Mark Gagnon

And starting in the early 1800s, Britain signed a series of treaties with these small, basically Arab kingdoms or sheikhdoms along the southern coast of the Gulf.

And these are states that we now know as UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait.

And these treaties, collectively known as the Trucial System, effectively turned the southern Gulf into a British protectorate, you could say.

I mean, Britain didn't formally colonize these territories in the way that it had with India, but it controlled their defense and their foreign policy and critically their access to the sea.

I mean, like, I only know this just like as a side tangent, but like the UAE, for example, they ousted the British.

and basically united all of these different emirates and literally formed these, you know, different states or kingdoms into one country by brokering a deal with the British because technically the British had mandate over the UAE and so much of that region by the time they discovered all the oil.

This is where BP comes from, literally British Petroleum, from their influence in the region.

So for over 150 years, the British Royal Navy was the dominant force in the Persian Gulf.

Britain never formally governed the strait as a

you know, sovereign territory, but through treaties and deals and bribery and friendship and defense and naval supremacy and all these different, you know, levers of influence over these coastal kingdoms.

It was, for practical purposes, the guarantor of security in the waters.

So this trade mattered and a vital link in the chain connecting London to Bombay.

But at this point, it wasn't the most critical energy corridor in the world because oil had yet to be discovered.

But once they find oil under the ground in the Middle East, everything changes specifically for the Strait of Hormuz.

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