(Phnom Penh): A country does not need to completely close a strategic waterway to trigger an energy crisis. If the threat of attack makes shipowners reluctant to sail, pushes insurers to raise premiums and forces shipping companies to reroute vessels, the resulting disruption alone can tighten supplies and drive up energy prices.
On the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen sharply as the United States and Iran continue to trade attacks.
To the west, the Houthis, after capturing the Yemeni port city of Mocha, have continued advancing along the Red Sea coast and attacking the Hanish Islands. Their advance is raising fresh concerns about the security of shipping around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
This raises a larger strategic question: Is the Iran war creating pressure on two of the world’s most important energy chokepoints at the same time?
The answer is increasingly yes — but with an important qualification.
Neither the Strait of Hormuz in the east nor Bab el-Mandeb in the west has been completely closed. Yet both strategic waterways are facing heightened risks. Hormuz is experiencing severe disruption from the U.S.-Iran conflict, while the Houthis’ advance is increasing uncertainty around Bab el-Mandeb.
Why Do the Two Straits Matter?
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most important gateways for oil and natural gas exports from the Persian Gulf to global markets. Before the war, roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade passed through this strategic waterway.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, meanwhile, connects the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea, which leads northward to the Suez Canal. It is therefore a critical route for oil, gas and commercial goods moving between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Put simply, if one chokepoint is disrupted, markets may be able to rely partly on alternative routes. But if both a primary route and an important alternative are simultaneously exposed to serious security risks, the consequences may extend far beyond the Middle East, putting pressure on global energy supplies, trade and prices.
What Is Happening at Hormuz?
The Strait of Hormuz has become a major front in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Attacks on vessels, threats from missiles and drones, and the danger posed by naval mines have placed shipping through the strait under severe pressure.
The confrontation has also extended to unmanned U.S. naval surveillance systems.
Iran recently claimed that it attacked and destroyed a Saildrone Explorer, an unmanned surface vessel used for maritime surveillance, near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. The claim followed an earlier Iranian assertion that it had captured a U.S. unmanned underwater vehicle.
These incidents suggest that the contest over Hormuz is no longer only about control of shipping lanes. It also involves surveillance, intelligence gathering and situational awareness above and below the surface of the sea.
But the more important strategic point is this: Iran does not need to completely close Hormuz to inflict economic damage.
If attacks and threats convince shipowners and insurers that sailing through the strait has become too dangerous, commercial vessels may reduce or avoid transit even without a formal blockade.
That is why U.S. military superiority around Hormuz does not automatically translate into normal commercial shipping. Dominating a battlespace and making a commercial waterway safe enough for routine traffic are two different challenges.
What Is Bab el-Mandeb — and What Is Happening There?
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a narrow maritime passage between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. It connects the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea, which in turn leads to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean.
It is therefore one of the world's key maritime arteries for trade and energy shipments between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
What is drawing renewed attention to the strait is the Houthis’ advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
Reuters has reported that Houthi forces captured the port city of Mocha and attacked the Hanish Islands, while Yemeni government forces pulled back toward Dhubab, near the entrance to Bab el-Mandeb.
The advance does not mean that the Houthis have taken control of or closed Bab el-Mandeb. Commercial vessels can still transit the waterway.
But it brings the group closer to a strategically sensitive area from which threats to Red Sea shipping could become more serious.
That leads to a critical question: If Hormuz is already becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to navigate, what happens if Bab el-Mandeb also becomes a waterway that commercial operators consider too risky to use?
At that point, the problem would no longer be merely the disruption of a single chokepoint. It could become simultaneous pressure on two critical arteries of global energy and maritime trade.
Even the Alternative Route Could Face Risk
When the Strait of Hormuz becomes dangerous, Saudi Arabia has an important alternative for reducing its dependence on the waterway: transporting crude oil by pipeline from production areas in the east of the country to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
This allows Saudi oil to reach the Red Sea without passing through Hormuz.
But there is a strategic complication.
Oil loaded at Yanbu and destined for Asian markets must travel south through the Red Sea and pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
This creates a striking strategic paradox: avoiding the risk at Hormuz could send tankers toward another potential risk at Bab el-Mandeb.
Bab el-Mandeb remains open, and commercial shipping continues to transit the strait. But if the Houthi advance results in intensified threats or attacks against shipping, the route Saudi Arabia can use to bypass Hormuz could itself become increasingly hazardous.
Is This Part of an Iranian Strategy?
This is where the analysis requires caution.
There is extensive evidence that the Houthis have close ties with and receive support from Iran. But that alone is not sufficient to conclude that Tehran is executing a coordinated plan to close or control both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb simultaneously.
There is, at present, an important distinction between strategic effect and proven strategic coordination.
Even without evidence that events around the two waterways are being directed under a single operational plan from Tehran, their effects are beginning to point in the same direction: increasing risk to major energy and commercial shipping routes on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula.
The next question, therefore, is whether pressure at Hormuz and the Houthi advance near Bab el-Mandeb will increasingly reinforce each other — and how far that combination could affect global energy supplies.
Oil Prices Are Measuring the Pressure
The impact of the conflict is becoming increasingly visible in energy markets.
On September 11, Brent crude approached $110 a barrel as markets continued to worry about disruption to Middle Eastern oil supplies.
But markets are no longer watching Hormuz alone. The Houthis’ advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast is adding another layer of concern about shipping security around Bab el-Mandeb.
Oil prices are therefore becoming one indicator of how much geopolitical risk markets are attaching to the conflict.
And the consequences do not end with crude oil.
Higher oil prices can raise transportation and production costs, which can eventually feed into consumer prices and inflation across many economies.
In simple terms, what begins in the distant waters of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb can eventually reach the wallets of consumers around the world.
Conclusion
So, is the Iran war creating two-chokepoint pressure on the world’s energy lifelines?
Yes — that pressure is emerging. But it should not be confused with Iranian or Houthi control of both waterways.
Hormuz is experiencing severe disruption from the U.S.-Iran conflict, while Bab el-Mandeb remains open but faces growing security risks as the Houthis advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
The real danger is therefore not simply whether Hormuz or Bab el-Mandeb is formally “open” or “closed.”
The greater danger is that both waterways could become high-risk zones at the same time, making it increasingly difficult for global shipping to rely on either the primary route or the alternatives designed to bypass it.
If that happens, the consequences of “two-chokepoint pressure” will no longer be confined to the Middle East.
They could become a global problem — affecting energy supplies, shipping costs, trade, inflation and ultimately the cost of living for consumers around the world.
