Putin’s war ambitions profit most from the scare around Hormuz. His sanctions get removed to provide alternative supply, he can charge exorbitant prices, and he gets leverage. Since he is also providing targeting information for Iran to shoot at, it feels like this is an avatar joystick war for him to distract from his Ukraine disaster.
Always strange how the Trump administration’s policies always seem to have a benefit for Russia… Just a fluke coincidence that keeps happening I guess.
It's not a big threat to the US. The US is a net oil exporter, has the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and, if absolutely necessary, Trump could make up with Canada so those oil imports restart.
Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, though - totally dependent on imports for oil.
Something that most pundits have missed: unlike all other US wars since Korea, the US can't end this war by pulling out. Iran, unlike all US combat opponents from Vietnam to Venezuela, has the demonstrated ability to strike well beyond its borders. This war isn't over until both sides say it's over.
> It's not a big threat to the US. The US is a net oil exporter
The US being a net oil exporter doesn't make the domestic market independent of the global market (especially over the short to intermediate term), for a large variety of reasons.
> has the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Which whille partial refilled from the 2022 drawdowns is still at rather low levels by historical standards.
> and, if absolutely necessary, Trump could make up with Canada
He could try (though I don’t think even that is in his character), that doesn’t mean he would succceed.
- The USA eventually declares some arbitrary "victory" condition.
- Iran will be left even poorer, and much less able to defend itself conventionally, but will remain under the same regime. Very likely they give up cooperating with atomic energy inspectors and do what North Korea did to a acquire weapons.
- Israel's ability to dictate US foreign and military policy will be degraded long term. What many commentators do not see is how anti-Israel younger consevatives trend in the US now. It will be decades or
before a serious anti-Israel republican candidate will be fielded, but it is inevitable, and even your typical greatest-ally-wall-kissers will have to moderate themselves.
Will be very interesting to see what the mid terms bring. Some on the American right are already talking about voting democrat to protest - MAGA was specifically sold to them as an antidote to necon middle eatern entanglements.
The US can't win without taking control of Iran's nuclear materiél. They can't do that without ground troops. And any ground invasion of Iran is going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
China is using more coal, gas, and oil than ever. They went from using 1.5 billion tons of thermal coal in 2000 to 4.6 Billion tons today and they will reach 4.7 Billion in 2027.
They did "pledge" to "limit increases" in coal, but there is a big difference from limiting increases to "moving away from" coal.
As for oil, it is a similar story. Oil use doubled from 2005 to 2025, but they pledged to "slow increases" of oil to something less than the 7% annual increases per year that were the last 10 years average (over the business cycle).
Natural gas has tripled from 3 to 9.3 billion cubic feet per day from 2014 to 2023.
The prescient part was building a pipeline to deliver oil and gas directly from Russia as well as building trade routes through Russia and the central Asian nations that give them a direct route to their energy suppliers (Including Iran, which can supply China without ever going through the straight of Hormuz).
Energy security is very important, and China has invested heavily to build pipelines and trade agreements that keep the oil and gas flowing, and they have moved away from buying Australian coal to increasing their own domestic coal production, reaching 4.8 Billion tons mined and on track to hit 5 Billion tons in the next few years.
I think the real threat is that if you tip the Iranian conflict over into asymmetrical warfare, then nobody can stop it - ever. It seems to be almost the intent with the US and Israel especially announcing explicit intent to keep removing anybody who attempts to form a system of government.
So you'll have a permanently aggrieved population with nothing to lose saturated with know-how and materials for building missiles and drones who will just keep taking pot shots at ships and possibly commercial airliners. They don't have to "close" the straight - just make it hazardous enough that it becomes permanently very risky to sail through there. They can go dormant for 3 months and then send 30 drones at a single ship.
I'm not sure who in the strategic planning decided that no system of government for 90 million people was a good idea, but it seems quite insane to me.
> if you tip the Iranian conflict over into asymmetrical warfare, then nobody can stop it - ever
It's already asymmetytrical. And it could last as long as the current regime is in power. When the power structure will fall money will stop flowing too.
Huthies in Yemen look undistructable because they are supported (with moneny and weapons) by Iran. Who will bank-roll IRGC fighters when the government will collapse? China in theory culd but they depend on oil so will not contriube to prologed closing of the strait.
This has always been the US way of doing things, going back to at least WWII: Get to Berlin, kill Hitler if required, and after that, uh, yeah, we'll get back to you on that. This is why things mostly kept going under continuous carpet bombing but fell apart completely once the bombing stopped and the administration was decapitated with noting to replace it.
The US then repeated the mistake in Iraq, take a population of 45 million, with most males having military training and a large percentage of the population dependent on government jobs and/or handouts, then remove the government. Who could possibly have predicted what would happen next?
Is anybody giving credit to the US for post-war germany? Hilarious example nonetheless. I think the US gets more credit for nation building the case of Japan. South Korea. Phillippines is a questionable success story. But yeah, south america and the middle east have consistently been a mess.
Trump announced yesterday they will murder anyone who takes leadership. They don’t want it opened, they want China and India to suffer while establishing themselves as alternative energy supplier.
US itself has huge reserves, and recent move with Venecuela further expands it.
Middle East countries are too blind to see it, they’re being thrown under the bus to hurt Iran.
Seems like tankers passing through the straits will always be at risk so long as the IRGC (or any irregular faction) remains intact with access to drones.
Seems like the only options are reaching a deal with whatever the new regime is or occupying the coastal areas.
Seems to me that a conglomerate of oil companies could have funded a canal and reduce this risk a long time ago. Just around this choke point in global logistics.
Paul Warburg on YouTube is a geopolitical analyst. His video from this weekend[1] walks through the many reasons why the energy market is resilient and adjusts to issues like Hormuz being temporarily impassable, ship insurance risk, the geopolitical uncertainty of Iranian leadership, the price of oil/gas and how changes in the supply/demand curve cause other wells elsewhere in the world to take up the slack, etc.
Closing the strait of Hormuz is worse for Iran and China than anyone else. Natural gas to Europe but not as big of an issue compared to Russian energy supplies. The Saudis and others have pipelines to bypass the strait. Many countries who sell oil obviously benefit from the increased price. I'd almost see how the U.S., Russia, Saudis and even the current administration in Venezuela would be fine with the oil price increase if Irans supply is taken off the market for a long time.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] threadTaiwan, Japan, and Korea, though - totally dependent on imports for oil.
Something that most pundits have missed: unlike all other US wars since Korea, the US can't end this war by pulling out. Iran, unlike all US combat opponents from Vietnam to Venezuela, has the demonstrated ability to strike well beyond its borders. This war isn't over until both sides say it's over.
The US being a net oil exporter doesn't make the domestic market independent of the global market (especially over the short to intermediate term), for a large variety of reasons.
> has the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Which whille partial refilled from the 2022 drawdowns is still at rather low levels by historical standards.
> and, if absolutely necessary, Trump could make up with Canada
He could try (though I don’t think even that is in his character), that doesn’t mean he would succceed.
- The USA eventually declares some arbitrary "victory" condition.
- Iran will be left even poorer, and much less able to defend itself conventionally, but will remain under the same regime. Very likely they give up cooperating with atomic energy inspectors and do what North Korea did to a acquire weapons.
- Israel's ability to dictate US foreign and military policy will be degraded long term. What many commentators do not see is how anti-Israel younger consevatives trend in the US now. It will be decades or before a serious anti-Israel republican candidate will be fielded, but it is inevitable, and even your typical greatest-ally-wall-kissers will have to moderate themselves.
Will be very interesting to see what the mid terms bring. Some on the American right are already talking about voting democrat to protest - MAGA was specifically sold to them as an antidote to necon middle eatern entanglements.
Yet only one country in this comment is named a regime.
They did "pledge" to "limit increases" in coal, but there is a big difference from limiting increases to "moving away from" coal.
As for oil, it is a similar story. Oil use doubled from 2005 to 2025, but they pledged to "slow increases" of oil to something less than the 7% annual increases per year that were the last 10 years average (over the business cycle).
Natural gas has tripled from 3 to 9.3 billion cubic feet per day from 2014 to 2023.
The prescient part was building a pipeline to deliver oil and gas directly from Russia as well as building trade routes through Russia and the central Asian nations that give them a direct route to their energy suppliers (Including Iran, which can supply China without ever going through the straight of Hormuz).
Energy security is very important, and China has invested heavily to build pipelines and trade agreements that keep the oil and gas flowing, and they have moved away from buying Australian coal to increasing their own domestic coal production, reaching 4.8 Billion tons mined and on track to hit 5 Billion tons in the next few years.
So you'll have a permanently aggrieved population with nothing to lose saturated with know-how and materials for building missiles and drones who will just keep taking pot shots at ships and possibly commercial airliners. They don't have to "close" the straight - just make it hazardous enough that it becomes permanently very risky to sail through there. They can go dormant for 3 months and then send 30 drones at a single ship.
I'm not sure who in the strategic planning decided that no system of government for 90 million people was a good idea, but it seems quite insane to me.
It's already asymmetytrical. And it could last as long as the current regime is in power. When the power structure will fall money will stop flowing too.
Huthies in Yemen look undistructable because they are supported (with moneny and weapons) by Iran. Who will bank-roll IRGC fighters when the government will collapse? China in theory culd but they depend on oil so will not contriube to prologed closing of the strait.
The US then repeated the mistake in Iraq, take a population of 45 million, with most males having military training and a large percentage of the population dependent on government jobs and/or handouts, then remove the government. Who could possibly have predicted what would happen next?
And now they're doing it again in Iran.
US itself has huge reserves, and recent move with Venecuela further expands it.
Middle East countries are too blind to see it, they’re being thrown under the bus to hurt Iran.
Seems like the only options are reaching a deal with whatever the new regime is or occupying the coastal areas.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2rgVaTofGQU