Transactional Sovereignty in the Strait

“The spice must flow.”

In Frank Herbert’s Dune, that iron law sustained an interstellar empire. In April 2026, it governs the real world. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies have historically passed, stands severely restricted amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. Tanker traffic has plummeted. Brent crude has surged past $100–$110 per barrel, with spikes higher in recent weeks. Gas prices are climbing in the United States and far more painfully elsewhere. Thousands of vessels sit idle or reroute at enormous cost.

President Trump’s repeated public message to dependent allies, especially in Western Europe: You need the oil more than we do. Why don’t you go and take it? No automatic U.S. naval guarantee. No rush to underwrite everyone else’s energy security while they restrict bases, deny overflights, or declare “not our war.”

This is not indecision. This is not chaos. This is the deliberate antithesis, the necessary negative moment, of the Donroe Doctrine and the 2025 National Security Strategy playing out in real time.

I have written about both at length. The Donroe Doctrine (the Trump Corollary to the classic Monroe Doctrine) and the December 2025 National Security Strategy reject the old post-WWII bargain. For decades, the United States automatically guaranteed open sea lanes through Hormuz and elsewhere. Europe and others built energy policies, aggressive green agendas, and military drawdowns around that “free insurance.” They lectured Washington on multilateralism while underfunding hard power and often pursuing deals at cross-purposes with American interests.

The 2025 NSS flips the script. It prioritizes American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, enforces the Trump Corollary to keep adversaries out of our backyard, and treats energy dominance, secure supply chains, and transactional alliances as core national security. Venezuela’s stabilization demonstrated the pattern: direct action to secure resources and deny leverage to competitors. Elsewhere, engagement is conditional. Burden-shifting is policy. The United States leverages its Hemisphere-first energy position and military reach from strength, not as the eternal global guarantor.

The Antithesis in Action

Saudi Arabia did not wait for American escorts or European naval task forces. It maxed out its East-West pipeline, pumping at full ~7 million barrels per day capacity. Crude exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu have surged dramatically, approaching or hitting ~5 million bpd in recent weeks, a sharp jump from pre-crisis levels. This workaround has already offset a significant share of lost Persian Gulf shipments. No rhetoric, no appeals to multilateralism, just rapid, self-interested logistics.

Corporate boardrooms are responding in kind. BP, under new CEO Meg O’Neill, has slashed green capex dramatically while ramping oil and gas investment. The company is refocusing on hydrocarbons, cutting costs, and divesting non-core assets. The ideological overhang of the “beyond petroleum” era is being stripped away under pressure. When supply is threatened and prices spike, energy realism returns. Fossils are strategic again.

When this is over, the western part of NATO will never be the same. Spain, England, France and Italy have sold us out, as they too often have a history of doing. Eastern European nations are the heart of NATO. They spend money on defense, know how to fight and love the US.…

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) April 3, 2026

France particularly deserves fault and blame. From supporting China and Russia at the UN to denying Americans overflight rights, they’re doing what they’ve always done – showing weakness, while cutting deals with terrorists. (The reason the US has a Marine Corps and Navy is unlike France, we refused to pay a ransom to the Barbary Pirates. France is always happy to cut a deal.)

Wars have unintended consequences as nations show their true colors.

NATO will never be the same, and Western European weakness and acquiescence is the cause.

Politically, the fracture is sharpening. As Ari Fleischer said, Western NATO members, France, the UK under Starmer, Spain, Italy, have restricted U.S. access, denied overflights or basing in some cases, and shown reluctance for direct commitments in the Hormuz theater. The pattern is familiar: historical weakness dressed up as diplomacy. Eastern European nations, by contrast, understand the stakes, invest in defense, and stand more reliably with the United States. Fleischer’s blunt assessment rings true: when this is over, the western part of NATO will never be the same.

This is the dialectic at work. The “negative moment” shatters the old equilibrium. The spice must flow, but it is incumbent on those most dependent on it to help make it flow. Producers adapt with pipelines. Majors pivot back to reality. Allies reveal their true colors under pressure.

Toward Synthesis

The pain is uneven. The energy-surplus United States, bolstered by domestic production and Hemisphere leverage, feels it less acutely than import-heavy Europe, Asia, and others. Critics warn of domestic inflation risks, petrodollar strains, or alliance erosion. Those costs are real and must be managed. Yet the Donroe/2025 NSS framework treats the short-term disruption as a feature, not a bug: it compels adaptation and reordering on better terms.

When the Strait eventually reopens, whether through de-escalation, targeted pressure, negotiation, or other means, the new normal will not restore the old free ride. Secure energy flows will come with conditions: measurable increases in allied defense spending, tangible contributions to security (basing, sanctions enforcement, naval presence), market access, and alignment against shared threats. The United States will arbitrate from a position of strength rather than subsidize everyone else’s vulnerabilities.

Western Europe should have read the Donroe Doctrine more carefully. The 2025 National Security Strategy laid it out plainly: transactional sovereignty, not endless blank checks. The crisis is exposing what happens when dependence meets withheld guarantees.

The spice must flow. It always has, and it always will. The question was never whether flows would resume, but on whose terms, at what price, and with what new realities for alliances and energy policy.

The antithesis is doing its job. The synthesis, a more realistic, interest-driven global order that puts American strength and prosperity first, is forming in the pressure. History will judge the outcomes by sustained energy security without perpetual U.S. subsidy, by whether allies finally contribute meaningfully, and by whether the United States emerges with greater leverage rather than greater burdens.

The dialectic continues. But one thing is already clear: the old assumptions are sinking in the waters of the Persian Gulf. The spice must flow, and from now on, the dependents will have to earn their share of the current.