Iran, Ukraine, and the Future of Naval Warfare

Description Episode 156 examines what the U.S.-Iran War and Russia-Ukraine War reveal about how weaker states and irregular actors contest navies, maritime commerce, and global energy flows. Summary This conversation examines naval irregular warfare in an era of drones, shadow fleets, contested chokepoints, and attacks on commercial shipping. The guests explore why the maritime domain is attractive to weaker states and irregular actors, comparing Iran’s approach in the Strait of Hormuz, Ukraine’s campaign in the Black Sea, and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. They also discuss ghost fleets, sanctions enforcement, and the risks of mixing warfighting, law enforcement, and freedom of navigation. Throughout, they emphasize that technology matters most when paired with ingenuity, strategy, and a clear end state. Takeaways Naval irregular warfare is not new; mines, small boats, commerce raiding, deception, and coastal attacks have long been part of maritime competition. Unmanned systems, cheap sensors, long-range fires, spoofing, and commercial data add new layers to older maritime threats. The maritime domain is attractive to irregular actors because trade, energy, food, communications, ports, and undersea infrastructure are difficult to defend and easy to disrupt. Commercial shipping can be as strategically important as naval forces because disrupting trade can create economic and political effects far beyond the immediate battlefield. Chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal allow relatively small actions to generate disproportionate global consequences. Ukraine’s Black Sea campaign shows that a state without a conventional surface fleet can still contest the sea by integrating drones, missiles, intelligence, targeting, and adaptation. Iran’s maritime strategy relies on asymmetric tools such as small boats, mines, drones, dark shipping, proxy-enabled experimentation, and the threat of disruption in confined waters. Ghost fleets, spoofed vessel tracking, reflagging, sanctions evasion, and maritime interdiction create hard legal and operational problems for the United States and its allies. Boarding suspect vessels is not enough; policymakers need a clear legal basis, a clear “then what,” and a strategy that does not undermine freedom of navigation. U.S. and allied navies need to focus on threat tactics as much as threat technologies, especially the combined use of drones, missiles, mines, small boats, and commercial vessels. Platform flexibility, modularity, amphibious capacity, and agile force design may matter as much as any single new technology or class of unmanned system. Tactical success does not equal strategic success. Shooting down drones or destroying vessels matters only if it helps keep seas open and achieves the larger political objective. Dr. Ben Connable is the Executive Director of the Battle Research Group, an Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University, and an on-call principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses. A retired Marine Corps intelligence and Middle East foreign area officer, he previously served as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and is the author of Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War. Dr. Ian M. Ralby is president of Auxilium Worldwide and founder and CEO of I.R. Consilium. He is a leading expert on maritime law, maritime security, ocean governance, maritime domain awareness, hybrid aggression, lawfare, and the protection of critical maritime infrastructure. His work supports governments and international organizations confronting piracy, trafficking, smuggling, sanctions evasion, and other maritime security challenges. Kyle Atwell and Alisa Laufer are the hosts for episode 156. Please reach out to them with any questions about the episode or IWI.  The Irregular Warfare Podcast is a production of the Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI). We are a team of volunteers dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. IWI generates written and audio content, coordinates events for the IW community, and hosts critical thinkers in the field of irregular warfare as IWI fellows. You can follow and engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for (always free!) access to our written content, upcoming community events, and other resources. All views expressed in this episode are the personal views of the participants and do not represent those of any government agency or of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.  Intro music: “Unsilenced” by Ketsa Outro music: “Launch” by Ketsa Photo: AI-generated photo illustration created for the Irregular Warfare Podcast. The image is illustrative and does not depict an actual event, vessel, or operation.