Introduction
In 2008, a multinational naval coalition of 15 NATO members (including the US) and 22 non-NATO militaries was deployed to restore freedom of navigation for commercial vessels, constantly threatened and harassed by roving boats of Somali pirates off the Persian Gulf. Across three UN-sanctioned military operations – Allied Provider, Allied Protector, and finally Ocean Shield – the NATO-led force successfully tracked, punished, and deterred piracy in the Gulf of Aden. By 2012, attacks on commercial ships had plunged as pirates were captured and disarmed, sea lines of communication were restored, and flows of food, energy, and consumer goods in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean were reestablished.
In 2026, the United States, having embarked on a full-scale war against Iran, now finds itself physically unable to restore freedom of navigation for commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf. After six months of intensive bombing amid a constant stream of seemingly ineffective threats, condemnations, and negotiations, the US operation – initially codenamed Epic Fury – has (at the time of publication) failed to reestablish stable, peaceful, and secure shipping lanes through the Persian Gulf, which continue to be threatened with strikes by state and nonstate actors (Iran’s proxy militias, including the Houthis).
What gives? What explains the disparity between the clear-cut success of Ocean Shield – an operation of at most tangential importance to the US’ grand strategy in the Middle East – and the chronic failure of the full power of the US’ military-economic engine to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for business? One variable provides an answer: geography.
Ocean Shield, the third and largest counter-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa, authorized NATO to operate in a nautical area of over 2 million square miles, including the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean all the way up to the Strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf, by contrast, spans only about 93,000 square miles. That geographic disparity does not make the Gulf easier to control or patrol, even for the world’s most powerful naval and air force. In fact, the Gulf’s relatively smaller breadth makes it that much more vulnerable to seizure or disruption by Iran, the Houthis, or any other actor seeking geoeconomic leverage – a new and crucial aspect of 21st-century international politics.
States’ control over physical chokepoints like Hormuz, Aden, and beyond is thus the root source of their geoeconomic leverage: a pillar of interstate competition as important to the study and practice of global affairs as military, economic, and technological power.
Whither geography?
Geography is an inescapable aspect of interstate relations in part because states recognize the importance of controlling physical chokepoints to their long-term goals of preserving and expanding their power.
In the early 20th century, the US expended significant blood and treasure to construct the Panama Canal, taking over the project from the French government and retaining sole ownership for over six decades. The US’ decision to pour significant resources into the Panama Canal was motivated not only by the promise of commercial gain but also by the opportunity for geoeconomic leverage over other maritime powers.
That opportunity manifested nearly three decades after the Canal’s 1914 completion, when President Franklin Roosevelt closed the vital waterway to Japanese ships in 1941, pressuring the commerce-reliant Japanese economy as part of a broader economic blockade that ultimately sparked the Pacific War. US president Jimmy Carter controversially signed over control of the Canal to the Panamanian government in 1978, but its value as a tool of geoeconomic leverage reemerged in 2025 only for President Donald Trump to demand it back in 2025.
Similarly, control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits that divide Europe and Asia historically gave the Ottoman Empire (and later the Republic of Turkey) immense leverage over European ships seeking transit to and from the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, Ottoman dominance in the region was so total that historians today refer to the contemporary Black Sea as an “Ottoman lake.” Successive sultanates used that leverage accordingly, charging transit fees from Russian, British, and French commercial ships and periodically blocking transit for warships from allies and enemies alike.
Although the Ottoman Empire’s overall power waned into the 19th century, the “ancient rule” of Ottoman peacetime control of the straits endured. The 1841 London Straits Convention barred any non-Ottoman warships from the Black Sea, and the 1936 Montreux Convention codified the young Turkish Republic’s legal power over the straits – setting in stone Turkey’s geoeconomic leverage over militarily and economically stronger European great powers.
In the 21st century, Turkey continues to use its control of the Bosporus Strait as a coercive tool of economic statecraft. In 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Bosporus and nearby Dardanelles Straits were closed to all outgoing foreign warships under the Montreux Convention, severely undercutting Russian operations and logistics in the Black Sea. In 2008, following Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Turkey barred US warships from transiting the Bosporus, undercutting a treaty NATO ally to preserve its geoeconomic advantage.
In the case of the 2026 Hormuz crisis, Iran’s de facto control over the Strait gives it leverage over the US far beyond the Persian Gulf’s immediate locales. Issue linkages – especially common for great powers with great and sundry responsibilities, priorities, interests, partners, and enemies – allow Iran to force discussions of other thorny topics like nuclear proliferation, economic sanctions, and regional security pacts as a condition of reopening the Strait. Controlling Hormuz thus grants Iran immense geoeconomic leverage over the US even as it remains inferior in overall power.
The takeaway
Geography is the root source of geoeconomic leverage. The question of control over physical chokepoints, especially those cutting through maritime trading lanes, is just as critical to understanding international politics as military power, economic heft, and technological edge. Rising powers, middle powers, and great powers (including hegemons) constantly seek to control naturally-occurring geographic nodes that serve their geoeconomic goals – a new reality that scholars of 21st-century international politics should account for.
Political leaders also face a new geoeconomic order. Decades-old assumptions of general maritime security, freedom of navigation, and toll-free passage through international waters can no longer be taken for granted. A physical chokepoint’s potency and implications do not go away simply because it is not being exploited or overtly controlled. This presents an awkward reality for developing nations, particularly those reliant on export-oriented industrialization for growth, whose relative position in the international order gives them clear incentives to seize, exploit, or even create chokepoints of their own.
The pursuit of geoeconomic leverage thus comes with a steep price. Iran’s functional dominance of Hormuz, enforced by a network of missile sites hidden across its mountainous coast, meshed well with its extensive use of proxy militias like the Houthis to attack ships transiting the Strait. Yet Iran’s grip on Hormuz has made it a target for decades of Western sanctions, espionage, sabotage, and now hostile attack by the US.
Similarly, Egypt leveraged its geography to assert control over the Suez Canal in 1956, nationalizing the canal as part of a broader pressure campaign against Israel following its war of independence in 1947-48. This triggered a British-French-Israeli invasion – and Egypt, hopelessly outmatched in military power, was instead saved by joint economic and diplomatic pressure from the US and USSR on the invading nations to cease hostilities and restore Egypt’s control over the Canal.
The lesson for status quo challengers is clear and relatively simple: watch your step. The lesson for status quo defenders is frustrating: in a time of great change, watch others’ steps.
