The Hormuz Trilogy and the Failure of American Naval Hubris
With this third installment, Admiral Christian Girard completes a relentless strategic trilogy on the Strait of Hormuz crisis, confirming point by point the diagnoses established in his previous analyses. Last April, in his first text dedicated to the ghost of a blockade, he demonstrated with a sailor’s rigor that the challenge was not so much physical as psychological and declaratory—Iran successfully taking the world economy hostage through the mere “announcement effect.” In May, in his memorandum “Should We Save Soldier Trump? (2)”, the Admiral pushed his operational critique further, denouncing the dead end of a techno-centric approach and American hubris: the illusion that a purely naval and air power could control the land without putting “boots on the ground,” even as Iran skillfully shifted the conflict to the shoreline and the infrastructure of its neighbors.

This third chapter records a definitive shift on the chessboard. The glaring failure of the US airstrike strategy—originally aimed at the regime and its nuclear program—has allowed Tehran to wield control of Hormuz as a weapon of mass retaliation.

In light of the fleeting nature of the diplomatic protocol celebrated at Versailles, this third installment envisions a refocusing of US strategy toward the long-neglected goal of establishing effective military control over the Strait of Hormuz—a task that is far from complete. For Europe, this outcome validates the Gaullist warning issued in the second part of the saga: in the face of a failing historical protector, freedom of navigation and the law of the sea cannot be bought off the shelf in Washington. The European Union must urgently summon its own fighting spirit and assume an autonomous military posture—not to rescue American calculations, but to defend its vital interests where the future of global trade is being decided.