Energy

From Strait Crisis to Strategic Edge

Why the Hormuz Blockade Targets Beijing Too In the desert of the Middle East, oil is the spice. Control its flow and you control the game. Right now, the Iranian regime is learning that lesson the hard way. After the talks in Pakistan collapsed without a nuclear deal, Iran figured they still held the whip hand over the Strait of Hormuz. They thought they could keep disrupting shipping, demand concessions, and keep the oil money flowing to fund their missiles, their proxies, and their march toward a nuclear weapon. Instead, President Trump did what smart leaders do: he flipped the script.…

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A Texas Tanker Convoy

How Iranian Mines and American Realpolitik Made the Spice Flow Again A wave of empty VLCCs heading for Corpus Christi and Houston isn’t just a dramatic map—it’s living proof that pragmatic Hemisphere-first statecraft turned a Persian Gulf crisis into U.S. energy strength, cheaper domestic natural gas for our factories, and a cautionary tale about choosing politics over production. That map stopped me cold the first time I saw it. Dozens of empty supertankers streaming westward across the Atlantic and Caribbean like a disciplined blue-water convoy, all making straight for the loading terminals at Corpus Christi, Freeport, and Houston. It’s not random…

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Antithesis in the Persian Gulf

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.…

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