Global Shipping Comes Under Attack || Peter Zeihan

Global energy security faces a critical breakdown as oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz drops from 22 million to an estimated three to five million barrels per day. To mitigate this crisis, the United States is providing military overwatch for tankers from Arab Gulf nations, which are adopting "shadow fleet" tactics—sailing with transponders off and conducting ship-to-ship transfers in the Indian Ocean to obscure cargo origins. However, maintaining a carrier-anchored task force for such patrols is strategically unsustainable and prohibitively expensive, costing tens of millions of dollars daily. The U.S. Navy lacks the capacity to secure all eight global maritime chokepoints simultaneously, especially as piracy resurges in areas like the Bab-el-Mandeb. While defending these vast sea lanes is increasingly impossible for any single nation or coalition, the ability to disrupt them remains simple and effective, signaling a shift toward a more volatile and fragmented global maritime environment.