The Royal Navy could lose ships in the Strait of Hormuz — and should send them anyway, one of Britain’s most senior military figures reportedly said today.

The Express understands General Sir Nick Carter, who served as the country’s most senior military officer, made the case for joining Donald Trump’s push to break Iran’s stranglehold on Gulf shipping, even as he spelled out the scale of the threat facing any vessels committed to the mission.

The IRGC, he cautioned reporters, had spent years honing its ability to dominate the waterway through an arsenal of fast boats, drone swarms and shore-launched missiles — making it one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world for any navy to operate in.

He explained how our escort ships would also face tough opposition, saying: “You are very vulnerable when you do it.

“On the assumption there are no mines in the water the threat is principally about shore-based drones and shore-based missiles.

“Modern air defence systems are capable of dealing with that, as we have seen over the course of the last two or three weeks of this war.

“But we should be in no doubt that if they put together all of the IRGC capabilities … it would quite exciting going through the straits of Hormuz.”

Asked if “quite exciting” meant ships could be lost, he added: “It would be challenging, no doubt about it, the risks as I have described them are significant.”

A job that could take months

Where mines have been seeded across the strait in quantity, Sir Nick estimated the clearance operation alone could stretch over several months — throughout which crews would remain exposed to attack from the Iranian coastline.

No single country had the firepower to handle it, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, calling instead for “a well-coordinated operation led by the Americans with many nations involved in it, thoughtfully planned and implemented.”

Sir Keir Starmer is understood to be reluctant to commit Royal Navy warships, with Whitehall sources raising doubts about what assets are actually available.

The problem is compounded by the fact that Britain’s final mine counter-measures vessel was decommissioned shortly before hostilities began, leaving remote mine-hunting drones as the most credible option should ministers decide to act.

Trump piles on

With allies hesitating, Trump cranked up the pressure today, warning that Nato’s future looked “very bad” if member states continued to hold back, reported the Daily Mail.

“We’ll see if they help us. Because I’ve long said that we’ll be there for them but they won’t be there for us,” he said.

He made clear in a Financial Times interview that he expected those who benefit from the strait to shoulder part of the burden of securing it, saying: “It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there.”

Britain, China, France, Japan and South Korea have all previously been identified by Trump as countries that ought to contribute vessels.

‘It will outlast all the personalities’

Ministers moved to take the heat out of Trump’s Nato threat. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden, speaking on Sky News, framed the relationship between Washington and London as something deeper than any single dispute.

“It’s a very transactional presidency and our job is to navigate this, to always remember that the friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom runs very deep,” he said.

“It’s a good relationship. It’s enduring and I think it will outlast all the personalities involved.”

Sir Nick took a sharper view of the alliance’s obligations — and its limits.

“Nato was created as an – underlined four times – defensive alliance and all of its articles are essentially orientated towards defence,” he told the BBC.

“It was not an alliance designed for one of the allies to go on a war of choice and then oblige everyone else to follow.

“It was not designed for that at all and I am not sure that is the sort of Nato that any of us wants to belong to.”