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Iran can control Strait of Hormuz without closing it, experts warn at forum in UAE
Panel warns countries must move from 'just in time' to 'just in case', diversify supply chains and build a regional maritime security architecture as shipping risks persist
- PUBLISHED: Tue 8 Sept 2026, 7:15 PM
The Strait of Hormuz does not have to be physically closed to become a global trade chokepoint, experts warned in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, as soaring insurance costs and selective threats to shipping allow Iran to exert pressure without declaring an outright blockade.
The warning came as commercial traffic through the waterway remains far below normal levels and war-risk insurance costs have surged, making the economics of transit increasingly difficult for ship operators.
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Allison Minor, a maritime security expert, said Iran had demonstrated that it could exert effective control over shipping without physically closing the Strait, by using commercial risk to selectively influence which vessels can transit.
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“What we're seeing with Iran right now is they are trying to formalise their active control over the right to transit,” Minor said.
She said Iran appeared to be adopting a playbook used by the Houthis during their Red Sea campaign, where attacks and threats were used to raise the commercial risk of shipping.
Rather than physically blocking every vessel, selective targeting allows an actor to determine which ships can pass and which cannot, making it a more flexible form of pressure, she said.
Minor said this raised a broader concern because accepting such a system could allow maritime access to become a lever in disputes between states.
“If we accept the idea that Iran can control the movement of ships, if we formalise that, all of a sudden, they're able to use that as leverage across domains."
The Hili Forum panel, titled 'A World of Chokepoints and Blockades?', examined how countries can reduce their exposure to disruptions affecting maritime routes, energy supplies and wider trade networks.
Minor said governments also needed to help businesses move away from traditional “just in time” supply chains towards a “just in case” approach, where resilience and alternative sources are given greater weight alongside economic efficiency.
She said the private sector naturally prioritises profitability and therefore governments needed to help businesses absorb the additional costs involved in building resilience.
One possible solution, she said, was state-backed war-risk insurance to reduce the commercial risk facing shipping companies.
The United States had used state-backed insurance during earlier periods of maritime conflict, while more recent attempts to provide similar facilities had not offered sufficient coverage, she said.
Minor said governments in the Gulf could consider working together to provide insurance mechanisms capable of restoring confidence among ship operators even while threats remained.
Dr Mary Papaschinopoulou, founder and managing director of MARDIPLO Maritime Corporate Diplomacy, said the urgency was clear from incidents already affecting shipping.
She said a ship owner had approached her on Tuesday morning after a vessel carrying cargo loaded in Fujairah was hit by a projectile as it was leaving the Strait.
The incident demonstrated that the consequences went beyond the vessel itself, she said, involving cargo, crew, environmental risks and wider economic costs.
Papaschinopoulou called for a new architecture for maritime security, operating both before and during crises.
At the pre-emptive level, she proposed greater government-industry cooperation, including a shared maritime security operational picture for commercial shipping.
This could include alerts, shared situational awareness and liaison officers connecting ports, terminals, ship owners and other industry stakeholders, she said.
But such a system could not be designed by governments alone, Papaschinopoulou said, because shipping companies and governments have different priorities and operate with different understandings of risk.
“Maritime diplomacy” could also play a role during crises by creating rapid communication channels between governments and industry stakeholders, she said.
She argued that an effective system would need both kinetic and non-kinetic responses, as well as pre-emptive planning and crisis-response mechanisms.
Dr Jens Hillebrand Pohl, a geoeconomics expert, said chokepoints should not be understood simply as narrow physical passages on a map.
Physical geography was neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for something to become an economic chokepoint, he said.
Instead, a chokepoint emerges when economically important activity is concentrated in a particular location and there is a dependency that is difficult or costly to replace.
He pointed to semiconductor manufacturing, payment systems, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence as examples of non-physical chokepoints.
He said the degree of “chokepointness” also mattered, because a disruption did not have to completely stop a flow of goods or services to impose significant economic costs.
Risk management could reduce or transfer exposure, but could not eliminate dependencies altogether, he said.
The panel also examined how Gulf states could diversify their exposure to maritime and energy disruptions.
Dr Li-Chen Sim, an energy and geoeconomics expert, said Gulf countries were already adapting to changing conditions by investing outside the region and taking on some of the risks traditionally borne by customers.
Gulf states have been expanding their renewable energy investments in Asia, Africa, Europe and other markets, she said, while also adapting their energy trading and shipping strategies.
She said some Gulf energy producers were offering alternative loading arrangements outside conflict zones, exploring state-backed insurance and building their own fleets of vessels.
Owning vessels could reduce the risks faced by Asian customers who would otherwise have to charter or operate their own ships to transport energy, she said.
Sim also pointed to the rapid growth of renewable energy in Asian markets as countries seek to reduce their exposure to volatile hydrocarbon imports.
The panellists stressed that diversification should extend beyond individual trade routes.
Minor said countries needed to diversify their suppliers while ensuring that alternative suppliers did not all depend on the same chokepoint.
She also argued that infrastructure linking different markets, including railways and pipelines, required long-term regional cooperation.
Such cooperation would have to extend beyond physical infrastructure to include customs harmonisation, regulatory coordination, the removal of non-tariff barriers and greater use of digital systems.
Economic interdependence could also strengthen resilience and, in some circumstances, discourage future conflict by giving countries greater incentives to preserve trade links, she said.
Dr Inna Rudolf, an Iran expert, said Tehran had found a way to compensate for its conventional disadvantages by turning chokepoint leverage into a bargaining tool.
She said Iran's objective was unlikely to be a permanent closure of the Strait, which would also damage its own economic interests.
Instead, she said Tehran appeared to be seeking to keep adversaries guessing over whether the waterway would remain open and whether selective restrictions could be imposed on particular vessels depending on their countries' political or economic relationships with Iran.
Iran could also use non-state actors to demonstrate its ability to disrupt shipping while retaining a degree of deniability, Rudolf said.
She warned that those groups could eventually become “spoilers” to diplomatic efforts if they felt their interests were being sidelined during negotiations.
Rudolf said Iran was likely to continue developing asymmetric capabilities, recalibrating its network of regional partners and looking for alternative export routes.
The broader lesson, she said, was that governments should not focus solely on reopening the Strait through military means, but on reducing the strategic value of threats against it.
That would require transnational and cross-sector coordination, as well as finding ways to bring Iran into a wider regional security architecture, she said.
'Don't panic'
The panellists concluded that countries needed to prepare for disruption rather than simply react to it.
Papaschinopoulou's final recommendation was: “Don't panic.”
She called for collective maritime security built on innovative tools, greater public-private cooperation and stronger regional collaboration.
Pohl said governments should identify their dependencies, including dependence on international legal arrangements and corporations.
Sim urged companies and governments to map their supply chains and ensure that supposedly diversified suppliers did not share the same chokepoint.
Rudolf called for greater scenario planning, including a deeper understanding of adversaries, their networks and the domestic motivations driving them.
Minor said proactive diversification could reduce the value of future attempts to weaponise chokepoints.
The discussion highlighted a shift in how countries must think about economic security, with resilience increasingly requiring governments, businesses and regional partners to prepare for disruptions across maritime, physical, financial, technological and digital networks.
