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German has given English many useful words. Some are valuable in the current crisis: schadenfreude, joy in the misfortunes of others, or Energiewende, the transition to low-carbon energy. We could add another, schwerpunkt, the decisive point of a military campaign. In the war the US is waging against Iran now, this centre of gravity is the Strait of Hormuz – but does Washington know it?
Every day that ships cannot pass the Strait freely digs another inch in the grave of the world economy. Even allowing for bypass pipelines and withdrawals from strategic stocks, the market is short of more than 10 million barrels of oil per day, out of the prewar 100 million barrels of consumption. The last tankers to escape the Gulf before the fighting are even now arriving at their destinations in East Asia and Europe; then the traffic will stop.
Oil rising
Generalist economists look at the headline Brent crude futures price, and think that $109 per barrel for deliveries in May is not too bad. But traders see that the price for prompt deliveries of physical oil has reached $141, and jet fuel prices have hit $200 per barrel. No one can run a refinery, drive a car or fly a plane today on oil to be delivered in May.
A dribble of vessels has begun passing the Strait in recent days. But the number is far below prewar levels, and most are doing so with apparent Iranian approval. Most importantly, they are exiting – there is almost no sign of ships voluntarily sailing into the Gulf to collect cargoes, other than those serving Iran itself. Once the estimated 100 million barrels of stranded oil in the Gulf – 50 supertankers’ worth – has escaped, this flow too will stop.
Obviously, US military planners concentrated on the Strait of Hormuz for decades before the current war. They generally thought that Iran could try to block passage, but that the US armed forces could re-open it within a few weeks, at most.
But the threat of drones, missiles and mines, shipowners’ justified caution, and American unpreparedness, mean that after more than a month of war, no such campaign has taken shape. Navies hate minesweeping, and loathe convoy operations. Escorting tankers, lumbering civilian vessels full of flammable material, through the narrow waters would tie up most US warships perhaps for many months, even assuming the shipowners and sailors are willing.
US president Donald Trump, as a noted author himself, and his defence secretary Pete Hegseth, are no doubt familiar with the works of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who originated the term schwerpunkt. However, they do not seem to have internalised his lessons.
As Clausewitz wrote, “The best strategy is always to be very strong, first generally, then at the decisive point.” The US started this war with inadequate forces in theatre, and has then concentrated on undoubtedly massive lethality but not at the decisive point. They can blow up every bridge and medical laboratory in the country, but if they cannot re-open Hormuz, they have lost.
Marines and airborne troops are on their way to the Gulf now. They risk being ordered to carry out what great British historian AJP Taylor called “cigar-butt strategy”. Referring to Winston Churchill’s ill-fated landings at Gallipoli in the First World War, Taylor imagined the great man pointing at a map with a cigar and saying, “Let us go here.”
Seizing control
In this case, the soldiers might seize Kharg Island in the northern Gulf, the hub for Iran’s oil exports. They might land in Iran’s interior for the risky mission of grabbing its enriched uranium. They might capture the remote Indian Ocean port of Chabahar as some kind of base. None of these address the issue of reopening the Strait to regular commerce.
More strategic would be to wrest control of the three islands claimed by the Shah from the UAE in 1971, Abu Musa, Tunb Al Sughra and Tunb Al Kubra. Those at least lie near the Strait and are convenient to Iran as bases and observation points. Of more use still might be Qeshm Island, a much larger land-mass, rising over 400 metres high and dominating the northern shore of Hormuz.
But with its population of up to 180,000 people, occupying and holding rugged Qeshm would not be straightforward. The smaller, nearly flat islands would be exposed to Iranian missiles and drones.
Iranian capabilities are not static either. With the surreptitious backing of Russia and China, they will get better at using missiles against planes, drones against ships and American soldiers, and the sea-drones the Ukrainians have pioneered with lethal effect. US and GCC counter-drone abilities will improve too, but there is no time on the oil market clock for a lengthy game of cat-and-mouse.
Leaving Iran in control of the Strait would be intolerable to the Gulf countries. Iran would become the de facto leader of Opec, able to decrease the group’s exports at will. Not the US, not Europe or India, not Japan, nor even China, could find it acceptable to have the Iranian boot forever on the world’s windpipe.
Of course, as I have advocated previously, the Gulf countries, including Iraq, should seek to bypass Hormuz with new oil pipelines, railways, roads and ports. But these would take years to build, cannot help with liquefied natural gas exports, and would still be vulnerable to Iranian attack in any renewed conflict.
“Make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait. Time is running out – 48 hours,” Mr Trump posted on social media. What exactly he intends is to be seen. But as Clausewitz also famously said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” War has succeeded in closing the Strait, but politics will ultimately have to reopen it.
