Tehran (Somalia Today) – Iran’s move to choke off the Strait of Hormuz and weaponise its energy leverage marks a volatile new phase in the 21st-century contest for global power, shifting the geopolitical battleground from digital networks back to critical physical resources.
Under a withering campaign of airstrikes by the United States and Israel, Tehran has launched an asymmetric counterattack, disrupting energy supplies on a scale not seen since the devastating “Tanker War” of the 1980s.
Iran has effectively paralysed the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies traditionally pass.
On Wednesday, the Islamic Republic struck Qatar’s Ras Laffan, home to the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, in direct retaliation for an Israeli strike on an Iranian gas field.
The unprecedented attack knocked out an estimated 17 percent of Doha’s LNG export capacity, sidelining 12.8 million tonnes of output for up to five years and threatening $20 billion in annual revenue losses.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump issued a fierce ultimatum, vowing to “hit and obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the country does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.
The sharp escalation threatens to send fresh shock waves through global markets, already reeling from a 50 percent surge in crude oil prices since the conflict erupted on February 28. European natural gas prices have roughly doubled.
Physical geography returns
The crisis is a stark reminder of energy’s central role in the global economy. It offers clear evidence that the foundations of military and economic hegemony are shifting from software and information technology back to hard physical resources, from crude oil to rare-earth metals and industrial manufacturing capacity.
For decades, the dominant Western view held that geography was no longer destiny. In that view, the winners of the 21st century would be defined less by control of territory and raw materials than by command of capital, technology, and hyper-connected global networks.
Yet the recent weaponisation of supply chains has shown that global connectivity did not erase physical geography. Instead, it made it a potent weapon.
“There is a lot of talk about everything being digital, and software being king, but there are still many physical constraints that drive geopolitics,” said Edward Fishman, director of the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of “Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare.”
“With Iran, we now see the irony that despite unimaginable energy independence, the US is still at the whim of a physical chokepoint,” Fishman added.
Echoes of past Gulf wars
The current blockade brings back dark memories of the 1984-1988 Tanker War, when Iran and Iraq routinely targeted merchant shipping in the Gulf. That conflict ultimately forced the US Navy to intervene under Operation Earnest Will to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers.
Today, roughly 90 percent of seaborne oil passes through eight global chokepoints. These include the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels recently threatened to shut, and the Strait of Malacca near Singapore.
When these arteries come under threat, shippers are forced into long, costly detours that ultimately punish consumers around the world. But in the case of the Strait of Hormuz, no viable maritime detours exist, effectively strangling supply and driving up global inflation.
The Trump administration has consistently promoted American energy autonomy, seeking to build an economic fortress immune to foreign coercion. Propelled by the shale drilling boom, the US transformed itself from a major importer into the world’s largest oil producer.
“The United States’ energy dominance status… has positioned us to not rely on the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz like other countries,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said.
Yet because crude is priced on a global market, that domestic bounty cannot fully shield American consumers from international supply shocks.
Resource warfare widens
The vulnerability stretches far beyond petroleum. For countries that lack critical resources, the risks range from economic downturns to constraints on artificial intelligence infrastructure and the militaries of the future.
Last year, China used its control of roughly 90 percent of the world’s rare-earth magnets to checkmate the US in trade negotiations. By cutting off access to metals used in electric vehicles, advanced weapons, and electronics, Beijing forced American factories to idle and Washington to soften its demands.
“Great-power competition has returned to basics: who controls the physical resources that modern economies and militaries run on,” said Alice Gower, a partner at Azure Strategy, a London-based political-risk advisory firm. “Energy, critical minerals, and industrial capacity are leverage, not just economic assets.”
American strategists are increasingly adopting a Cold War-era mindset to secure supply chains. Successive US governments have aggressively pushed global semiconductor companies, such as Taiwanese giant TSMC, to build chip factories on American soil.
Last month, Trump announced “Project Vault,” a $12 billion government-backed fund designed to stockpile critical minerals for industrial use during emergencies. On Monday, Washington struck a preliminary deal with the Australian mining firm Lynas to secure scarce “heavy” rare earths, a market currently dominated by China.
No quick fixes
“Because it’s a political priority, [the US] is in a better place than it was as far as vulnerability to China,” said Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines.
Despite these efforts, rebuilding munition inventories amid the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East will place heavy pressure on demand for critical minerals. And with many US-backed metals projects still years from completion, adversaries retain numerous levers to pull.
China remains the dominant global supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients, including antibiotics and ibuprofen, while also leading the world in lithium-ion battery production.
Geographical traps offer policymakers no quick fixes. Circumventing a route such as the Strait of Hormuz would require sweeping military defences and the construction of massive new pipelines, both of which would take years to complete.
In transparent, market-driven economies, the costs of these physical blockades become visible almost at once. If prices spike and shortages bite, adversaries may calculate that Western politicians will eventually back down under domestic pressure, fundamentally altering the global balance of power.
