War With Iran Is Forcing the World to Reckon With Geography’s Power

For decades we have lived in a world that seemed to transcend geography. Information, money, goods, germs and weapons have come to defy distance. Whispered confidences and billion-dollar bounties are traded instantaneously. Smartphones, satsumas and sandals are delivered to your doorstep from across the globe. Ballistic missiles are able to traverse continents in minutes. But such everyday assumptions have been challenged by the economic havoc wrought by the blockage of a single vital shipping and energy route in the Persian Gulf. The conflict in the Middle East, set off by U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran seven months ago, has driven up energy prices. It has also had a hand in pushing up interest rates, disrupting factory production around the world, jeopardizing harvests and stoking angry protests from Syria to Guatemala. Geography is back with a vengeance. “As we think about the global economy or the modern economy, we often forget just the basic plumbing, and that is logistics,” said Shannon O’Neil, senior vice president of studies and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Stuff still needs to get from here to there.” Image The remains of a school in Iran that U.S. airstrikes hit. Confrontation and coercion have become go-to approaches rather than last resorts. Credit... Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times Conflicts and climate change are causing disruption. Countries and armed groups that can’t begin to match the military, technological or economic power of the United States have to some degree held the world’s economy hostage simply because of their position on the map. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .