LONDON: As global energy markets reel from a supply shock caused by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a British warship is heading toward the region as part of a planned UK-France-led defensive effort to help secure one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
The UK said on May 9 that it was deploying HMS Dragon, a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer, to the Middle East in preparation for a potential multinational mission to protect shipping in the key waterway once conditions allow, according to a Reuters report.
The warship had been sent to the Eastern Mediterranean in March, shortly after the start of the Iran war, to help defend Cyprus. Its shift east follows France’s decision to move its Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group to the southern Red Sea.
In a statement on May 12, Britain said it would contribute autonomous mine-hunting systems, counterdrone technology, Typhoon jets and HMS Dragon to a future mission aimed at safeguarding freedom of navigation in the strait.
Britain's HMS Dragon, a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer, has been deployed to the Middle East in preparation for a potential multinational mission to protect shipping in the the Strait of Hormuz. (Reuters)
The Ministry of Defence said the destroyer was already en route after additional training and system checks to prepare its crew for possible operations there.
British Defense Secretary John Healey announced the package during a virtual summit of defense ministers, saying the UK-France-led Multinational Military Mission, involving at least 40 nations, would begin “when conditions allow.”
Britain said the effort is backed with £115 million, about $155.4 million, in new funding for mine-hunting drones and counterdrone systems. Even so, Healey stressed that the mission “will be defensive, independent, and credible.”
That caveat reflects the political constraints surrounding any Western naval move near Iranian waters.
Christopher Newton, senior early warning analyst at the International Crisis Group, believes the coalition is waiting for a diplomatic opening between the US and Iran.
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The mission as announced would be defensive and deployed only when conditions permit, meaning that this coalition is waiting for further political progress between the US and Iran,” he told Arab News.
“Iran,” he added, “has been clear that it views any coalition deployment to Hormuz or nearby waters as an escalation of the war.”
Indeed, on May 10, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said that any French-British naval presence in the waterway alongside US forces would trigger a military response from Iran.
In a post on X, he said: “Any deployment and stationing of extra-regional destroyers around the Strait of Hormuz, under the pretext of ‘protecting shipping,’ is nothing but an escalation of the crisis, the militarization of a vital waterway, and an attempt to cover up the true root of insecurity in the region.”
The warning followed France’s announcement that its Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group was moving south through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea ahead of a possible joint French-British mission in the Strait of Hormuz.
This photograph taken on April 27, 2026, shows Rafale fighter aircraft parked on the flight deck of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle during the NATO military exercise Neptune Strike 26-2, off the coast of the Greek island of Crete. (AFP)
The deployment, announced by French President Emmanuel Macron on May 6, reportedly places Europe’s most powerful warship closer to the strategic waterway.
But after Iran’s warning, Macron sought to lower the temperature. Speaking in Nairobi on May 10, he said France had “never envisaged” a naval deployment in the Strait of Hormuz itself, but rather a security mission that would be “coordinated with Iran” and designed to help restore maritime traffic “as soon as conditions allow.”
Less than a month before that, on April 17, during a summit he co-hosted with Macron in Paris, Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, said the multinational mission will be “strictly peaceful and defensive” and intended to “reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance.”
That measured tone perhaps reflects a broader strategic calculation. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO allies, especially the UK, for not taking on a larger role since he launched the war on Iran.
Starmer, however, said Britain would not be “dragged” into the conflict and has declined to back Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Merchant vessels on standby in the Port of Oman on March 9, 2026 amid US-Israel-Iran war. ((AFP file photo)
“My decision has been very clearly that whatever the pressure — and there’s been some considerable pressure — we’re not getting dragged into the war,” he told BBC 5 Live on April 13.
He said he was focused on getting the strait reopened in order to reduce energy prices “as quickly as possible.”
Arman Mahmoudian, a research fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute, said the latest European moves “are not necessarily meant to accompany the US military campaign.
“Rather,” he said, “they seem to be part of a contingency plan in case the United States ends its military campaign without addressing the Strait of Hormuz.
“There is concern that Washington may declare victory without reaching a deal with Iran, leaving the Strait of Hormuz either closed or unstable,” Mahmoudian told Arab News.
“President Trump’s rhetoric has been clear that he views the Strait of Hormuz as a global problem rather than an American one, especially since the US is largely energy self-sufficient,” he said. “So, I think the UK and Europe are preparing for the possibility that they may need to act independently.”
Since Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran and killed senior leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran has tightly controlled traffic through Hormuz.
Before the war, nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed through the waterway, long one of the busiest energy corridors in the world.
At the same time, the US has enforced a blockade of Iranian ports to pressure Tehran to accept its terms.
A ceasefire has largely held since April, but Washington and Tehran continue to accuse each other of attacks in and around the strait. On May 11, Trump said the truce was “unbelievably weak” and on “massive life support.”
His remarks came a day after Iran reportedly sent Washington a 14-point counterproposal laying out its terms for ending the war and reopening Hormuz. Trump rejected the offer as “totally unacceptable” and a “piece of garbage.”
US inflation accelerated in April at its fastest pace since May 2023, according to media reports. Higher petrol and grocery prices pushed the consumer price index to 3.8 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on May 12.
The following day, before departing the White House for a trip to China, Trump said: “The only thing that matters, when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”
Meanwhile, global oil markets remain under severe strain. The International Energy Agency said in its latest Oil Market Report, published on May 13, that global supply is expected to fall short of demand this year as the conflict continues to disrupt Middle East production.
“With Hormuz tanker traffic still restricted, cumulative supply losses from Middle East Gulf producers already exceed 1 billion barrels with more than 14 million barrels per day of oil now shut in, an unprecedented supply shock,” the IEA said.
It added that the supply-demand gap is smaller than the gross losses suggest because the market entered the crisis in surplus, and both producers and consumers are adjusting.
Even so, the agency’s revised outlook points to a much tighter market ahead. Reuters reported that the IEA now expects supply in 2026 to run 1.78 million barrels per day below demand, reversing the 410,000-barrel-per-day surplus projected last month and the nearly 4 million-barrel-per-day surplus forecast in December.
The agency said the market would remain “severely undersupplied” through the end of the third quarter of 2026, even if the conflict ends by early June.
Against this backdrop, the key question is whether a multinational defensive mission could do much to ease the shipping bottleneck.
The Royal Navy said on its website on May 11 that HMS Dragon could help bolster confidence among shipping firms, support mine-clearance efforts and protect vessels once hostilities cease.
Analysts, however, say military assets alone cannot solve a political problem.
“The problem is political,” Newton said, adding that “so long as the war has not ended, it will be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to absolutely assure commercial shipping that the strait is free and open once again with only a military solution.
“The shipping industry has seen a lot of grand announcements and promises about the safe reopening of the strait in this war,” he said. “What it has not seen is an actually safe and open strait.”
On Thursday, a ship off the UAE coast near the Strait of Hormuz was seized and taken toward Iranian waters, according to the UK maritime agency UKMTO center.
The vessel was “taken by unauthorized personnel whilst at anchor” 70 km northeast of Fujairah, and “is now bound for Iranian territorial waters,” it said.
On May 10, South Korea said a cargo ship had been struck by unidentified aircraft in Hormuz, while Qatar said a freighter arriving in the country’s waters from Abu Dhabi was hit by a drone.
Iran said on April 17, after an initial 10-day ceasefire was announced, that it had fully reopened the strait to commercial shipping, but it continued to control which vessels could pass and warned it could close the route again if the US blockade of Iranian ships and ports remained in place.
Trump has said the American blockade would stay “in full force” until Tehran agreed to a broader deal, including on its nuclear program.
On Wednesday, US Vice President JD Vance said he believed progress was being made in off-and-on negotiations with Iran to end hostilities, adding: “The fundamental question is do we make enough progress that we satisfy the president’s red line?”
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said a UK-France-led mission “may have political value” but is “unlikely to meaningfully reduce the shipping logjam under current conditions.
“At this stage, the effort looks more like strategic signaling than a genuine reopening mechanism,” Vatanka told Arab News. “It allows Europe to demonstrate relevance to Gulf partners and also serves as a gesture of alignment with the Trump administration’s broader pressure campaign.”
Meanwhile, commercial shippers, insurers and energy traders, he said, “are responding to hard realities, not symbolic deployments.
“Everyone understands that the strait remains effectively closed because the underlying political and military risks have not changed,” Vatanka said. “Reopening it would require a far larger and more sustained security commitment — one involving real willingness to absorb escalation risks.
“Neither Europe nor the US appears prepared to go that far yet.”
Mahmoudian said the success of any European effort will ultimately depend on diplomacy.
“Whether a UK-French-led defensive effort could ease the current shipping crisis “depends heavily on the state of negotiations,” he said. “If Iran believes there is still hope for a deal with the United States, it may be less aggressive in responding to European efforts.
“But if a deal is no longer on the table, there is a strong chance that Iran would confront any European initiative, because the Strait of Hormuz remains Tehran’s main leverage.
“Iran is unlikely to give up that leverage without a fight.
“So, in the end,” Mahmoudian said, “it depends first on the prospects for a deal, and second on Europe’s willingness to confront Iran militarily.”
