Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) moved to close the Strait of Hormuz in late February, issuing warnings and employing drones, antiship missiles, and mines to disrupt oil exports and send energy prices soaring. This crisis demonstrates that closing a strait has become easier due to inexpensive technologies, while concentrated global trade magnifies the impact, with major powers increasingly willing to disregard international law.
For Asia, where waterways are critical for global trade, energy, and semiconductor supply chains, Hormuz serves as a warning, potentially encouraging similar tactics like U.S. restrictions on the Strait of Malacca or a Chinese blockade of the Taiwan Strait. Such disruptions would have severe economic consequences, as seen by China's "Malacca dilemma" and Taiwan's semiconductor vulnerability. The operational advantages of controlling adjacent territory, as demonstrated by Iran, validate China's anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy and Taiwan's "porcupine" approach. The United States and its allies must bolster maritime domain awareness, coordinate operations, upgrade secondary deep-water ports, and decentralize semiconductor production to reduce vulnerabilities in Asia's chokepoints.
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