Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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That I understand that but such a blockade would be useless due to the fungibility of oil. That's why I said I failed to understand how it would work.
The blockade is painful because it restricts global supply not because it hinders specific shippers to get through or get to specific customers.
If you let the oil through and the oil is allowed to get to India/china/Pakistan or wherever, global prices will normalise and make the blockade meaningless.
The US gets zero oil from the middle east and they are still hurting currently. Europe gets like 15% of it's oil from the middle east, and they're still hurting.
Btw, I'm not the one downvoting you.
I think you're right about the big picture. I guess what I am suggesting is that the blockade is still annoying for the targeted countries/corporations because it means they will still have to rearrange their imports. And oil is carried by ships that take weeks to reach their destinations, so figuring that out is non-trivial. It probably imposes marginal costs on countries like the UK at the cost of, what, a strongly worded tweet? Maybe firing off a few missiles to show they meant business?
And as a demonstration of capability, that's not nothing. The message you're sending is "look how you're having to scramble now when things are merely annoying! All we did was send a tweet! Imagine what it will be if we actually completely closed the strait." It's trying to send a message that you could increase the pain a lot if you wanted.
Oh, thanks.
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