Mark Gagnon

They can only handle like six or seven million barrels per day at max capacity.

Again, that's a third of what the normal transit going through the Strait is.

And they do nothing for the LNG tankers carrying Qatari and other liquefied natural gas exports, which have no pipeline alternative at all.

And that's really the vulnerability.

The modern global economy was built on the assumption that these choke points would just always remain open because everyone needs them.

And decades of globalization and

You know, these supply chains and the concentration of energy resources and the handful of regions connected to the world by a small, narrow waterway created this extraordinarily efficient system, but also it's fragile.

The Strait of Hormuz is the single point of failure that no one wants to talk about.

And what makes it uniquely dangerous is the asymmetry.

Iran...

isn't really a global superpower in the way that the United States or Russia or China is.

Its economy has been battered by decades of sanctions.

Its conventional military is no match for the United States or even some of the rivals in the region.

But because of the geographical circumstances, because Iran happens to sit on the northern shore of a 21-mile straight through which a fifth of the world's oil must pass, just by coincidence,

it has leverage that is wildly disproportionate to its actual power.

And again, they don't need to turn it off or to fight the American Navy.

They just need to disrupt it.

And the ability to threaten Hormuz is the most powerful strategic asset that Iran has.

It's more powerful than the missile programs, more consequential than any nuclear ambition.

If they can just put pressure and strain, it will show the cracks.