Why Blocking this Strait Will Start WW3

In the 21st century, there are many ways to do so, simply using an airplane to fly across in mere hours might be how you choose to do it, but airplanes are expensive, especially the more and more heavy an object it is that you're moving, so when it comes to cargo, 80% of the 21st century's global trade is still being carried out to the way that it generally always has been, for thousands of years now, by ship. At any given normal time, there are around 50 000 merchant vessels carrying as much as six million containers, full of cargo and goods, all across the world's oceans and between all the world's continents. These networks and streams of ships that you see moving in lines across the world surface here are the literal arteries that power the beating heart of the 21st century global economy.

And unfortunately, the world's oceans aren't very easy to navigate through. The geographic placement of the world's continents, islands and land masses have created numerous natural choke points that these trade arteries have no other choice but to move through, and when these choke points become blocked by whatever means, they can cause a veritable stroke upon the world economy. This is exactly what happened earlier this year when one of the most important of these, the Suez Canal, was blocked for several days, when a cargo ship became unexpectedly stuck in the middle, which blocked nearly 10 billion dollars worth of global trade, and caused widespread shipping and logistical delays across the entire world, from North America to Australia.

But there are other strategic maritime choke points to consider across the world as well, the Panama Canal controls the flow of trade between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the American landmass, the Cape of Good Hope controls the flow of trade around the African continent, the Strait of Gibraltar controls the flow between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, the Danish Straits between the Baltic and the North Sea, the Turkish Straits between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and the Strait of Malacca between the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

However, none of these are as important nor as dangerous as the Strait of Hormuz here, for many many critical reasons. First among them it's the only possible way for ships to move back and forth between the Persian Gulf in the west, and the Gulf of Oman in the east, which then leads out to the greater global ocean, the Persian Gulf is particularly important for this equation, because eight countries share some of its coastline. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. And for four of those countries, the only maritime access they have is within the Persian Gulf, which means that the 30 mile wide Strait of Hormuz is the only possible location they can pass through in order to access the world's oceans. And if you know anything at all about the Middle East and the Gulf countries, you know that they're pretty much all completely loaded in oil, but oil is only part of what makes the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, especially so critically important, oil is still the lifeblood of the modern world's economy.

Around a third of our energy worldwide is produced by using it, and every single day, humanity consumes more than 9 million barrels of it. Oil is still by far the most common source of energy for human civilization in the 21st century, and as a non-renewable, it can't simply be produced. Oil is a resource that can only be extracted from where it already exists and, as it happens, it's not naturally found in too many parts of the world.

Around the Persian Gulf basin, across these dozens of oil fields marked in green, you can find roughly half of the entire planet's proven reserves of oil, including the single largest oil field in the world. Here in Saudi Arabia at Gawar, which all on its own produces nearly six percent of the entire world's oil supply, there are dozens of fabulously rich oil fields here that stretch across all eight of the countries that border the Persian Gulf, but that's not the only valuable resource that can be found here.

Marked in red you can also find roughly 40 percent of the world's proven reserves of natural gas. Natural gas is the world's third most common source of energy behind oil and coal, and more than a fifth of the world's energy is produced by using it. Qatar itself produces the highest amount of liquefied natural gas in the world, and according to British petroleum, Iran possesses the world's largest reserves of natural gas, between all of these combined reserves, there is more oil and natural gas in the seas of the Persian Gulf and the land immediately surrounding it than anywhere else on the planet earth.

Since a third of all the world's oil production is currently taking place around the gulf, and a third of the world's energy is powered by oil and since a further fifth of natural gas production takes place around the gulf, at about a fifth of the world's energy is powered by gas, it can therefore be said that about 15% of the entire planet's energy supply comes from around the Persian Gulf, and largely behind the Strait of Hormuz. This is why the 30 miles of water here is so insanely important, because roughly 15% of all the energy that humanity is collectively consuming right now, largely has no other choice but to pass through it.

No other choke point in the 21st century's global transportation network can come anywhere even close to that level of critical importance, and it doesn't help that navigating through it is pretty geographically difficult, there are eight major islands located inside of the Strait which must be avoided by any ships, seven of which are De Facto controlled by Iran, these three strategically placed ones are contested by the United Arab Emirates, but the Iranian military has occupied them since the 1970s, so they're effectively controlled by Iran.

These areas of water highlighted are too shallow for any tanker to traverse, while these areas separately highlighted have very limited visibility due to the obstructions from islands and land. Dust storms morning fog and haze can all make visibility within the Strait even more challenging, and are particularly common events during the summer months. The UN has established a special traffic separation scheme for tankers and other ships to take while traveling through to avoid the most risk. This scheme consists of only two two mile wide shipping lanes, one for incoming and another for outgoing traffic, while each is only separated by a two mile wide buffer zone.

The whole route travels through Iranian, Emirati and Omani territorial waters at various times, and all of the world's largest ships must pass through them. And limited capability to avoid any unexpected obstructions that might or might not crop up. The overwhelming majority of all the oil that flows out of the Gulf, travels towards East Asia, 76% of it and most of that travels to only five countries.

China is the world's largest importer of petroleum, and the world's second largest economy, and is heavily dependent on the oil flow coming out from the Strait of Hormuz. Because it imports about 45% of its supply from the eight countries around the Persian Gulf. Japan, the world's third largest economy is even more critically dependent and addicted, infamously barren of most natural resources that are required for an industrial society, Japan has always been forced to seek them out abroad and away from their home islands. At times through war, while at other times through trade, currently they rely on trade, while oil and liquefied natural gas, power more than 60% of Japan's energy needs, nearly a hundred percent of all of it is imported and nearly 80% of that is transported by tankers from the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz, therefore nearly half of Japan's energy, the fuel that powers the world's third largest economy has to travel through the 30 miles of water at the Strait of Hormuz.

South Korea, the world's 10th largest global economy has similar dependencies. They import nearly 70 percent of their oil from the Persian Gulf states, and since oil powers more than 40 percent of their energy needs, nearly a third of South Korea's energy supplies, also have no other choice but to be delivered by tankers that are coming through the 30 mile wide strait of horror moves. Where the strait ever to be obstructed or shut down for very long, the world's second third and tenth largest economies would immediately come to a screeching halt. The primary source of revenue for all eight countries around the Persian Gulf would also immediately dry up, and the ripple effect from there would almost certainly crash the entire global economy. And in that event there aren't many options for getting the oil and natural gas around the strait.

Saudi Arabia does have a crude oil and liquefied natural gas pipeline that they can use to transport limited amounts from the rich fields around the Persian Gulf over to their ports on the Red Sea. While the United Arab Emirates has a similar pipeline that they can use to transport further limited amounts to the other side of their country on the Gulf of Oman, and away from the Strait of Hormuz, but these amounts are all limited. While Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq possess no such ability. At a maximum, it's believed that these pipelines can only divert about 20 percent of the oil coming out of the Persian Gulf around the strait of Hormuz.

Building any more oil pipeline infrastructure is expensive, all of this means that the 30 mile wide Strait of Hormuz is the most important choke point in the entire world for the global economy to function smoothly. As a result, it's attracted considerable attention of countless empires and foreign powers from the outside, most notably, the United States.

The U.S maintains dozens of bases across Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq. Seven of the eight countries around the gulf save for Iran. This includes an air force base in Qatar, and the United States fifth fleet being further headquartered within Bahrain, which is generally composed of more than 15 000 sailors, two aircraft carriers, dozens of other vessels and between them and the air force base, countless aircraft as the current largest single source for all of humanity's energy. All of this presence in the area from the United States is generally in place to ensure that the oil continues flowing.

To counter Iran's influence over on the other side of the strait, the United States and Iran have had no official diplomatic relations for more than 40 years now since 1980, and relations between the two sides of the strait have been continuously tense. In the event of a war breaking out, Iran has made numerous threats over the years to close the Strait of Hormuz from their side over to Oman, which if successful would shatter the world economy, and that's enough of a threat to always make America or any other foreign power think twice.

But Iran's capability to do that is realistically pretty limited, while the Iranian military is powerful, America's is a lot more powerful. And the presence of the fifth fleet so close by in Bahrain would almost guarantee American naval and air superiority almost immediately across the entire strait. Iran knows that their navy and air force couldn't compete though, so as a result most of their focus over the past decade has been centered around building air defenses and missile batteries across the coast, that could simply bombard any ships passing through. Iran also possesses a massive arsenal of thousands of maritime mines, that they could theoretically quickly fill the 30 mile wide straight with that would ground all trading activity through it to a halt for who knows how long.

Theoretically, Iran could probably shut the strait down, but doing so would almost certainly invoke a very sharp response from a coalition of countries who would be staunchly opposed to it, likely led by the United States and Saudi Arabia. That conflict wouldn't be very pretty, and it's come dangerously close to already happening. Just two years ago in 2019, the United States began a military buildup around the Persian Gulf, while simultaneously withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and imposing new sanctions upon the country. The conflict escalated from there to the point where an Iranian major general was assassinated in a S.S drone strike at the beginning of 2020, and led from there to Iran bombarding U.S military bases across Iraq with rockets and artillery. It was the closest that America in Iran have ever come so far to a full out war, and the tension still hasn't gone away.

The whole conflict between the United States and Iran is an incredibly complicated and incredibly controversial story to tell, full of countless tragedies, misunderstandings and millions of lives who are almost constantly hanging in the balance. Without a doubt, it is one of the most critical and fascinating conflicts of the 21st century to understand.

That’s the end right now, always thank you so much for watching.