{"id":31187,"date":"2026-08-28T00:20:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=31187"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:22:13","slug":"what-is-the-future-of-the-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/what-is-the-future-of-the-strait-of-hormuz\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the future of the Strait of Hormuz?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the future of the Strait of Hormuz? Haydari Nazar<\/h4>\n

24<\/h4>\n

The future of the Strait of Hormuz will not be one of \u201cpermanent closure,\u201d nor will it quickly return to the situation that existed before the 2026 crisis. The most likely scenario is a prolonged period of intermittent navigation, mutual deterrence, higher insurance and shipping costs, and efforts by Gulf and Asian countries to reduce their dependence on it.
\nThe reason is that what happened in 2026 changed something important: the risk to Hormuz is no longer merely a theoretical possibility. The International Maritime Organization stated that the situation was so dangerous that, in June, it said safe passage could not be considered available in the absence of credible security guarantees, while dozens of attacks on maritime shipping had been recorded since the beginning of the crisis.<\/h4>\n

I expect five main trends:
\n1. Hormuz will remain open most of the time, but not necessarily safe.
\nThis is an important point. A complete closure would be extremely costly for all parties, including Iran and the Gulf states. Therefore, I believe the most likely scenario is the use of threats to block, restrict, or impose conditions on navigation as a means of exerting pressure, rather than permanent closure.<\/h4>\n

2. Hormuz will become a more important strategic card for Iran.
\nThe real value of the Strait lies not only in the ability to close it, but also in the ability of any party to make shipping companies ask themselves: Is crossing the Strait worth the risk?
\nSimply increasing the level of risk can lead to:<\/h4>\n

Higher maritime insurance costs.
\nChanges in shipping routes.
\nDelays in shipments.
\nHigher oil and gas prices.
\nSome shipping companies temporarily withdrawing from the region.
\nAnd this can happen even without a formal legal or military closure of the Strait.<\/h4>\n

3. The Gulf states will accelerate the development of alternatives.
\nThis has already begun. Iraq, for example, is exploring alternative routes for exporting oil away from Hormuz, while there is growing interest in pipelines, ports, and overland routes.<\/h4>\n

But there is an important point here: there are no alternatives capable of completely replacing Hormuz quickly. Therefore, its importance will remain substantial for years to come.<\/h4>\n

4. China will be one of the countries with the greatest influence over the Strait\u2019s future.
\nChina depends heavily on energy coming from the Gulf and therefore has a major interest in preventing Hormuz from becoming an open battlefield.<\/h4>\n

This leads me to expect Beijing to push for arrangements that guarantee the continuation of navigation and perhaps become more diplomatically and security-wise involved in the Gulf in the coming years.<\/h4>\n

5. The world will begin treating Hormuz as a \u201cstrategic vulnerability,\u201d rather than merely a maritime passage.<\/h4>\n

This is similar to what happened in the Red Sea after attacks on ships: companies do not always wait for a catastrophe to occur before changing their behavior; a prolonged increase in risk can be enough for them to reassess their calculations.<\/h4>\n

But there is a more dangerous scenario.
\nIf direct military escalation between Iran and the United States resumes, we could see an actual or near-total temporary closure.<\/h4>\n

The consequences would be significant. During the 2026 crisis, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that disruptions in Hormuz resulted in millions of barrels per day of Gulf production being shut in, before revising its projections after maritime traffic improved and flows resumed.
\nTherefore, I do not believe that the United States, China, Europe, or the Gulf states want to repeat the scenario of a prolonged closure.<\/h4>\n

My overall assessment
\nIf I were to assign estimated\u2014not statistical\u2014probabilities for the next few years:
\nScenario
\nMy estimate
\nContinued navigation with intermittent tensions and threats
\n50%
\nNew security arrangements that make Hormuz more stable
\n25%
\nTemporary closure\/disruption due to a new war
\n20%
\nLong-term closure
\n5%
\nWhat matters most to me is that the future question will not be \u201cCan Iran close Hormuz?\u201d but rather \u201cTo what extent can Iran make passage through Hormuz costly and risky without itself having to bear the cost of a full-scale war?\u201d
\nThat is a completely different equation.<\/h4>\n

\nIt is also noteworthy that the International Maritime Organization itself confirmed in July that freedom of transit through international straits should not be threatened, obstructed, or suspended. This means that Hormuz has already become an international issue that goes beyond merely the Iranian-American dispute.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the future of the Strait of Hormuz? Haydari Nazar 24 The future of the Strait of Hormuz will not be one of \u201cpermanent closure,\u201d nor will it quickly return to the situation that existed before the 2026 crisis. The most likely scenario is a prolonged period of intermittent navigation, mutual deterrence, higher insurance …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1526],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-miscellaneous-articles-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31190,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31187\/revisions\/31190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}