The dual-blockade reveals the shape of 21st-century great-power war

The US and Iran have produced something novel: a dual blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, where neither side controls passage and both sides prevent it. Twenty percent of the world's crude oil has been locked behind competing cordons for nearly two months. The war began with the US and Israel assassinating Iran's supreme leader; Iran retaliated with missiles and mines; the temporary ceasefire collapsed; now the global economy waits on negotiations that both sides claim to want and neither side see ...