Economic warfare

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NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 14th of April.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up first, the latest on Iran and for that let’s welcome Ryan Brobst. He is deputy director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, with a focus on U.S. defense and military strategy. Ryan, good morning!

RYAN BROBST: Thank you for having me.

REICHARD: A week ago, it looked like the war might be ending. But now talks have failed, and the U.S. has imposed a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz that will choke off Iranian exports. The president said the ultimate goal is all in, all out. So how do you assess the strategy here?

BROBST: So right now what we're seeing is that Iran is continuing to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, selectively allowing a small number of vessels to go in and out. And I think the reason why President Trump announced the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is that, you know, if Iran is going to be blockading it, we shouldn't allow them to profit from that blockade at the same time, profit from selling their oil at higher prices, while stopping all of our partners in the Gulf from doing so at the same time. So I think this is a way to increase leverage in negotiations and make it clear to Iran that there's going to be a cost if they continue blockading the strait.

EICHER: Ryan, seems a bit backward in a way, and it may not be, but it seems that way to see U.S. strategy begin with five weeks of all-out military bombardment, and then with a breakdown of talks, the shift goes to economics. I want to play a soundbite from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had this to say yesterday:

POMPEO: President Trump has essentially gone for the jugular. He will cut off essentially all revenue that has been flowing into the Iranian regime, and so now they’ll have to decide…

So Ryan, why do you think the administration believes that economic pressure will succeed where military pressure didn't seem to get the job done? Could it be as simple as Iran's leverage over the strait was kind of the only thing they had left?

BROBST: I think that's part of it. And this is part of an effort by the Trump administration to bring all elements of national power to bear on Iran. It's worth noting that during the military campaign, is not, there's significantly less Iranian oil getting out as well. And since these negotiations look like it might stretch on for a longer period of time, it makes sense that we can use these tools that have a longer time horizon, such as, you know, economic warfare to increase the pressure on Iran. So it's a little bit of an interesting order of things. It is also worth noting that economic pressure was also applied to Iran before the conflict began. So I see this as more of a continuation of strategy.

REICHARD: Well, we are seeing mixed signals from allies. There is talk of efforts to help reopen the strait. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the UK is leading efforts to reopen the strait. But Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday contradicted that. So what does that tell you about how aligned the U.S. and its allies are right now?

BROBST: So I think the U.S. and our allies are aligned on the fact that we want the Strait of Hormuz to be open to all commerce. That's a clear goal. What's less clear is how aligned we are on how to actually get to that point. So there's certainly appetite for pressuring Iran to reopen it, but it's seemingly unlikely that European countries are at least in the immediate future going to be sending their warships to help out with these efforts. The Trump administration has, you know, there were significant strains over Greenland earlier in the year, they kind of poisoned the relationship a bit. So it's not surprising to see that there’s more of a reluctance to commit forces right now. That may change in the near future. And our European allies do have some mind sweeping capabilities that could be quite useful. So time will tell.

EICHER: So let's zoom out a little bit more. What do you think this blockade might mean for China? Do you think it increases China's leverage or might it just increase China's vulnerability?

BROBST: They are certainly interested in this and want ships to and from China to be able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. They don't necessarily have a ton of leverage yet as the People's Liberation Army's Navy does not have a very significant presence in there, certainly not compared to the U.S. Navy. But this could lead to China putting pressure on both the U.S. and potentially Iran to resolve this impasse.

EICHER: Well, now we've been talking about the blockade, but let's not forget the one thing the president said is the absolute red line for the U.S. and that is no nuclear weapons for Iran. That's clearly the message the vice president carried into the talks that broke down over the weekend.

VANCE: The simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon, not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term? We haven't seen that yet, we hope that we will.

Ryan, how does that shape what the U.S. does next?

BROBST: This is likely to be the largest sticking point in negotiations is over Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium as well as their ability to enrich it in the future. Iran likely sees that a nuclear weapon might be able to protect them from similar attacks in the future. But at the same time, continuing to possess that increases the likelihood that there's going to be a resumption of hostilities right now. And this has been an issue with Iran for decades at this point. So it's not surprising to me that we were unable to resolve this issue in just one weekend and negotiations over this are likely to stretch out for quite some time.

REICHARD: Ryan Brobst of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who focuses on U.S. defense and military strategy. Ryan, we appreciate your time today. Thank you.

BROBST: Thank you.

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