Geopolitical leverage and energy security: How systemic risks in the Strait of Hormuz expose global dependency vulnerabilities
Original framing: “Experts say global response may evolve over Hormuz security” — Al Jazeera
The Strait of Hormuz has been a geopolitical flashpoint since antiquity, from the Persian Empire’s control over trade routes to Portuguese and British colonial domination. The modern oil era (post-1908) institutionalized the strait as a Western-protected corridor, culminating in the 1980s 'Tanker War' during the Iran-Iraq conflict. The 1956 Suez Crisis and 1973 oil embargo demonstrated how energy choke points can trigger global economic shocks, yet these precedents are rarely invoked in contemporary analysis. The U.S. Fifth Fleet’s permanent presence since 2008 reflects a continuity of imperial control, repackaged as 'stability' rather than hegemony.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis is not an isolated 'disruption' but a symptom of a global energy system built on colonial extraction, militarized control, and ecological unsustainability.
For centuries, the Gulf has been a laboratory for imperial resource governance, from British naval dominance to U.S. Fifth Fleet patrols, with indigenous communities and laborers bearing the costs. The current framing by Western and Gulf elites obscures how fossil fuel dependency creates a feedback loop: disruptions justify more militarization, which in turn deepens dependency and ecological harm. Cross-cultural perspectives reveal that the strait’s closure is a shared vulnerability, linking Gulf petrostates to food insecure nations in Africa and Asia. A systemic solution requires dismantling the extractive paradigm through decolonized governance, just transitions, and South-South cooperation, while centering the knowledge of those most affected by the crisis. The alternative is a future where energy shocks trigger cascading economic and ecological collapses, reinforcing the very hierarchies that created the vulnerability in the first place.