The Strait of Hormuz crisis: Why the US may be heading toward a strategic disaster

When the US and Israel choose the logic of coercive pressure on Iran, they inevitably step into more than just another Middle Eastern crisis. They enter one of the most dangerous knots in world politics.

Here, military geography is directly bound up with global energy flows, the internal resilience of states, and the limits of American power projection. The war that began in late February 2026 has already crossed the line beyond which it can no longer be described as a localized air campaign and has started to affect global markets, US alliances, and the very architecture of security in the Persian Gulf.

Under normal conditions, around a fifth of global liquid hydrocarbon consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz, along with a fifth of global LNG trade. At the same time, Iran’s island-based oil export infrastructure remains one of the key arteries of the country’s economy. Judging by media reporting and official US notices, the dynamics of the first weeks of the conflict already show that actual developments have diverged significantly from what the initiators of the escalation likely expected. If the plan had been working in full, the US would not have had to scramble to assemble an international coalition to restore shipping, admit that military escorts remain too risky for now, or face refusals from allies to join an operation in the Strait of Hormuz. The mere fact that even after large-scale strikes, the question of safe passage for commercial vessels remains unresolved, and that allies are in no hurry to share the military burden, points to a fairly well-grounded conclusion: The situation has clearly not unfolded according to the desired script.

Judging by the rhetoric and the overall design of the campaign, the calculation appears to have rested on a classic formula: A swift decapitating strike, the destruction of command structures, psychological shock, elite disorientation, and then an internal fracture of the political system, creating an opening for pro-Western forces to seize the initiative. In public discourse, this is almost never stated explicitly, yet the logic of these campaigns can be read from the target set, the tempo of strikes, and the expectation of rapid political effect. But in Iran’s case, the opposite occurred. The system did not collapse. Iran retained governability, continued to strike back, and external pressure worked as a factor of consolidation rather than disintegration. Even analysts sharply critical of Tehran acknowledge that air power by itself has neither produced political collapse nor resolved the issue of control over strategic resources, the nuclear program, and the vertical structure of power. This is precisely why the current discussion of a possible ground operation arises not as a sign of confidence, but as a sign of strategic dissatisfaction with the results so far.