The term “chokepoint” has deep roots in military strategy, famously illustrated by the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, where a small Greek force used a narrow pass to hold off a massive Persian army . However, its application to global naval strategy and trade routes is a more modern development.
While the term is now widely used to describe strategic narrows like the Strait of Hormuz, the person who coined the specific phrase “four choke points” isn’t clear from the search results. However, the concept of identifying and controlling global maritime “chokepoints” is most prominently attributed to the British naval strategist Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher from the early 20th century. He was the first to identify a global network of nine choke points that were critical to the British Empire’s naval dominance and global trade .
Admiral Fisher’s original nine chokepoints were :
· Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf)
· Strait of Malacca (between Indonesia and Malaysia)
· Bab-el-Mandeb (connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden)
· Panama Canal
· Suez Canal
· Bosporus Strait (Turkey)
· Strait of Gibraltar
· The Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)
· Cape Horn (South America)
This concept has evolved, and modern strategists often focus on a smaller set of the most critical nodes. For instance, Foreign Policy magazine has identified five key global chokepoints, which include the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal, among others .
Why Did America Defy Its Own Calculations on Hormuz?
This is the more pressing question. The decision to engage in a conflict that could close the Strait of Hormuz appears to be a significant strategic blunder, as the US seemed unprepared for the very scenario its planners had long feared. Reports indicate that the Trump administration failed to anticipate that Iran would actually close the strait in response to an attack .
Several factors contributed to this miscalculation:
· Faulty Assumptions: Analysts and the administration likely bet that Iran would keep the strait open to continue its own oil exports, despite the threat to its regime. The “existential threat” triggered a much harsher, all-or-nothing response than expected .
· Underestimating Asymmetric Warfare: President Trump himself conceded the core problem. Even after claiming to have destroyed “100% of Iran’s military capability,” he noted how easy it is for Iran to continue the disruption with low-cost, asymmetric tactics: “it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile” . The US can destroy large naval assets, but it cannot easily eliminate the threat of small boats and swarming drone attacks .
· No Clear Plan: The administration appears to have been caught flat-footed. Energy Secretary Chris Wright admitted the US navy was “simply not ready” to conduct escorts, and a US senator stated bluntly that on the Strait of Hormuz, “they had NO PLAN” on how to get it safely back open .
· Tactical Complexity: The geography of the strait, where shipping lanes are just 3 to 4 miles from the Iranian coast, makes it an incredibly difficult environment to secure. It gives ships very little time to react to an attack and requires a level of air cover and asset coordination that is difficult to muster quickly .
In essence, the US did not “defy” its own calculations as much as it failed to act on them. The long-standing warnings from military planners about the complexity of countering an Iranian move on the strait were ignored, replaced by a flawed assumption that Tehran would not take such a step. This has left the US and its allies scrambling to respond to a crisis they had decades to prepare for but did not.
