Zaid M. Belbagi

The war with Iran has exposed an uncomfortable truth about the global economy: It still runs through a handful of narrow waterways, and the digital layer that sits beneath them is dangerously fragile.

The Strait of Hormuz, a 39 km-wide waterway flanked by Iran to the north and Oman and the UAE to the south, is a passage through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows each day. For decades, it has been a strategic chokepoint, considered a critical vulnerability in global energy security.