This book gives a very thorough, careful, and very well-written study of the 1987-8 portion of “The Tanker War” in the Straits of Hormuz, that brought the truly massive and bloody Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 to its conclusion, with Khomeini likening signing a peace agreement to “drinking from a poisoned chalice”. It is well worth comparing to the current (April – June 2026) war with Iran, though the current one appears frankly trivial by comparison in its scale of violence, economic significance, and level of naval action. And indeed, even in bloodshed – I read that the number of human casualties in Iran due to our bombing and missiles is about 3,550 people, while the cost in lives for the Iran-Iraq War was perhaps 200,000 Iraqi dead, and 260,00 Iranian dead, with about 1,000,000 total casualties (these are recent conservative Western estimates). This war saw the largest use in history of poison gas, and perhaps its only really decisive use in war.

This book originates as a doctoral dissertation, and while Dr. Phillips gives us a decent historical and strategic background, his focus is the narrative and tactics of the naval war, and as so often in naval war, this means tactics plus technological surprises. (Remember those six galleasses at Lepanto?). Many weapons and techniques were new or rarely used before this, and much turned on whether they worked or not. They were largely developed for the all-out and likely nuclear war between the US and USSR, which never happened. So, after decades of speculation, we finally have some hard evidence about whether and how they - and above all precision guided anti-ship missiles AND defenses against them - would have worked in a full-scale US/USSR confrontation.

Meanwhile, this naval war was a very old-fashioned one, starting as an attempt to protect the oil commerce of the Persian Gulf, escalating slowly as the US Navy incrementally succeeded in its objectives, eliciting new and effective means to retaliate against increasing Iranian aggression, finally reaching an intense level of combat and furious Iranian hostility. The “Tanker War” began as a sideshow, with Iraqi jets attacking Iranian shipping in 1981; the Iranians retaliated in 1984, it grew into a desultory, confused free-for-all, with each side attacking neutrals as much as their enemies, and even sometimes hitting their own ships. It didn’t help that Iraqi fighters would launch their Exocets WITHOUT a target, leaving the missile’s radar to find and attack its own target while the jet turned for home and safety. Relatively few tankers were lost to Exocets, but crew casualties were high, and in 1987 the US agreed to allow Kuwait to reflag its tankers as American, and to protect them. First we protected ships with the US flag, then ships with US nationals aboard, then just about everybody, as the neutrals tagged along with USN convoys.

Phillips divides the war into three phases: guerre de course, guerre de mine, and guerre d’escadre. The first was mostly Iraqi missile attacks and Iranian speed boat attacks on the tankers, frustrated by the convoys and their escorts of USN destroyers and frigates. As the US gained the upper hand, it received its first massive shock with the near destruction of the frigate Stark by an Iraqi Exocet. The attack was confused and mistaken on the Iraqis part, but it revealed a serious lack of alertness on the part of the Americans, though their performance in their successful effort to save their ship was courageous and self-sacrificing.

What followed was another shock. The Reagan administration had expected the Iranian aggression to decline with the commitment of US naval power. But instead the Iranians determined to take back the initiative, and surprised us with a very active and ingenious mining campaign, an excellent form of asymmetric warfare. Mines and mine laying are cheap and simple, but minesweeping and mine hunting are laborious and nitpicky. They require specialized ships, helicopters, small craft, drones, and personnel, including divers, and are much slower and more expensive.

The mines were found and swept; but the real solution was to stop them from being laid, controlling the endangered tanker routes and driving out the Iranian speedboats. And if mines were still laid, proof they were Iranian was required for retaliation. In September 1987, the Iranian ship Iran Ajir was observed laying mines at night, and boarded by a SEAL team who found mines and documentary evidence of Iranian ownership. Then, in April 1988, the US Frigate Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine and sustained terrific damage. But her captain and crew were expert and ready, and saved her with much ingenious damage control, including welding steel beams across a fracture in her hull to prevent her breaking pin two. This began the phase of guerre d’escadre, all-out sea fighting, as the US launched a retaliatory attack on several Iranian offshore oil platforms. “Operation Praying Mantis” was the largest sea battle the Navy has fought since WWII, with a missile cruiser, four destroyers, and three frigates. They destroyed the Iranian oil platforms with their 5-inch guns, plus an Iranian frigate, fast attack missile boat, and three speedboats. Iranian F-4’s and A-6’s from the Enterprise took part, both sides used Harpoons (all missed) and the Iranians launched a mass attack with Silkworm missiles (all missed except one shot down by a frigate’s 76-mm. gun). The SM-1 Standard missile was used for the first time in the anti-surface role, where it proved very accurate, but its proximity-fused shrapnel was not too effective against surface craft.

Well - merely summarizing and recounting details may give the impression that the book is pallid and bloodless, but I assure you, that is by no means the case – it is superbly, dramatically written. It gives an image of war like a shoving match on a “Blackboard Jungle” schoolyard – the big issue is to know when to throw the first punch. NEVER back down – unless it’s a ploy. And DON’T show the knife in your pocket under ANY circumstances, unless the other guy takes his out first. But guerre d’escadre works; Iranian aggression declined. The US response to the Silkworm use was to send the Aegis cruiser Vincennes, which tragically shot down an Iranian airliner by mistake, and ended the war. Forget numbers and attrition – sometimes it’s psychological events that count. And signing the peace with Iraq and the US was that “drinking from a poisoned chalice” for Khomeini, such was his fanatic hatred that drove him to spend endless young Iranian lives on human wave attacks against Iraqi poison gas and field fortifications. Who would have guessed, even he had his limits.

Any criticisms? I could wish for a bit more discussion of the truly appalling nature of the Iran-Iraq War. Also a bit more analysis of the Navy’s strategic revolution in the 1980’s. The USN’s defensive posture in the 1970’s appeared to have cost it its edge against Gorshkov’s new navy. But the defensive is generally more expensive than the offensive, and the Reagan Navy’s goal was to retake the initiative. Which it did, and a lot of things changed in consequence. This book is not only a superb resource for its immediate subject, but yields many perceptive strategic insights, not the least on the fundamental nature of war in itself.

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Our Reviewer: Robert P. Largess is the author of USS Albacore; Forerunner of the Future, and articles on the USS Triton, SS United States, the origin of the towed sonar array, and the history of Lighter-than-Air. He has contributed book reviews to ‘The Naval Historical Foundation’ (http://www.navyhistory.org) and The International Journal of Naval History (http://www.ijnhonline.org). His earlier reviews here include The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, King Arthur’s Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England, Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Winning a Future War: War Gaming and Victory in the Pacific War, The Fate of Rome, "Tower of Skulls", A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Fall of Corregidor, July 1937-May 1942, Nathaniel Lyon’s River Campaign of 1861, Korea: War without End, Exterminating ISIS, Admiral Canaris, Armies Afloat: How the Development of Amphibious Operations in Europe Helped Win World War II, The Spy in the Archive, Origins of the Cold War 1941–1949, and Questioning the Carrier.

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Note: A Poisoned Chalice is also available in e-editions.

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