Yesterday at 20:01
The ongoing crisis in the Red Sea has exposed a deeper vulnerability in Western maritime strategy: military superiority no longer guarantees control over global trade routes. Despite extensive naval operations and billions spent on defense, shipping traffic has not returned to normal levels, forcing companies to reroute and absorb higher costs.
This failure is now shaping expectations for the far more critical Strait of Hormuz, where nearly a fifth of global oil and LNG supplies transit. Early disruptions in the region have already demonstrated how quickly shipping can collapse and how easily energy markets react to instability.
Unlike the Red Sea, the Hormuz theater presents a more complex and dangerous challenge, with Iran capable of combining drones, missiles, mines, and geographic advantages to impose its own conditions on maritime access. The issue is no longer limited to security risks — it is becoming a question of whether the principle of free navigation can be maintained at all.
The broader implication is a shift in modern conflict: adversaries no longer need to defeat Western fleets directly. Instead, they can undermine economic confidence in key routes, making them too risky for global commerce.
Read more in the full article by Anton Kuchukhidze, political scientist and foreign policy analyst, expert at the United Ukraine Think Tank.
