Trump Threatens Oman with Airstrikes as U.S.–Iran 60-Day Hormuz Truce Collapses

Great-power bluster at maritime chokepoints is nothing new: in the 1956 Suez Crisis Britain and France tried—and failed—to use force to secure a canal that moved 10 % of world trade, only to be humiliated and pushed out by broader international backlash. Today’s Strait of Hormuz, carrying a third of global seaborne crude, reprises that dynamic, but with Washington, not London, brandishing threats and even labeling the waterway “new U.S. territory.” The episode highlights two deeper trends: (1) the creeping militarisation of economic arteries as energy importers grow more anxious about supply security, and (2) the erosion of U.S. alliance trust as partners watch Washington pivot from “security guarantor” to potential aggressor. Whether or not bombs ever fall on Muscat, the signal is clear: rules-based freedom of navigation is increasingly subordinated to raw coercion. Over a 100-year horizon, such behaviour could accelerate the long-term diversification away from oil dependency—and away from U.S. maritime dominance—much as the 1973 embargo spurred strategic petroleum reserves and new energy sources. If history rhymes, today’s threats may read decades hence as another overreach that hastened, rather than forestalled, a multipolar Gulf order.