Iran and the United States have each demanded that the Strait of Hormuz be "open." The demand looks like a shared objective. It is a semantic trap. Iran's definition of an open strait means IRGC-managed traffic: vessels obtain Iranian clearance before passing, pay fees framed as service charges, and
Iran's ceasefire window and its missile expansion plans form a single strategy. The memorandum of understanding created sixty days of protected space. Iran is using them: exporting oil at war-premium prices, pursuing freed assets earmarked for military spending and openly discussing missiles designe
Six weeks of Hormuz contestation produced a consequence that oil markets priced in and governments did not: the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now at its lowest level since May 1983. The US enters hurricane season with 325.7 million barrels, no congressional minimum floor and no replenishment pla
Between June 21 and June 23, Iran converted three provisional gains from the Switzerland talks into institutional structures that do not depend on nuclear progress to survive. Lebanon's monitoring mechanism has been replaced by one that excludes Israel. The Strait of Hormuz now has a joint Iranian-O
European capitals are funding the wrong kind of deterrence. The platforms, readiness targets and budget commitments accumulating since 2022 address the threat Russia signals in public. Russian nuclear coercion operates in a different register, below the threshold where conventional deterrence activa