Behold the Military Solution

By Seth Mandel

Friday, October 02, 2026

 

The New York Times reports a few curious facts about the Strait of Hormuz that seem to contradict one another. Traffic through the waterway has increased greatly, nearing prewar numbers, but attacks on ships have also increased. The U.S. is committed to protecting vessels as they sail through the strait, but the U.S. has also lately not been firing back at those who are attacking the ships.

 

What gives?

 

It turns out there’s a surprisingly simple answer to this riddle:

 

“Confidential data shared with The New York Times by a Western security official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters shows that Iran has been launching dozens of drones and missiles at commercial ships in the strait each week, largely out of the public eye, though it has often failed to strike its targets.”

 

How did the Iranians suddenly become such poor shots? Well, one explanation is that the U.S. has destroyed much of their offensive capabilities along the strait.

 

In May, the U.S. destroyed Iranian ground-control systems. In June, U.S. forces took out several Iranian radar stations. In July, the U.S. destroyed Iranian air-defense systems and a whole fleet of small boats the IRGC used to menace the waterway, and then a few days later hit ammunition depots, missile sites, and surveillance systems.

 

After a lull, in late August and early September, the U.S. again struck Iranian radar sites as well as systems that enabled Tehran to lay mines in the water.

 

Elsewhere in the Middle East yesterday, Gaza produced two news events that are highly relevant to the Hormuz riddle. One was that Gaza had now gone one full year without firing a rocket into Israeli territory. It was the first time this happened in the 21st century.

 

The rarity of such a period raises the obvious question: How was this made possible? The answer can be inferred from a different, seemingly minor news story yesterday. From the IDF’s social media:

 

The IDF attacked yesterday in the Khan Younis area and eliminated the terrorist Bilal Mahmoud Suleiman Samri, a terrorist in the rocket section of the Khan Younis Brigade, in the military arm of the terror organization [Palestinian Islamic Jihad].

 

The terrorist advanced terror plots while systematically violating the ceasefire and carried out ambushes against IDF forces operating in the Yellow Line area. The terrorist was eliminated in order to remove the threat he posed.

 

That last line again: The terrorist was eliminated in order to remove the threat he posed.

 

The Yellow Line is the line marking where official IDF control of Gaza ends, which totals slightly more than half the enclave. In other words, if you push the rocket launchers far from the border, and you also kill the men in charge of firing the rockets, you will greatly reduce the number of rockets that land in your territory. The better you get at doing this, the closer the number of rockets will get to zero.

 

It has been deemed by the world controversial for Israel to evacuate large areas of Southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah rockets and drones away from the northern border. That may not be a permanent solution, but it is an action taken as a direct result of Hezbollah’s preceding actions, just as Israel’s actions in Gaza were the result of decisions made and carried out by Hamas.

 

This raises a very uncomfortable fact for the modern West: There are, in fact, military solutions to military problems. Sometimes there are only military solutions to military problems.

 

The Iranians are struggling to hit ships in the Strait of Hormuz because we destroyed their preferred weaponry and guidance and communications systems. We took their toys away. And now, traffic through the strait is nearly back to prewar levels.

 

In Gaza, a series of nonmilitary solutions failed to stop the rockets. Military solutions would be under way, and then nonmilitary solutions would intervene and eventually undo the progress made by the military solutions.

 

Israel will do what works and what is within its rights in Lebanon too. Just as the U.S. has been doing in Iran. Perhaps the U.S. will go wobbly, as so often happens, before its military solution can be completed. But it is increasingly clear there is no nonmilitary solution to some of these problems, so we’ll be right back here again soon enough.