The United States is still fighting Iran from the air and sea. But the logic of the war is beginning to point in another direction.
Ground forces.
Not a full-scale invasion of Iran. Not hundreds of thousands of troops pouring into Tehran. Not Iraq 2003 on a larger map — at least not at first.
The more likely next step is smaller, sharper and still deeply dangerous: Marine expeditionary units, special operations forces, raids on islands or coastal facilities, attempts to secure oil infrastructure, limited incursions near the Strait of Hormuz, or U.S.-backed proxy operations around Iran’s borderlands.
That is the uncomfortable direction the conflict is moving.
For now, the summer heat, political risk and Iranian defenses make any direct ground operation extremely difficult. But military planners are already facing the same reality that has shaped past American wars: airpower can punish, but it cannot hold territory, secure shipping lanes, seize facilities or remove entrenched forces from coastlines and islands indefinitely.
The air campaign has entered its most intense phase yet. U.S. Central Command said Monday that American forces struck an Iranian submarine and ship maintenance facility using one-way attack drones, saying the strike degraded Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping. The strike came as President Donald Trump said the United States was reinstating its blockade of Iranian shipping and would act as the “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is not backing down.
The Revolutionary Guards said Monday they targeted U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, destroyed radar systems in Oman and hit fuel tanks and ammunition depots at Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan. Bahrain said its air defenses intercepted several Iranian missile and drone attacks. Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, warned that “the era of one-sided deals is OVER,” adding: “keep your word or pay the price.”
That exchange matters because it shows the war is no longer a limited dispute over nuclear sites or even airstrikes. It is a struggle over control of the Gulf’s physical infrastructure: ports, bases, radars, ships, islands, fuel depots and the Strait of Hormuz itself.
And that is where airpower begins to run into limits.
The United States can keep hitting Iranian targets. It can destroy air defenses, radar sites, small boats, missile batteries and drone storage. But Iran does not need to defeat the U.S. Air Force to keep the strait unstable. It only needs to keep enough missiles, drones, mines, speedboats and launch teams alive to make every transit expensive and uncertain.
Reuters reported Monday that U.S. officials said about 20 vessels had been escorted through the strait in the previous 24 hours, while ship-tracking data showed little traffic moving. MarineTraffic said vessel activity through the Strait of Hormuz fell by about 52% from July 10 to July 12 compared with the previous week.
That is the strategic problem.
If Washington’s goal is to reopen Hormuz and keep it open, airstrikes alone may not be enough. The United States may have to physically secure chokepoints, islands, ports or coastal launch zones. That means troops.
The Trump administration has already built the foundation for that option. In March, Reuters reported that the U.S. military was deploying thousands of additional Marines and sailors to the Middle East, adding to more than 50,000 U.S. troops already in the region. Two officials said no decision had been made to send troops into Iran, but the deployment would build capacity for potential future operations. Reuters also reported that the administration had discussed options including securing the Strait of Hormuz by deploying U.S. forces to Iran’s shoreline, and sending ground forces to Kharg Island, the hub for about 90% of Iran’s oil exports.
That is the quiet part of the war.
Washington says there is no decision to send troops into Iran. But the military architecture is moving into place: Marines, sailors, amphibious ships, air assets, drones, escort missions and strike packages built around a single objective — breaking Iran’s leverage over Hormuz.
The question is no longer whether the United States has the capability to put ground forces near Iran. It does.
The question is what happens when airstrikes fail to produce a political result.
The transcript provided for this article makes the central argument bluntly: aerial bombardment is expensive, ground forces become the next step when airpower cannot deliver a decisive outcome, and Washington is more likely to seek limited raids, proxy operations and special forces missions than a massive conventional invasion. The speaker also argues that summer heat makes immediate operations difficult, while cooler weather could make limited ground attacks more plausible in the coming months.
That argument tracks with the current battlefield.
The United States is spending large sums to strike mobile, dispersed and hardened targets. Iran is responding with cheaper asymmetric tools: drones, missiles, boats, radar systems, coastal defenses and proxy-style pressure across the region. Every American strike can cost far more than the Iranian capability it is trying to destroy. Every carrier sortie, drone mission, missile launch and escort operation adds to the bill.
That is the brutal economics of escalation.
Aircraft, ships and precision weapons are expensive. Ground forces are politically costly, but often militarily tempting because they can do what airpower cannot: enter, seize, search, hold, destroy, occupy or deny terrain.
That does not make ground troops a good option.
It makes them the next logical temptation.
History is full of that pattern. A limited air campaign fails to settle the matter. A small raid is proposed. Then a landing force. Then a security perimeter. Then reinforcements. Then a longer mission than anyone promised at the beginning.
That is how mission creep begins.
Iran is an especially dangerous place for that spiral. The country is nearly four times the size of Iraq and has more than three times Iraq’s population. Its terrain is dominated by mountains, deserts and inland urban centers that create bottlenecks for any invading force. The Cato Institute warned earlier this year that a ground war in Iran would send U.S. troops into “hell on earth,” arguing that any serious invasion could rival or exceed Vietnam or the 1991 Gulf War in scale.
That is why the first ground move would likely be limited.
Kharg Island. Qeshm Island. Abu Musa. Coastal radar sites. IRGC naval facilities. Oil terminals. Missile launch zones. A port. A corridor. A raid to capture equipment. A special forces operation to target command nodes. A proxy push in ethnic border regions backed by U.S. intelligence, airpower and logistics.
The United States may not call it an invasion.
It may call it securing freedom of navigation. It may call it a limited operation. It may call it force protection. It may call it maritime stabilization. It may call it a temporary denial mission.
But once American troops are on Iranian soil or Iranian-controlled islands, the war changes.
Iran has already warned it is waiting for that moment. Counterfire reported earlier in the war that Qalibaf said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners forever.” That warning was made in the context of speculation that the U.S. could seek to seize Kharg Island.
The timing is another reason a ground move is unlikely immediately.
Southern Iran and Khuzestan are punishing in July and August. A 2025 study on climate and military activity in Iran’s western provinces found that military climate conditions decline from late spring through the end of summer, with extreme summer temperatures in Ahvaz making operations more difficult. The same study found late autumn and early winter are more favorable for military activities in that region.
That is why a ground operation may be more likely after a delay.
Not because the political decision is easy. Not because Iran is weak. Not because the United States wants a long land war.
But because the current strategy may be running out of options.
The air campaign can degrade. It can delay. It can punish. It can raise the cost for Iran. But if Iran still controls enough of Hormuz to threaten shipping, then Washington has not achieved its central objective.
That creates pressure for the next step.
The White House’s own rhetoric is moving in that direction. Trump has declared the United States the “guardian” of Hormuz. He has said the strait will remain open “with or without Iran.” He has proposed charging cargo a 20% reimbursement fee for U.S. protection, even as the U.N.’s shipping agency said there is no legal basis for mandatory tolls in straits used for international navigation.
Those statements create a problem.
If the United States claims ownership of the security mission, it must deliver security. If shipping traffic keeps falling, Iran keeps firing and oil markets keep reacting, Washington will face pressure to do more than strike from a distance.
That is the path to ground forces.
At first, the pressure will be tactical. Secure a launch area. Remove a radar site. Capture an island. Protect a port. Rescue a damaged ship. Stop Iran from re-mining a channel. Retake a facility. Escort engineers. Deploy Marines for “temporary” control.
Then the pressure becomes political. Show strength. Restore credibility. Prove the blockade works. Show allies the United States can still control the Gulf. Show Iran it cannot win through attrition.
Then the pressure becomes institutional. The troops are already nearby. The ships are already there. The strike plans already exist. The targets have already been mapped. The casualties from Iranian attacks have already created momentum for a response.
That is when the argument changes from “Should the U.S. send ground troops?” to “How can the U.S. avoid sending them?”
The answer is not obvious.
If Washington scales back, Iran may claim victory over Hormuz. If Washington escalates, it risks a land war in one of the hardest countries on earth to fight. If it relies only on airpower, Iran may continue forcing the U.S. to spend more money destroying less expensive targets. If it sends troops, Iran gets the battlefield it has been preparing for.
That is why the ground-war debate is no longer theoretical.
The United States does not need to announce an invasion for the war to move in that direction. It only needs to keep expanding the mission one step at a time.
A few thousand Marines become a contingency force. A contingency force becomes a raid package. A raid package becomes a temporary security mission. A temporary security mission becomes a foothold. A foothold becomes something that cannot be abandoned without looking like defeat.
That is the danger now.
It is too hot for a major ground campaign today. It is too politically explosive for the White House to admit openly. It is too risky for the Pentagon to describe clearly.
But if the war keeps moving along its current track, ground forces may become the next stage Washington says it does not want — and the one it slowly prepares for anyway.
