Usually it is military or strategic think tankers who engage in desktop war games, to play out different battle scenarios and evaluate how different decisions will impact the outcome of war. But at the end of March 2026, less than one month after the Strait of Hormuz had been shut by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, London’s Economist magazine published not one but two lengthy articles that ran through the details of global maritime trade to determine, as their headline boasted, “The nightmare scenario for global trade. There could be worse blockages than the Strait of Hormuz, our analysis finds.”
The first article began with a quote: “’Five strategic keys lock up the world!’ declared Sir Jacky Fisher, a Victorian admiral. He was talking about places that command critical waterways: Singapore, Cape Town, Alexandria, Gibraltar and Dover. Today you would definitely add to the list the tiny island of Hormuz and the strait that shares its name.” The Fisher in question was Britain’s First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John “Jacky” Fisher during World War I, praised effusively by geopolitics founding father Halford Mackinder, in particular for his advocacy of economic blockades.
The Economist article explained that cargo ships carry about 85% of world trade by volume, or 55% by value. It then listed the major global chokepoints by those measures, adding the consideration of possible alternate routes in order to evaluate how serious a disruption would result from the closure of each of them.
“We then modelled how the routes would change if transit through any big chokepoint were disrupted. The results are striking. A closure of the Strait of Malacca, despite the enormous traffic passing through it, would necessitate only a minor detour. Were access to all the various channels through the Indonesian archipelago blocked, however, perhaps by a government taking sides in a war between America and China, a huge volume of shipping would have to take a gigantic detour. And were Gibraltar to become impassable, almost as big a share of maritime traffic would have to take an even bigger detour.”
About 80% of China’s oil imports transit through the Strait of Malacca, the Economist noted pointedly.
The second article picked up the thread. “Where, then, is international commerce most vulnerable? And where would be the most painful place for the next blockage?... Whereas our model suggests that 6% of maritime trade is affected by the closure of Hormuz, the closure of the Taiwan Strait would affect 13%; the Suez Canal, 16%; and the South China Sea, 24%. The very worst scenario—where all the straits from Malacca to Australia are closed—would affect 26%...
“For the European Union, the combined closure of Gibraltar and Suez would be catastrophic—affecting perhaps 40% of its seaborne trade, with 26% entirely blocked. China is also vulnerable. Closures in South-East Asia would affect more than 40% of its seaborne trade; closures of the Red Sea passages, over 25%.”
The article concludes by repeating its ominous warning to world governments and businesses: “They will be aware that the next time could be worse.”
