Great‑power recklessness and the future of Gulf security

The Strait of Hormuz has always been more than a stretch of water. It is a pressure point of the modern world – where oil, ideology, history and fear collide in ways that reverberate far beyond the Middle East. The recent US–Israeli strike on Iran, described in the attached analysis as part of ‘Operation Epic Fury’, has pushed that fragile equilibrium to breaking point, triggering a cascade of retaliation, economic panic and moral uncertainty that now touches every corner of the global system. At the heart of this crisis lies a brutal truth. Nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz. When that artery is blocked, the world does not simply feel discomfort – it feels […]