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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9016 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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This is more geopolitical than culture war. There is a guy with naval experience that has been writing a theory that the US does not want to open the Straight of Hormuz. And Trump has hinted at the thesis. Especially Europe but the rest of the world has depended on the US to keep global shipping open. Europe also looks down on the US as Neanderthals. They do not have the guns to go do things like reopen the Straight and are dependent on the Americans. The US does not directly suffer from the closure as we do Neanderthal things like put little straws in the ground all over Texas sucking oil out of the ground. Europe hurts much more than the modern US today in an energy crisis (US may be net winner).

Besides being a nice FU to Europe it also exposes their geopolitical weaknesses as real. Which hopefully gets them to do things like build big guns, drill for oil, restart nuclear programs, forget Greta ever existed, etc. Which long-term I believe a strong Europe is in Americas interests. America’s relationship with Europe historically and especially Dems has been to go over there and talk nicely to them. Trump has a different philosophy which is basically poke them with a stick. On immigration it does seem like Europe is getting better.

And here is the article. [https://gcaptain.com/the-hormuz-hypothesis-what-if-the-u-s-navy-isnt-in-a-hurry-to-reopen-the-strait] (The Hormuz Hypothesis)

He talks about it more on his twitter. I am mostly posting this to see if he’s crazy or is this a good example of Trump playing 4D chess.

Edit: Based on early comments FU Europe is appropriately culture war

The US needs to re-open the strait for several reasons.

  1. Having Iran in control makes a case for Iran having won.

  2. The US's Gulf allies need the strait open. Saudi Arabia can redirect most, but not all of its oil elsewhere, but Kuwait cannot.

  3. Iran tolling the strait helps Iran rebuild its weapons programs, which means the job isn't done.

  4. Sustained high oil prices will hurt Trump domestically, despite the US being a net exporter; there's a lot more gasoline buyers than oil company workers.

The hypothesis that the US would destroy the Iranian regime but leave the strait closed or tolled doesn't make sense. Either the new Iranian regime would have to keep the strait closed by force (in which case it's the enemy), or Oman (in coalition with the rest of the GCC, probably) and the new Iranian regime and the US would have to agree to do so in violation of long-standing treaties, which seems unlikely. That would throw freedom of navigation worldwide into utter chaos, which the US has long considered against its interests.

There's one way of threading the needle, which is that the US beats back the Iranian regime but they can still fire a few missiles or drones from a distance (which can be shot down with high probability). In that case the P&I cartel might decide to continue their effective blockade, at which point the US can probably spin up and certify a new insurer, effectively collecting the same "toll" the P&I clubs used to. This would require utter stupidity on the part of the cartel, but given what Europe has been doing lately, it's not impossible.

IMO it doesn't make sense long term for other Gulf states to accept Iran unilaterally defecting and seizing control of Hormuz shipping. They are at least as capable of blocking traffic and there is no reason to let Iran's ships through unless theirs do too, unless they're accepting it for short-term reasons (international relations on oil prices, expecting long-term gains via regime change, maybe others).

Investments in alternate routes make sense, but even without them, defecting back (closing Hormuz and Iranian ports to the rest of the traffic) seems easy enough and a viable response. I'm sure US ROE won't allow naval mining in this conflict ("free navigation", you say), but it's less clear that this would bind KSA or UAE.

But maybe it does seem like the entire conflict was poorly-thought-out.

Investments in alternate routes make sense, but even without them, defecting back (closing Hormuz and Iranian ports to the rest of the traffic) seems easy enough and a viable response.

Except that Iran could then respond by destroying most of the oil infrastructure of the GCC. This is MAD, of course, but MAD doesn't work against an actually-fanatic opponent.

But maybe it does seem like the entire conflict was poorly-thought-out.

Maybe. Won't know until it concludes.

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