released. These new revelations could be used to initiate impeachment proceedings.
In summary, I believe it will be extremely difficult for Mr. Trump, given his personality, to accept a defeat. He therefore risks doubling down. Yet the continuation of this war could turn out to be not only the greatest American foreign policy mistake of this century, but perhaps even the greatest foreign policy mistake in the entire history of the United States. A prolonged conflict could cause considerable — and potentially transformative — damage to the global economy because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
In summary, I believe it will be extremely difficult for Mr. Trump, given his personality, to accept a defeat. He therefore risks doubling down. Yet the continuation of this war could turn out to be not only the greatest American foreign policy mistake of this century, but perhaps even the greatest foreign policy mistake in the entire history of the United States. A prolonged conflict could cause considerable — and potentially transformative — damage to the global economy because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
I would say that the chances of an Israeli-American victory are about 5%, unless I’m missing something… I’m a great admirer of a French general, André Beaufre. He wrote a book on strategy in which he explains that, in war, the loser deserves to lose, because his defeat results from errors of thinking, either before the war or during the war. And there were indeed errors of thinking on the American side before the war — we can see that today. So what will the consequences of the defeat be?
First, I fear that the region will be marked by persistent instability. What few commentators talk about is the extent of the tensions that have always existed in the Gulf between, on the one hand, the Shiite government led by Persians in Iran and, on the other, the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf states. Many of these Sunni monarchies in fact contain large Shiite populations. It is interesting, for example, to note that when the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain was struck at the beginning of the campaign, some Shiites in Bahrain actually cheered. This shows just how complex the regional dynamics are. It is a reality fraught with danger that would require very careful reflection.
Secondly, if the conflict continues, as seems likely, increasing pressure will be placed on the Gulf monarchies to reconsider their system of alliances. Faced with the indifference of the United States and Israel to their request not to launch this war, and then with their inability to win it, the monarchies will begin to question the usefulness of American bases on their territory. They may ultimately rethink their alliances.
If I were then asked which countries might offer better security guarantees, the irony is that I would answer China and Russia. In my view, these two countries are, in a context such as the Gulf, far more pragmatic diplomatically and less inclined toward aggressive military interventions.
I often point out that the West is not very good at this, because we are now at the fifth or sixth failed intervention of this century: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now, of course, Iran. In my view, the first four are clearly failures. The wars in Ukraine and Iran both seem to be heading in the same direction. And if you are an Arab country on the western shore of the Gulf, you will naturally prefer to have as allies powers that succeed militarily rather than powers that fail in every campaign they undertake. As a European and a friend of the United States, it saddens me to say so, but that is the reality.
This conflict has quickly taken on an energy dimension, notably with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and 20% of LNG transit. The giant liquefaction terminal of Ras Laffan in Qatar was closed following Iranian drone strikes. According to the Qatari Minister of Energy, even if the conflict stopped immediately, it would take weeks, even months, for exports to return to a normal cycle. In Saudi Arabia, the Ras Tanura refinery, also damaged, had to be shut down. If the war were to continue and storage tanks became saturated, with oil no longer able to be exported, Aramco would have no choice but to shut down the wells. Yet while closing an oil well can be done quickly, restarting it takes time and is costly. Even though the situation has not yet reached its worst point, the price of a barrel of oil has already increased by 50% and the price of LNG by 100%. How do you think this context may influence what happens next? Can the world afford a long war?
The very short answer to your question is no. We cannot afford a long war. But let us look at why.
I now work in the offshore energy sector and I am what one might call an energy enthusiast. One of the problems with oil and gas is that their markets are very efficient, but that efficiency comes with a lack of resilience. In other words, significant damage can occur very quickly.
These damages would be added to those that have already been caused, in my view very imprudently, by the United States and Europe when they imposed sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports. It was entirely foreseeable that these sanctions would affect energy markets. The irony, particularly for the Europeans, is that they were what I call “boomerang sanctions,” because they were likely to cause more damage in Europe than in Russia — and that is indeed what has happened.
If we compare the major regions of the world — China, Russia, Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world, including India — the most vulnerable is Europe. It imports about 12 million barrels of oil per day and an equivalent volume of gas.
China comes next: it imports roughly as much, but over the past decade, and again recently, it has accumulated very large energy reserves. The Chinese, I believe, have an extremely sophisticated understanding of how energy markets function.
Next come the United States. It is often said that they are energy independent, but this is not accurate. They are net exporters of refined products — such as diesel — but net importers of crude oil, in the order of three to six million barrels per day. In addition, a large share of American oil and gas production comes from shale. However, the relatively low oil prices of recent years have made some fields uneconomic, which has led to their closure. Restarting them would probably take about 18 months.
The country that is most secure from an energy standpoint is obviously Russia, which is independent and an exporter of oil and gas. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of oil, but Russia is the second. Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of gas, but Russia is the second. When these two resources are combined, Russia appears as a true energy superpower. Thus, while Europeans are suffering heavily from high energy prices, Russia is not affected.
The key point for the global economy is that energy consumption is extremely closely correlated with economic output — with a correlation greater than 0.95. There is a time lag, but this means that we can predict with a high degree of confidence that a recession is likely.
I think it will be a global recession, but with different effects depending on the region. It will be deepest in Europe, but the United States will not be far behind. It will also affect the rest of the world, particularly countries that are highly dependent on imported energy such as Japan and South Korea.
The International Energy Agency is currently releasing oil from its strategic reserves — about 20 million barrels per day. The problem is that this is insufficient, because those reserves would be exhausted after 20 to 40 days. If this blockage of the Strait were to last six months — meaning that for six months 20% of the world’s oil and gas would be removed from the market — then we should expect a comparable drop in economic growth. A decline of 20% would not be a simple recession; it would be a true depression. In short, if the Iranians are prepared to continue the conflict — and I believe they are — the difficulties are only beginning.
The problems you are referring to concerning the Strait of Hormuz suggest that this war has a maritime dimension. The Americans claim to have destroyed around thirty vessels, including at least two frigates and one submarine. For its part, the Iranian fleet appears powerless. On March 13, U.S. forces carried out a series of airstrikes against military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island (missile bunkers, naval mine depots, and a military airfield). These strikes could be part of the preparation for an amphibious operation. As a former admiral, you are a specialist in these matters. Could you summarize and analyze the operations currently under way for us? Do you believe an amphibious landing is possible? Do you believe the Strait of Hormuz could be reopened by force?
Let us begin very briefly with Kharg Island. I am not certain what the American objective is with regard to Kharg. It may simply be part of an attempt to escalate. But one must remember that Kharg Island lies far up in the Gulf, and that in order to reach it one must pass through the Strait. Any amphibious operation against Kharg would therefore first require passing through the Strait. I am extremely skeptical about that idea, because an amphibious operation aimed at penetrating the Strait and moving up to Kharg would be suicidal. If someone asked me to plan such an operation, that is exactly the word I would use.
As for the Strait itself, it is even more important in my view, because Kharg concerns Iranian oil, whereas the Strait concerns the oil and gas of the entire world. If I were asked to design an operation to penetrate the Strait using the American naval assets currently present in the Gulf, I would say that the chances of success are so low that the operation would not be quite as suicidal as going all the way up to Kharg, but it would come close.
There was a comparable operation during the First World War, conducted by the British and the French at Gallipoli. They attempted to force the Dardanelles Strait. A British ship and a French battleship were sunk, and two British ships were severely damaged. They were struck by mines and also attacked from land.
In the Gulf, the threats against a naval force attempting to penetrate the Strait would be numerous: mines; fast patrol boats operating from caves on the northern shore; drones; ballistic missiles; hypersonic missiles; and land artillery, since the Strait is very narrow and lies within firing range from the Iranian coast. It seems extremely difficult to deal with all these threats. In order to maximize the very small chances of success, it would first be necessary to secure the northern shore of the Strait with ground forces. But this would create another problem: it is unlikely that an Arab country would accept that its territory be used as a base for a ground attack against Iran. The only other alternative would therefore be an amphibious landing on the Iranian coast just outside the Strait of Hormuz. Such an operation would also be extremely risky, because it would have to face all the weapons I have just mentioned from the very beginning of the approach.
Some people say today — I believe Douglas Macgregor put it this way — that there are now only two types of ships: submarines and targets. To some extent he is right. We know that ships can be vulnerable to drones, but they can also defend themselves against them: they can decoy them, shoot them down, and benefit from early warning thanks to onboard radars and American aircraft. However, we do not yet really know whether ships can defend themselves against ballistic or hypersonic missiles, nor whether those missiles can be precise enough to hit a moving ship. If such missiles were equipped with sufficiently accurate terminal guidance, ships could indeed be struck — which would change the entire calculation.
In practice, the amphibious force would have to accept discovering in real time whether this threat is real. And this does not concern only aircraft carriers, but all surface ships. In an amphibious operation, one needs ships of the LHD type (Landing Helicopter Dock), which resemble aircraft carriers. Troops must of course be landed. Yet once ashore, these forces would be exposed to the same threats as any American base on the other side of the Gulf. Losses in personnel and equipment could therefore be very high.
Let us suppose that you managed to control the northern shore of the Strait. You would still remain vulnerable to ballistic or hypersonic missiles. Even if they are not perfectly targeted, they could be fired in salvos into a very narrow area, which would greatly increase the chances of hitting an American warship. I am convinced that the U.S. Navy shares this view. It is not an operation in which it would wish to become involved.
It is therefore rather ironic that President Trump, after launching this war alone with Netanyahu, is now asking his allies to help him reopen the Strait. I do not see why the allies would do so: the chances of success are minimal, the risks of failure very high, and it could only create a spiral effect by intensifying the war. The Europeans have already refused. Let us hope that they remain firm in this refusal. It is the correct position, because it is not in our national interest to participate in such an operation.
Finally, since all conflicts today are interconnected, what will be the consequences of this war for the one opposing Russia and Ukraine in Europe, with Ukraine supported by NATO?
I think, although I cannot be certain, that this could bring the war to an end more quickly. For independent military analysts like myself, it is obvious that the war is lost. Yet one still hears some very poorly informed Western commentators claiming the opposite on the grounds that Russia is advancing very slowly. This reveals a profound misunderstanding of two things: first, the nature of war in the age of drones, and second, the nature of Russia’s objectives.
Russia’s objectives were not, at the outset, to take territory. They were to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and to place it in a position of neutrality. I do not understand why people seem to forget these objectives, since the Russians have been repeating them for the past four years. Initially, they used force to support a diplomatic initiative aimed at bringing the Ukrainians to the negotiating table. This attempt might have succeeded had Joe Biden and Boris Johnson not helped to derail it by encouraging Zelensky to reject an agreement negotiated in Istanbul in March 2022. If one compares what was offered at that time with what the Russians are proposing today, I would wager that Zelensky would accept immediately. But that agreement will no longer be offered to him.
Now, after four years of war, Russia’s minimum objectives are the four eastern oblasts that have already been annexed. But I suspect that Russia now wishes to take the whole of Novorossiya, which includes Odessa and its region, because what interests Vladimir Putin — and he has always said so — is guaranteeing the security of his country. I believe that the Americans are beginning to understand this as well. This brings me to my main point: it is becoming increasingly clear that the chances of any significant re-engagement by the United States in this war are very small.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that the United States is now much more concerned with the situation in the Gulf and with the question of the Strait of Hormuz. I also think they understand that the war is lost and that they will no longer have the logistical means to sustain it.
The second reason, perhaps even more important, is that Russia could play an important mediating role in the Gulf crisis. Iran is an ally of Russia. If Russia and China were to speak with Iran, the chances of successful mediation would be much higher than if it came from a Western power.
It would therefore be in the interest of the United States to improve its relations with Russia in order to make such mediation possible. And, for the same reason, it would also be in Europe’s interest.
Unfortunately, Europeans seem determined to persist in failure. This does not reflect well on them. I hope that when decision-makers finally recognize that the war is lost, pragmatism and diplomacy will once again become possible. This war must be brought to an end, because the one currently unfolding in Iran could have far more serious consequences for the global economy, particularly for European economies, which have been made extremely vulnerable by the “boomerang sanctions” imposed on Russia. By imposing sanctions on Russian gas and oil, Europe has made itself highly vulnerable to energy shocks — precisely at a moment when it could be facing the greatest energy shock in modern history.
