Welcome to Captain Phillips' Nightmare || Peter Zeihan

TL;DR

Somali piracy is resurging in the Red Sea because the Iran war has tied up US naval forces, leaving no coalition capable of patrolling the region.

Key Points

• 1.Piracy is back due to the Iran war consuming US naval bandwidth. At least three ships have been attacked near the Horn of Africa and Red Sea; the US has its largest-ever naval concentration in the region focused on the Strait of Hormuz, leaving no capacity to patrol against pirates.
• 2.The Strait of Hormuz going offline triggered a cascade of global supply failures. Roughly 750 million barrels of crude have been removed from markets — approximately 10–15% of global supply — and non-nuclear navies can't afford the fuel to deploy long-range anti-piracy forces in a war zone.
• 3.The Red Sea is becoming a second no-go zone, forcing shipping around Africa. Shuttle tankers from the Baltic and Black Sea that once transited Suez now face an impossible choice: pay Somali pirates (who lack crypto accounts unlike Houthi/Iranian proxies) or sail distances too great to be viable.