G7 Shelves Immediate Strategic Oil Release After Brent Spikes to $120

Great-power oil shocks repeat: the 1973 Arab embargo quadrupled prices, the 1990–91 Gulf War added 50 % overnight, and the 2022 Ukraine invasion drove Brent over $120 before a record 180 million-barrel U.S. SPR release. Each episode exposed how military flashpoints in chokepoints (Suez 1956, Hormuz 1984 “Tanker War”) reverberate through inflation, central-bank policy and industrial supply chains. Today’s decision reflects two structural shifts: 1) post-2022 stockpiles are thinner after prior drawdowns, making governments wary of burning a finite cushion; 2) the West is simultaneously trying to decarbonise, so officials balance short-term price relief against long-term signals that could slow the energy transition. If the Hormuz blockade holds, history suggests mere reserve releases buy weeks, not stability; yet if it lifts quickly, restraint avoids exhausting emergency buffers ahead of an uncertain decade of climate-era geopolitical energy shocks. Over a 100-year arc, this moment tests whether advanced economies can move from reactive hydrocarbon crisis management to systemic diversification away from single-point chokepoints entirely.