Mark Gagnon

Because again, this is something that actually affects you that's watching at home.

Because if it costs you like 1.5% or 1.5 times more money to fill up your car, you're going to be like, hey, what's this war?

What are we doing with this war?

What's the point?

So it's one card that Iran can play that the entire world has to take seriously.

And from Iran's perspective, that's the point.

A country that can't match its adversaries conventionally is going to use geography to level the playing field.

And if Iran is under such a massive threat and they feel like regime change is imminent,

they're going to pull out all the stops.

So what does it mean for the global economy to have a critical vulnerability that can never fully be eliminated?

I mean, you can build pipelines and put aircraft carriers and develop alternative energy sources and all that stuff to help with the margins.

But as long as the world depends on oil, specifically Persian Gulf oil, and as long as geography dictates that most of it has to pass through this tiny corridor in the middle of all these hostile states,

The Strait of Hormuz will remain what it has been for thousands of years, a pressure point, a flash pan.

I mean, just it's a reminder that the modern world is not nearly as resilient as I would like to hope that it is.

Now, this story about the Strait of Hormuz is, in a way, the story of humans' relationship with, you know, geography in and of itself.

I'm a big, like, I'm a big fan of geography.

I would consider, like, people use this term, but, like,

a geographical determinist, that basically the way I look at geopolitics is that the government is the player and your geography are the cards that you're dealt.

Now, you can't control really the cards that you're dealt.

You can sometimes go get new cards if you're brave enough.