George Hahn

When you compress the carotid arteries, you cut off the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain.

This causes unconsciousness in approximately 8 to 15 seconds due to cerebral hypoxia, oxygen deprivation to the brain.

Globalization has expanded the economic corpus, resulting in an interconnected world and yielding huge, though unevenly distributed, prosperity.

It has also formed carotid arteries the size of, wait for it, the Strait of Hormuz.

In 1984, a forgettable made-for-TV movie contemplated a Middle East conflict that closed the Strait of Hormuz.

For decades, U.S.

strategic simulations have explored similar scenarios.

In one 2002 war game, the Red Team, deploying asymmetrical capabilities including armed speedboats, decimated American naval forces in 10 minutes, effectively closing the strait.

Why didn't the Trump administration anticipate this entirely predictable scenario?

A. Despite a warning from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president determined that the regime would capitulate before closing the strait, and that if it didn't, the U.S.

military could reopen it.

He was wrong.

This may be the greatest intelligence failure since CIA Director George Tenet famously told Bush it was a slam-dunk case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But let's put aside the choke point almost everyone saw coming and discuss some others we choose to ignore.

Last year, one company conducted 84% of U.S.

space launches and 52% of global launches, SpaceX.

Almost two-thirds of the satellites orbiting Earth belong to the company, but it really dominates in low-Earth orbit, where it owns 91% of communications satellites.

If you're connecting from a cellular dead spot, going online while flying one of 30-plus airlines, out on a boat, or operating in a war zone, you're at Elon Musk's mercy.

He recently combined SpaceX with XAI at a valuation of $1.25 trillion, registering a 43% equity stake and 79% of the voting power.

This week, SpaceX filed to go public, seeking to raise $50 billion to $75 billion, meaning Musk will likely become the world's first trillionaire.