Surface Forces: Red Sea Failures And The Strait of Hormuz
April 24, 2026: The Western allies trying to negotiate a way to protect the Strait of Hormuz for oil and natural gas shipping face an unambiguous reality: a similar effort in the Red Sea that started years earlier cost billions of dollars and ultimately failed against Yemen’s Houthis. The recent collapse of Iranian resistance and request for more negotiations has largely removed Iran from any involvement in the Red Sea or anywhere else.
Meanwhile, the costly Red Sea experience, with four ships sunk, more than $1 billion in weapons expended, and a route that the shipping industry until recently avoided, displays the more complex Strait of Hormuz situation. This shipping route is used by about 20 percent of the global oil and liquefied natural gas supply, and is now blocked by Iran, a more frightening adversary than the Houthis.
Iran’s threats to the strait and its attacks on energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf nations sent oil prices soaring in the worst interruption to oil and gas supplies in history. Without the strait’s reopening, shortages will become more dire, threatening higher costs for energy, food and numerous other products worldwide.
There is no substitute for the Strait of Hormuz. It is the world’s strait, under international law and realistic certainty.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/2026042441740.aspx#gsc.tab=0
