As the United States launched the ship protection operation "Project Freedom" in the Strait of Hormuz on the 4th (local time), past tanker protection operations the U.S. military carried out in the Persian Gulf are being recalled.
This Project Freedom operation takes its framework from Earnest Will, the escort mission the United States conducted about 40 years ago. At the same time, it is seen as boosting the odds of success by folding in another secret mission from that period, Prime Chance.
On the 5th (local time), U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a briefing, "Under President Donald Trump's direction, U.S. Central Command will carry out Project Freedom to resume commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz," defining it as a "defensive, limited and temporary operation" separate from the main Iran war operation, "Epic Fury."
At the same event, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chair Dan Caine said, "We have created an enhanced security area on the south side of the strait," adding, "More than 15,000 U.S. troops have been deployed, and over 100 manned and unmanned air assets, including fighters, attack aircraft and drones, are conducting 24-hour defensive surveillance." According to the Ministry of National Defense, more than 1,550 merchant ships are stuck inside the Arabian Gulf, unable to exit the Strait of Hormuz, and the number of trapped sailors totals 22,500.
U.S. military media said this operation outwardly resembles Operation Earnest Will in 1987. In 1987, near the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran attacked Kuwaiti ships that were aiding Iraq. Kuwait asked the United States for help. As a political signal, the United States decided to open the strait and reflagged 11 Kuwaiti tankers under the U.S. flag. The idea was that Iran would not dare strike a ship flying the Stars and Stripes.
That calculation collapsed on the first voyage. On July 24, 1987, the supertanker Bridgeton, newly flying the Stars and Stripes, was hit by an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf. A U.S. Navy warship was escorting right alongside, but it didn't matter. Harold Bernsen, then the U.S. Navy's commander for the Middle East who led the escort flotilla, said, "We realized that even with overwhelming U.S. military power, Iran clearly had the will to attack us."
The United States then secretly carried out Operation Prime Chance. The U.S. military leased two offshore oil work barges and converted them into mobile sea bases. On them, it hid night helicopters from the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Navy SEALs and explosive ordnance disposal teams. The decisive scene came in September 1987. A covert U.S. operations helicopter caught the Iranian minelayer Iran Ajr actually laying mines. Navy SEALs swiftly boarded the mine-laying ship, cutting off Iran's room to claim "we didn't do it." The Washington Institute, a defense think tank, assessed that as this led to the U.S. retaliation operation "Praying Mantis" in April 1988 over the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, Iran backed down from its bid for supremacy in the Persian Gulf.
In Project Freedom, the United States is bundling route reconnaissance, mine countermeasures, drone surveillance, air cover and the establishment of defensive corridors inside the strait. Instead of towing along destroyers beside merchant ships as in Earnest Will, it set up the enhanced security area described by Caine. In a recent report, the Middle East Forum explained that the modern version does not escort the entire 500 miles of the Persian Gulf but "creates a defensive corridor through the high-threat section of the Strait of Hormuz, reducing it to a 40-mile sprint." The idea is to secure only a narrow space that ships can pass through in a couple of hours, not the entire route.
The criteria for success also differ from 40 years ago. Experts said that in 1987 the key was to ensure safe navigation so tankers would not be physically sunk. Now, by contrast, the crux is to make shippers and the insurance market functionally judge that they can bear the risk of transiting Hormuz before the physical movement of tankers begins. The Middle East Forum defined in its report that "reopening Hormuz is not a mine-clearing issue or an anti-ship missile issue, but a matter of confidence." Even without fully sealing the strait, Iran can functionally close the Strait of Hormuz if it threatens only a few merchant ships with drones or missiles and causes war risk insurance to be cut off. The U.S. emphasis on defensive zones and transit corridors this time is seen as a design mindful of this point.
However, as the scale of the operation has grown much larger than 40 years ago, the military risks have also increased. In 1987, the United States did not directly enter the Iran-Iraq war. Internationally, it maintained the stance of a neutral escorting country that supported Iraq only from the rear. Now, the United States has already clashed militarily with Iran and is entering the operation under a truce. Iran, for its part, has a far more diverse arsenal than in the 1980s, including drones, anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, and coastal artillery. The Washington Institute said, "During Earnest Will, the United States could deploy about 30 warships, but today the U.S. Navy has about 100 major surface combatants," adding, "It is a much heavier burden."