India Lodges Formal Protest After U.S. Strike on MT Settebello Kills 3 Indian Sailors

Washington’s decision to fire on a foreign-flagged commercial ship recalls earlier U.S. coercive maritime actions, from the 1987-88 Operation Earnest Will tanker escorts in the same waters to the 1988 downing of Iran Air 655—incidents that sparked diplomatic outcry from non-belligerent states. Structurally, the event underscores two intersecting long-term trends: the weaponisation of global supply chokepoints (Strait of Hormuz today, Suez in 1956) and the growing assertiveness of middle powers like India that have both vast energy needs and millions of citizens working in international shipping. If a century ago the Royal Navy policed sea-lanes unchallenged, the current U.S. blockade—and India’s rare public rebuke—signals a gradual erosion of uncontested maritime hegemony; every clash that endangers multinational crews pushes the world toward either new multilateral rules or a fracturing of open-sea norms that have underpinned global trade since Bretton Woods.