{"id":3837,"date":"2026-03-13T15:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=3837"},"modified":"2026-03-13T15:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T15:20:18","slug":"3837","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=3837","title":{"rendered":"The Royal Navy and the US\/Iran War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1000035724.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3838\" src=\"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1000035724.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"899\" height=\"542\" srcset=\"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1000035724.jpg 899w, https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1000035724-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1000035724-768x463.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 899px) 100vw, 899px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This week our own Dr Matthew Heaslip was interviewed by multiple national and regional media outlets including ITV Meridian, BBC South Today and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/10\/mod-criticised-after-delay-in-sending-hms-dragon-to-cyprus\">The Guardian<\/a> to help contextualise Britain&#8217;s response via the Royal Navy to America&#8217;s war on Iran, specifically the practicalities of the deployment of the destroyer HMS Duncan.\u00a0 Along with being Senior Lecturer in Naval History teaching on Portsmouth&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.port.ac.uk\/study\/courses\/ma-naval-history\">MA in Naval, Maritime and Coastal History<\/a>\u00a0he is also a Visiting Fellow at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.royalnavy.mod.uk\/news\/2019\/december\/18\/191218-strategic-studies-centre-launched\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Royal Navy&#8217;s Strategic Studies Centre<\/a>. Matt&#8217;s research centres on the 20th century Navy, the importance of naval power in Britain&#8217;s efforts to exert influence worldwide and its applicability to present-day global geopolitics. &#8216;When faced with such world-changing events, studying the past often helps us better understand what is happening in the present and why&#8217;, he says.\u00a0 See also Matt&#8217;s previous piece in <a href=\"https:\/\/researchportal.port.ac.uk\/en\/publications\/what-these-new-landing-barges-can-tell-us-about-chinas-plans-to-i\/\">The Conversation<\/a> on contemporary Chinese naval strategy over Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3839\" src=\"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561-1024x612.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561-1024x612.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561-300x179.jpg 300w, https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561-768x459.jpg 768w, https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561-1536x918.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773231215561.jpg 1743w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week our own Dr Matthew Heaslip was interviewed by multiple national and regional media outlets including ITV Meridian, BBC South Today and The Guardian to help contextualise Britain&#8217;s response via the Royal Navy to America&#8217;s war on Iran, specifically the practicalities of the deployment of the destroyer HMS Duncan.\u00a0 Along with being Senior Lecturer in Naval History teaching on Portsmouth&#8217;s MA in Naval, Maritime and Coastal History\u00a0he is also a Visiting Fellow at the Royal Navy&#8217;s Strategic Studies Centre. Matt&#8217;s research centres on the 20th century Navy, the importance of naval power in Britain&#8217;s efforts to exert influence worldwide and its applicability to present-day global geopolitics. &#8216;When faced with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[785,829,915,377,916,92,707],"class_list":["post-3837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-public-history","tag-destroyers","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-naval-history","tag-naval-logistics","tag-royal-navy","tag-united-states"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3841,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions\/3841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}