Hunter Stires

History demonstrates that: 1) No great naval power has long endured without also being a great commercial maritime power. 2) No great naval power has long endured that cannot build its own warships. 3) Ships win battles. Shipyards win wars.

Ahead of my AUKUS Panel… Revisiting my original treatise on the way forward for the US-Australia-UK nuke submarine program (AUKUS). Lot has been achieved, some looks familiar to the recommendations in this October 2021 report: heritage.org/sites/default/…

Force Required to Remove Threat in Hormuz Strait and Conclude Iran Negotiations… These focused attacks a sample of what is needed. But sustained strikes against IRGC naval forces (mostly speed boats) and remaining shore based anti-ship missile sites required. foxnews.com/live-news/iran…

Ukraine's defense sector is already reeling from the Russian decimation of Kyiv's maternity wards and coffee shops.

@ScottJenningsKY Scott, I’m relieved that Trump is not giving the Iranians money for nothing. Any word on if the U.S. will be providing them chicks for free?

Shoutout to Volodymyr Zelenskyy for surviving actual assassination attempts and never demanding a ballroom once.

You have to admire the craven bullshit

I am 95% done with a deal to buy a new house. The remaining 5% of negotiations are focused on the price and whether the owners are actually willing to sell

Estonia's spy chief tells CNN that within four to five months Putin may no longer be able to negotiate from a position of strength. "Time is not in Russia's favor," Rosin said, noting the Kremlin has quietly dropped all talk of total victory. edition.cnn.com/2026/05/23/eur…

“Russia is a peaceful country, surrounded by ceasefires.” -@DarthPutinKGB

The Strait of Magellan is not a strategically vital chokepoint; the Strait of Hormuz is. The primary reason we care about nuclear counterproliferation in Iran is so that we can intervene decisively to reopen the strait should they attempt to close it. If we leave a non-nuclear Iran in control of the strait then they will have secured a major strategic victory for themselves at our direct expense even without having built a nuclear weapon.

@HunterStires That's a non-answer. Defending regional, problematic trade chokepoints is not our responsibility. We'd have a difficult time defending the Strait of Magellan, too. Who cares? Let the Europeans who need Persian Gulf oil deal with Hormuz. We need to stop Iran's nuclear program.

The apparent failure to build a force equal to the foundational naval task of protecting the movement of civilian shipping through contested chokepoints is a grave indictment of our naval and national leadership. The choice to launch an ill advised war in one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints when a protection of shipping mission was apparently beyond the Navy’s ability to execute represents a strategic blunder by the Trump administration of epic proportions.

My SHIPS for America Act is gaining bipartisan momentum in the Senate. We all agree — we need to bring shipbuilding back to America and revive American shipping. My bill will do exactly that, creating thousands of great-paying jobs and strengthening our economic and national security.

We are the world’s leading naval power and the guardians of the freedom of the sea. There will be severe strategic and political implications globally if we demonstrate that a middle power of little technological sophistication can deny the world’s greatest navy command of the sea in the world’s most vital maritime chokepoint.

@HunterStires What does it matter to us if the strait is open or closed? Is it not more of a strategic concern that Iran had enriched Uranium to just below weapons grade? What worse situation will result from the war than the prior situation - a fanatical, apocalyptic regime with atomic bombs?

Updated. For a reason. Stay tuned. 😎

Literal definition of Orwellian

Just one day after ending "The Late Show" on CBS, Stephen Colbert returned to TV — to host a public access show with rocker Jack White in Monroe, Michigan. Appearances by Jeff Daniels, Eminem and Steve Buscemi.

Yes, they are separate but related failures. The Trump Administration’s epic strategic blunder in starting this war without fully planning for or resourcing a response to the adversary’s eminently foreseeable most likely and most dangerous course of action has rudely exposed the Navy’s longer term institutional failure to plan for or build a force capable of executing this foundational naval mission.

@HunterStires You can absolutely make the case that the Iran war is an enormous, costly mistake. But saying this woeful admin is primarily responsible for US naval weakness is a bridge too far. We, USN, haven’t had a good procurement prog since the Burke class. Congress, too, deserves blame.

As new Ukrainian drones and missiles hit Russian energy sites almost daily this spring, the hope in Kyiv is that the pain suffered by Russia will compound so significantly that President Vladimir Putin will be compelled to a deal sparing each other’s vital infrastructure, including the power grid, before next winter sets in. “The only way to end this war is by moving it to the enemy’s territory. And we are doing precisely this, successfully, with our Ukrainian weapons,” Oleksandr Kamyshin, Zelensky’s top advisor overseeing the Ukrainian defense industry, told me. @AKamyshin wsj.com/world/ukraine-…

Some inspired Ukrainians built an interactive website showing how long it takes for the world's slowest creatures to reach Kupiansk in contrast with the Russian army. Complete with David Attenborough quotes and set to "Kalinka." 3daywar.netlify.app

@milstrategy26 @RHFontaine @CNASdc What’s your appreciation of the situation in light of recent events? Where is the sequential approach to reopening the strait (as opposed to planning and allocating forces to keep it open from the beginning)?

@RHFontaine @CNASdc The Hajj is May25-30. Wait until after that.

To bomb or not to to bomb? That is the U.S. question on Iran right now: 1. The Stalemate of Hormuz continues, with huge costs for the United States and the global economy. President Trump is holding out for a deal that ends the war on favorable terms. But no such agreement appears in the offing. 2. Parsing U.S. objectives has been hard, but they’ve included ending Iran’s nuclear program, capping its missile inventory, eliminating its drone production, stopping its support for regional proxies, and encouraging Iranians to overthrow their government. 3. Those goals are now reduced to two: opening the Strait of Hormuz and getting a nuclear deal. But even that has remained elusive. Tehran is offering just one: reopening the Strait in exchange for an end to the U.S. blockade, with the nuclear details to be worked out later. 4. The administration rightly worries that later will never come, and once the blockade ends so too will its primary source of leverage over Iran. No nuke deal now could mean no nuke deal ever. 5. In the meantime, Tehran is asking for a victor’s peace, demanding reparations and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East. As it makes these unacceptable requests, it is moving to impose indefinite control over the Strait. 6. How then to break the stalemate? Trump could restart the bombing campaign and hope to shake the regime into compliance. That may not, however, solve his problem. If six weeks of intense bombing did not force an Iranian capitulation, will another week do the job? Three? Six? Ten? 7. A narrow deal to reopen the Strait, with some aspirational language on the nuclear file - but no definitive end to the Iranian program - appears most likely. But we may see a return to military force before we get there. 8. The world is not waiting during the interim. Countries are preparing for a new normal, building ports and pipelines to bypass the Strait, seeking deals with Tehran to allow passage and, in the case of Oman, talking with Iran about a joint toll system. This is a poor outcome, to say the least, and worse than before the war. 9. Much remains uncertain. But for now, it is clear that the hardliner-dominated Iranian regime is not going anywhere. The Strait is easy to close and hard to open. The U.S. will have to combine pressure and containment to block its worst ambitions. The war has not ended the Iranian problem but rather created new ones.

Ukraine outmaneuvered everyone. In a fight for national survival, for their history and the recognition as one of the world’s greatest democracies, they succeeded. Never bet against these people.