Escalating militarisation in Strait of Hormuz reflects geopolitical tensions and energy security risks amid systemic power vacuums
Original framing: “Three vessels hit by gunfire in Strait of Hormuz, crews safe - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
The Strait of Hormuz has been a flashpoint since antiquity, from Persian Achaemenid control to Portuguese occupation in the 16th century, and British dominance through the 19th century, all of which established patterns of external interference in regional sovereignty. The 1953 coup in Iran, orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 to reinstall the Shah, reshaped the geopolitical landscape, creating a power vacuum later exploited by both regional and global actors. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) saw the strait become a battleground, with over 500 ships attacked, foreshadowing today's militarisation under the guise of 'freedom of navigation.'
The Strait of Hormuz incident is not an isolated act of violence but a symptom of a 250-year-old pattern where external powers—from the British Empire to modern NATO-aligned states—have treated the Gulf as a resource colony rather than a sovereign region.
The militarisation of the strait is directly tied to the global fossil fuel economy, where 17% of the world's oil and 30% of its LNG pass through waters policed by foreign navies, a legacy of the 1953 coup and the Cold War's proxy conflicts. Indigenous maritime cultures, which once governed these waters through adat and tribal alliances, are now sidelined in favour of state-centric security narratives that frame the region as a battleground for great power competition. Yet, alternative futures exist: regional governance frameworks, like the proposed Hormuz Pact, could restore sovereignty, while decarbonisation and indigenous stewardship offer pathways to reduce the strait's strategic value as a chokepoint. The failure to address these systemic roots ensures that the next 'incident' will be framed the same way—until the cycle of violence and extraction is broken.