This all raises questions about why the Navy did send one of its most prized and politically sensitive military assets through the Strait without its own small boat escorts, such as the Mk VIs, to provide screening. The service also has larger Cyclone class patrol craft forward deployed in the region, as well as various types of other boats that are smaller than the Mk VI that could still have provided additional close-in security for at least portions of the transit.

It also shines a light on the still limited capabilities of the Navy's Littoral Combat Ships, which the service had envisioned being forward deployed to the Middle East to provide exactly this kind of additional support. The main mission sets for the Surface Warfare Modules for the two classes of LCS was supposed to be defeating swarming boat attacks. Eleven years after the first Littoral Combat Ship was commissioned, the class of ships still does not deploy to the Middle East.

All of this is even more glaring considering that the transit occurred at the same time that flurry of reports emerged about new U.S. intelligence about potential attacks on American forces throughout the Middle East from Iran or its regional proxies. The Lincoln Carrier Strike Group had only moved into the Persian Gulf in late November 2019 in the first place, the first time it had done so since arriving in the region in May, almost certainly due to the increased risks the ships would face simply by being in this constrained littoral environment.

It's possible that things may only become more complex in the future, as well. Tomorrow, the regular Iranian Navy will begin its first-ever trilateral naval exercise with Russian and Chinese forces, which could point to increased maritime cooperation between those three countries in the region. The United States itself is also still looking to expand the number of participants in its latest maritime security construct in the region, known as Operation Sentinel, which is ostensibly aimed at deterring Iranian aggression. A number of American allies and partners have or are planning to send forces to the region to conduct their own independent operations.