All the roads from here are bad.

Niclas Vent

Reporter

This is a commentary text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.

Updated 17.13 | Published 16.43

The ships are burning, and in the flames all simple solutions disappear.

The US has painted the world economy into a corner and almost all roads from here are bad.

What is happening now is also a lesson in how a war in Sweden's immediate vicinity may need to be fought.

The Strait of Hormuz turned out to be just as significant as everyone has known for decades.

Donald Trump was given a whole list of tough names for his military operation to choose from (it became "Epic Fury"), but the options for handling new eventualities seem to have been worked on less.

Iran has now attacked ships in the Gulf, but even before that, the threat of attacks had been enough to stop traffic on one of the world's most important shipping lanes.

A lot of focus is on the rising price of oil, but the cascade of problems the shutdown brings is now falling like dominoes throughout the world economy.

A shortage of sulfur, a byproduct of oil refining, is reducing copper production in Africa. Microchip manufacturers in Taiwan and South Korea are likely to have to scale back production when helium can no longer come in large quantities from Qatar. The absence of a quarter of the world's fertilizer that normally passes through the strait could lead to poorer harvests and food shortages.

             

             

          1 / 2Photo: Royal Thai Navy / Handout / EPA

The problem are worse every day. 

The strait must be opened somehow.

There are alternatives, but they are poor.

Iran may be able to be persuaded to give up, but nothing points in that direction right now.

The country's military capabilities are also unlikely to be completely destroyed.

The United States could escort merchant ships, as it did in the 1980s. But then you have to bring your own destroyers into the strait. Capable ships, but vulnerable in such narrow waters, where distances are short and threats are many.

In addition, it is doubtful whether you can still escort enough ships to solve the problem. Over 150 ships a day passed through the strait before the war – it will be difficult under escort.

It is possible to go ashore with ground forces and try to secure the sea belt. This would reduce the Iranians' ability to get mines, sea drones and boats into the water and push out the distances for their attacks with drones and missiles. But the consequence – “boots on the ground”, prolonged war, greater losses – is probably more than the US can live with.

The US attacks that were supposed to prevent the Houthi militia from bombing shipping in the Red Sea last spring show the difficulty.

The Houthis shot down several large Reaper attack drones, two F/A-18s tumbled into the sea from the deck of an aircraft carrier, and the US spent 8.5 billion kronor worth of ammunition in a month – without defeating the Houthis.

             

             Photo: /AP/TT / AP

The end of the war that has always seemed most likely to me is the one that Trump repeatedly hints at:

A unilateral end.

The US declares victory and withdraws.

Unfortunately, even that option may no longer work.

Iran has now been attacked repeatedly by the US or Israel. In April and October 2024, in June 2025, and now again in February 2026. An end to the war on US terms does not allow Iran to re-establish a credible deterrent. It invites new attacks, when the US or Israel feel like it next time.

Iran therefore has a long-term interest in twisting it further, now that it has the US in its grip for once.

Maybe it is too weak to do so. Maybe not.

It is at least far from obvious that the war will end just because Trump wants it to.

The war at sea is now undergoing the same change that the war on land has already done.

Large, complicated weapons have difficulty competing with small, simple ones when it comes to destructive power per dollar.

Establishing sea control requires large ships, advanced sensors and expensive air defense missiles.

Denying sea control involves fiddly mines, lots of small boats and cheap drones on the sea and in the air.

It is simply much easier to close a shipping lane than to keep it open.

The Houthis have shown this in the Red Sea.

We have seen it in the Black Sea, where Ukraine, without its own ships, managed to drive the Russian fleet away from its home port.

If there is war here, we will see it in the Baltic Sea.

Then it is we, Sweden and NATO, who will have to keep the sea open to protect our flows to Finland and the Baltics.

It will be, shall we say, a challenge.