Vera Bergengruen

But again, it was more of a often kind of a formal symbolic Navy.

Then you've got the IRGC, the paramilitary force operating these small, nimble speedboats that really kind of caused the most harassment and violence.

potential damage.

And according to analysts we've spoken to, they still retain about 60% of those.

So, you know, it's difficult to describe this as capabilities because it's so asymmetric.

We're discussing like major, major U.S.

assets, like big ships, big military assets.

And then we're discussing cheap drones, small speedboats, and small capabilities that are destructive enough to deter everyone trying to go through.

Everything we've been talking about sets up a standoff between who can really tolerate more economic pain, whether it's Tehran, which at this point has suffered, you know, weeks of war and probably feels, in terms of the regime, it doesn't have much to lose.

Their number one goal is just to survive.

And then you've got the global economy, which even though President Trump keeps insisting that U.S.

is less dependent than Europe, for example, on the strait, which is true, it is still part of an interconnected global economy.

And that's something that Trump hasn't been willing to really acknowledge during much of this conflict.

He keeps basically saying that the United States is doing this for the rest of the world, but they could just, you know, give up, go home and leave the problem to everybody else.

Practically everybody we've spoken to says it's only going to make it worse.

There's no good case scenario here.

Even with what has happened so far, if every single best case scenario were to happen from here on out, it's going to take a while for the global economy to recover.

A lot depends on how this blockade works out, whether both sides actually come back to the negotiating table, whether the fighting resumes.

But anything that adds more time to this conflict is just going to extend how long it's going to take to recover.

I think for most of her supporters, the more notable thing is what didn't happen in this meeting.