The Middle East’s Problem Is No Longer About Securing a Strait .. It Is About Securing a Network
Whenever a route in the Middle East is disrupted, the usual response is to look for an alternative. But recent crises have exposed a deeper problem: an alternative may bypass one chokepoint without leaving the wider risk zone. Energy and trade move through a connected network of ports, pipelines, sea lanes, land routes, storage, communications, and insurance. The real question is no longer how to protect Hormuz or Bab el-Mandeb alone, but how to keep the whole network working when one link fails.
Hormuz shows the scale of the issue. In 2025, around 21 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products passed through the strait on average. Gulf states have therefore built alternatives. Saudi Arabia developed the East-West pipeline to Yanbu, while the UAE increased its export capacity from Fujairah outside the strait. These routes give Gulf economies more room to reduce the impact of disruption and redirect part of their energy flows.
But this is the main paradox: the problem is not that alternatives do not exist, but that most still operate inside the same security geography. Oil that bypasses Hormuz through a pipeline to the Red Sea becomes dependent on another port, other storage facilities, and another sea route that may later depend on Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. The risk does not disappear; it is redistributed across the network.
Bab el-Mandeb shows the other side of the problem. Since the Red Sea disruptions began in late 2023, many shipping companies have rerouted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. Journeys became longer, fuel use increased, and shipping and insurance costs rose. Even when tensions ease, trade does not immediately return to its previous pattern because companies and insurers reassess risk based on what has happened and what could happen again.
This creates what can be called a “geography tax.” It is not a government tax, but a cost imposed by risk: higher insurance, longer routes, larger inventories, more expensive financing, and slower delivery. More importantly, this cost begins before a route is actually closed. A higher chance of disruption is enough to affect insurance prices, investment decisions, and supply-chain planning. Economies can therefore pay for instability even while ports and straits remain open.
This is why network security is about more than oil. Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, are building future growth around industry, services, logistics, tourism, and trade. These sectors need reliable access to markets as much as they need capital and infrastructure. If shipping routes become more exposed to risk, the cost of diversification itself rises. Trade-route security therefore becomes part of economic competitiveness, not only a defence or energy issue.
The Red Sea and the Yemeni coast show how local geography has become part of a wider economic equation. Disruption there does not stay inside one country; it reaches trade between Asia and Europe and affects shipping, insurance, and supply chains. Strait security therefore cannot be separated from the security of ports, coastlines, energy links, communications, and the roads that support them. Protecting ships at the crossing point while leaving the wider system exposed does not create full economic security.
The region therefore needs to move from a “national alternative” to “regional resilience.” Resilience does not mean building only another pipeline or port. It means creating a network in which trade and energy can shift between several ports, pipelines, and land routes, supported by storage, communications, logistics data, and emergency plans. Because this network crosses borders, its resilience also requires a basic level of regional coordination in transport, energy, storage, and emergency response.
Here, the crisis of the region’s transport routes reveals another weakness: limited Arab economic integration. The region has major ports, pipelines, roads, and logistics hubs, but many still operate mainly as national assets rather than parts of one connected regional network. There is a major difference between having many alternatives and having integrated alternatives. The first gives options; the second gives the ability to shift trade and energy quickly during a crisis. In this sense, network security may become one of the most practical forms of Arab economic integration in the years ahead.
The new equation is not about who protects Hormuz or who secures Bab el-Mandeb alone. It is about who can build a network that absorbs a shock before it spreads. Multiple alternatives do not create resilience by themselves; resilience comes from their ability to work together when one link fails. Protecting one point while leaving the wider system exposed only moves the problem elsewhere. The Middle East’s problem is no longer about securing a strait; it is about securing a network.
Whenever a route in the Middle East is disrupted, the usual response is to look for an alternative. But recent crises have exposed a deeper problem: an alternative may bypass one chokepoint without leaving the wider risk zone. Energy and trade move through a connected network of ports, pipelines, sea lanes, land routes, storage, communications, and insurance. The real question is no longer how to protect Hormuz or Bab el-Mandeb alone, but how to keep the whole network working when one link fails.
Hormuz shows the scale of the issue. In 2025, around 21 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products passed through the strait on average. Gulf states have therefore built alternatives. Saudi Arabia developed the East-West pipeline to Yanbu, while the UAE increased its export capacity from Fujairah outside the strait. These routes give Gulf economies more room to reduce the impact of disruption and redirect part of their energy flows.
But this is the main paradox: the problem is not that alternatives do not exist, but that most still operate inside the same security geography. Oil that bypasses Hormuz through a pipeline to the Red Sea becomes dependent on another port, other storage facilities, and another sea route that may later depend on Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. The risk does not disappear; it is redistributed across the network.
Bab el-Mandeb shows the other side of the problem. Since the Red Sea disruptions began in late 2023, many shipping companies have rerouted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. Journeys became longer, fuel use increased, and shipping and insurance costs rose. Even when tensions ease, trade does not immediately return to its previous pattern because companies and insurers reassess risk based on what has happened and what could happen again.
This creates what can be called a “geography tax.” It is not a government tax, but a cost imposed by risk: higher insurance, longer routes, larger inventories, more expensive financing, and slower delivery. More importantly, this cost begins before a route is actually closed. A higher chance of disruption is enough to affect insurance prices, investment decisions, and supply-chain planning. Economies can therefore pay for instability even while ports and straits remain open.
This is why network security is about more than oil. Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, are building future growth around industry, services, logistics, tourism, and trade. These sectors need reliable access to markets as much as they need capital and infrastructure. If shipping routes become more exposed to risk, the cost of diversification itself rises. Trade-route security therefore becomes part of economic competitiveness, not only a defence or energy issue.
The Red Sea and the Yemeni coast show how local geography has become part of a wider economic equation. Disruption there does not stay inside one country; it reaches trade between Asia and Europe and affects shipping, insurance, and supply chains. Strait security therefore cannot be separated from the security of ports, coastlines, energy links, communications, and the roads that support them. Protecting ships at the crossing point while leaving the wider system exposed does not create full economic security.
The region therefore needs to move from a “national alternative” to “regional resilience.” Resilience does not mean building only another pipeline or port. It means creating a network in which trade and energy can shift between several ports, pipelines, and land routes, supported by storage, communications, logistics data, and emergency plans. Because this network crosses borders, its resilience also requires a basic level of regional coordination in transport, energy, storage, and emergency response.
Here, the crisis of the region’s transport routes reveals another weakness: limited Arab economic integration. The region has major ports, pipelines, roads, and logistics hubs, but many still operate mainly as national assets rather than parts of one connected regional network. There is a major difference between having many alternatives and having integrated alternatives. The first gives options; the second gives the ability to shift trade and energy quickly during a crisis. In this sense, network security may become one of the most practical forms of Arab economic integration in the years ahead.
The new equation is not about who protects Hormuz or who secures Bab el-Mandeb alone. It is about who can build a network that absorbs a shock before it spreads. Multiple alternatives do not create resilience by themselves; resilience comes from their ability to work together when one link fails. Protecting one point while leaving the wider system exposed only moves the problem elsewhere. The Middle East’s problem is no longer about securing a strait; it is about securing a network.
Whenever a route in the Middle East is disrupted, the usual response is to look for an alternative. But recent crises have exposed a deeper problem: an alternative may bypass one chokepoint without leaving the wider risk zone. Energy and trade move through a connected network of ports, pipelines, sea lanes, land routes, storage, communications, and insurance. The real question is no longer how to protect Hormuz or Bab el-Mandeb alone, but how to keep the whole network working when one link fails.
Hormuz shows the scale of the issue. In 2025, around 21 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum products passed through the strait on average. Gulf states have therefore built alternatives. Saudi Arabia developed the East-West pipeline to Yanbu, while the UAE increased its export capacity from Fujairah outside the strait. These routes give Gulf economies more room to reduce the impact of disruption and redirect part of their energy flows.
But this is the main paradox: the problem is not that alternatives do not exist, but that most still operate inside the same security geography. Oil that bypasses Hormuz through a pipeline to the Red Sea becomes dependent on another port, other storage facilities, and another sea route that may later depend on Bab el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. The risk does not disappear; it is redistributed across the network.
Bab el-Mandeb shows the other side of the problem. Since the Red Sea disruptions began in late 2023, many shipping companies have rerouted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. Journeys became longer, fuel use increased, and shipping and insurance costs rose. Even when tensions ease, trade does not immediately return to its previous pattern because companies and insurers reassess risk based on what has happened and what could happen again.
This creates what can be called a “geography tax.” It is not a government tax, but a cost imposed by risk: higher insurance, longer routes, larger inventories, more expensive financing, and slower delivery. More importantly, this cost begins before a route is actually closed. A higher chance of disruption is enough to affect insurance prices, investment decisions, and supply-chain planning. Economies can therefore pay for instability even while ports and straits remain open.
This is why network security is about more than oil. Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, are building future growth around industry, services, logistics, tourism, and trade. These sectors need reliable access to markets as much as they need capital and infrastructure. If shipping routes become more exposed to risk, the cost of diversification itself rises. Trade-route security therefore becomes part of economic competitiveness, not only a defence or energy issue.
The Red Sea and the Yemeni coast show how local geography has become part of a wider economic equation. Disruption there does not stay inside one country; it reaches trade between Asia and Europe and affects shipping, insurance, and supply chains. Strait security therefore cannot be separated from the security of ports, coastlines, energy links, communications, and the roads that support them. Protecting ships at the crossing point while leaving the wider system exposed does not create full economic security.
The region therefore needs to move from a “national alternative” to “regional resilience.” Resilience does not mean building only another pipeline or port. It means creating a network in which trade and energy can shift between several ports, pipelines, and land routes, supported by storage, communications, logistics data, and emergency plans. Because this network crosses borders, its resilience also requires a basic level of regional coordination in transport, energy, storage, and emergency response.
Here, the crisis of the region’s transport routes reveals another weakness: limited Arab economic integration. The region has major ports, pipelines, roads, and logistics hubs, but many still operate mainly as national assets rather than parts of one connected regional network. There is a major difference between having many alternatives and having integrated alternatives. The first gives options; the second gives the ability to shift trade and energy quickly during a crisis. In this sense, network security may become one of the most practical forms of Arab economic integration in the years ahead.
The new equation is not about who protects Hormuz or who secures Bab el-Mandeb alone. It is about who can build a network that absorbs a shock before it spreads. Multiple alternatives do not create resilience by themselves; resilience comes from their ability to work together when one link fails. Protecting one point while leaving the wider system exposed only moves the problem elsewhere. The Middle East’s problem is no longer about securing a strait; it is about securing a network.
comments
The Middle East’s Problem Is No Longer About Securing a Strait .. It Is About Securing a Network
comments