The news of this spring 2026 has dispelled an illusion that has structured Western economic thinking for more than three decades: that of an interdependent world but fundamentally stabilized by trade, finance, technology and institutions. The war that spread around Iran recalled that globalization had not abolished geopolitics; It had simply made it more diffuse, more systemic, and potentially more devastating.

I.

The brutal return of tragic globalization

In a few weeks, the Strait of Ormuz has become not only a military hotspot, but an almost experimental indicator of the vulnerability of contemporary economies. Reuters reports that OPEC+ announced a theoretical increase in its production quotas for May, but that it is largely symbolic as long as exports remain hampered by the closure of Ormuz, damage to infrastructure and regional insecurity. Oil prices have gone up, while the International Energy Agency already mentions the greater energy disruption of modern history.

This shock is not just oil. It is civilizational in the material sense of the term. Developed companies rediscover that their comfort is based on continuous flows of resources that they do not control either upstream or downstream: hydrocarbons, liquefied natural gas, fertilizers, critical minerals, aluminium, electronic components, secure marine freight, payment systems, cloud, semiconductors and logistics infrastructure. The IEA warns that the supply losses already recorded outweigh the major combined shocks of 1973, 1979 and even the European gas crisis of 2022.

The most frequent reading error would be to see a regional crisis there. In reality, we are facing a nodal crisis, i.e. a conflict that is apparently localized but connected to all the circuits of world power: energy, inflation, maritime insurance, trade finance, monetary trajectories, industrial chains, military arbitrations and diplomatic credibility. The Middle East is not a peripheral theatre; It remains one of the major switches in the global economy. Reuters already notes that supply disruptions are beginning to spread across Europe, including through refined fuels, diesel and kerosene, with potential inflationary and recessive effects.

II.

The end of energy naivety

The first teaching of the current sequence is simple: the energy independence displayed by several great powers was partial, sometimes rhetorical, almost never systemic. Even when Western countries diversified their suppliers after the Ukrainian crisis and reduced some direct dependence on Russia, they remained dependent on a wider space: maritime routes, refining capacities, LNG, nitrogen fertilizers, metals, insurance and futures markets. Contemporary economies do not simply buy molecules; They depend on a traffic order. When this order breaks, prices rise, but even more deeply, industrial arbitrations suddenly become political. The European Commission itself is preparing for an energy shock « sustainable »up to considering emergency instruments, including withdrawals from reserves and targeted rationing measures if the crisis continues.

This is particularly striking in Europe. Reuters reports that input costs in the euro area increased sharply in March 2026, as a result of logistical disruption and the energy surge. In Germany, the economic institutes have lowered their growth forecasts for 2026 and 2027 while raising inflation, estimating that the new petro-gas shock could cost around EUR 50 billion in income over two years.

The crisis also recalls that energy is never one sector among others. She's a Universal cost multiplier. It spreads in transport, agri-food, chemistry, construction, interest rates, household consumption and, finally, political stability. The IMF warns that the combined rise in energy, food and fertilizer can rekindle the balance of payments crises and food insecurity in poor countries.

Sovereignty is no longer limited to the possession of borders and an army; It consists of having room for decision in the infrastructures that make the world run.

III.

The illusion of Western solidity

The developed economies have long been described as « solid » Because they had strong institutions, strong currencies, advanced technologies and deep markets. All this remains true. But this solidity has a positive effect: it depends on extreme complexity. The more sophisticated an economy is, the more vulnerable it is to the rupture of some critical nodes. Finance can absorb a shock for a while; It does not replace a tanker that does not pass, a factory that lacks inputs, or a payment chain paralyzed by geopolitical risk. Reuters already reports that tensions in energy markets are worrying the ECB for their possible impact on financial stability.

We must therefore distinguish between wealth and resilience. Rich countries can buy more expensive, subsidize more, share faster. However, they are not immune to supply disruptions, inflationary shocks or the political wear and tear caused by distant wars when they are invited into national budgets and the price of gas. The euro area faces a classic dilemma: to let some of the imported inflation flow, or to further tighten the financial conditions at risk of further weakening growth.

What is vaccid today is not the wealth of the West in itself; It's the story of automatic economic security guaranteed by the sophistication of markets. Markets can deal with measurable risk; They are less effective in dealing with strategic violence. When war returns to being a producer of scarcity, uncertainty and segmentation of the world, the economy must re-learn the language of the stock, the redundant, the national, the regional, the long-term expensive.

IV.

America, indispensable power and instability

The second major lesson of the crisis is even more disturbing for Washington allies: the world's first power remains the centre of gravity of the system, but it has also become one of the main sources of political uncertainty. The dollar still represented about 57 per cent of the world's official reserves in the fall of 2025 according to the IMF COFER; the structure of the international reserve, billing and liquidity system remains in place. This domination means that no great crisis can be managed without Washington. But it also means that American choices have a leverage effect that no other state has.

Under Donald Trump, this centrality doubles increased political volatility. Reuters reported that the U.S. President was even considering an exit from NATO, in a context where he blamed the allies for their insufficient support for the war against Iran. Whether tactical, rhetorical or seriously considered, it already has its effects: it forces Europeans to think the previously taboo hypothesis of conditional, incomplete or transactional American protection. A hegemonic power becomes particularly destabilizing when it substitutes unpredictability to doctrine.

It would, however, be simplistic to reduce America to the sole personality of its president. The core of the problem is structural. Western allies organized their security, part of their innovation, payments, software, cloud and capital markets in a deeply American-centric ecosystem. The European or Middle Eastern concern is not just about Trump's intentions; It is due to the fact that too many strategic sectors depend on a single decision-making centre.

V.

NATO, European defence and strategic revival of the Old Continent

Europe now feels that history has taken over its rights. The time has passed when trade prosperity, American security and sustainable peace on the continent could be separated. The war in Ukraine had already caused an awakening. The current crisis in the Middle East deepens by showing that the United States can be simultaneously indispensable and distracted, engaged elsewhere or even politically ambivalent towards its own alliances.

NATO remains the central military arm of European security; it has no short-term operational equivalent. The annual report of the Secretary General of the Alliance published at the end of March 2026 indicates a 20% increase in defence spending by the European Allies and Canada over 2024. Members have now agreed in The Hague to 5 % of GDP by 2035, of which at least 3.5% for defence in the strict sense. At the same time, the European Union is pushing its own Readiness 2030/ReArm Europe plan, designed to mobilise up to €800 billion in funding.

We have therefore entered a phase in which Europe no longer only seeks to « complete » NATO; It seeks to survive the possibility of a less secure America. This development is not just a military shock; This is a redefinition of the European political contract. A union that was initially intended to be normative, commercial and regulatory must now become as industrial, security and geostrategic.

VI.

Israel: tactical power, strategic impasse

Israel is at the centre of a paradox that has become more visible than ever. At the tactical and technological level, the Hebrew state remains a major military power. At the strategic level, however, its situation is deteriorating as the force tends to become the central, if not exclusive, argument for its security. Reuters reported in recent days that Israel was preparing for possible strikes at Iranian energy sites, pending an American green light. Such a stance underscores the quality of Israeli-American military coordination, but also Israel's continued dependence on Washington in regional escalation.

The Israeli difficulty is deeper than a military calculation. Any power that permanently bases its survival on armed superiority ends up meeting a political ceiling: it can deter, strike, delay, but it struggles to convert the tactical advantage into a stable regional order. The Houthis, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militias, the internal fractures of the Arab world and the radicalisation of part of public opinion constitute an environment in which military victory has no simple diplomatic equivalent.

The real strategic tragedy of Israel is there: the more he feels threatened, the more he uses force; The more he uses force, the more he feeds the regional dynamics that make his security even more dependent on his American ally. It is not a question of denying the real threats to its existence; It must be noted that no State, even militarily formidable, can permanently stabilize its neighbourhood against all, all the time and only by means of coercion.

VII.

The Gulf monarchies: wealth in the face of doubt

The Gulf monarchies often appear to be the natural beneficiaries of energy crises. In theory, oil increase equals revenue increase. In practice, the current crisis reveals another face of their prosperity: their physical, logistical and strategic vulnerability. Reuters reports that petrochemical facilities in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have been hit or damaged, while Gulf stock markets remain under pressure.

For decades, these monarchies have built an effective equation: energy rent, gradual diversification, integration into global finance, domestic modernization, and American security guarantees. However, each of these components is now part of a grey zone. Rent increases but exports are threatened; diversification requires stability and patient capital; Finance hates geostrategic uncertainty; And the American guarantee seems more conditional than yesterday.

This doubt could speed up all-out coverage diplomacy: more ties with Asia, more prudent dialogue with China, more military empowerment. But this strategy has its limits. The Gulf remains geographically exposed, and no external power now offers a security architecture as integrated as that provided by the United States. The end of Americanization, no doubt, has already begun.

VIII.

China: strategic patience and benefit of distance

China, for the moment, is observing. That word — observe — must not be confused with passivity. Beijing measures that an ascending power often benefits more from the mistakes of its rivals than from its own spectacular demonstrations. Reuters reports that Wang Yi said he was willing to cooperate with Russia at the UN Security Council to promote de-escalation in the Middle East and secure commercial shipping. This line is typically Chinese: to present itself as an actor of stability, defender of trade flows, advocate of dialogue, while leaving the military, political and moral costs of climbing to rest first on Washington and its allies.

For Beijing, the current crisis offers three comparative advantages. First, it diverts US strategic attention from Asia-Pacific. Then it alters the image of a rational and orderly America. Finally, it feeds everywhere in the global South the idea that there may be less intrusive, less moralizing and more predictable partners. China does not need to be loved to progress; It is often enough to appear as the other option.

Chinese time may not have come in the sense of a sudden shift; It is approaching in the sense of slow erosion of western centrality. In a fragmented world, meshing can be enough to gain ground.

IX.

Ukraine, relegated but unresolved war

There is another cruelty in the present news: the competition of tragedies. The burning of the Middle East has captured diplomatic, media and logistical attention to the detriment of Ukraine. Yet the war on the European front has neither disappeared nor been resolved. Reuters reports that Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation on the front line has been the best in ten months, while alerting to frailties of domestic financing and the importance of new political decisions. Further information provided by Reuters shows that Washington has considered diverting equipment originally destined for Kiev to the Middle East.

The Ukrainian tragedy is now at the intersection of two fatigues: Western strategic fatigue and competition for military priorities. If arsenals, budgets and political attention are absorbed by an expanded war against Iran, then Ukraine may be less supported not by explicit choice but by capacity saturation. This is precisely what Moscow is looking for: the dilution of Western will.

Europe knows that. That is why its rearmament is not only turned to the future Russian hypothesis; It is also the late recognition that security solidarity cannot depend indefinitely on the arbitration of a single foreign capital. Ukraine has become the most severe mirror of European sovereignty: everything that Europe is not yet able to do alone sees with clarity.

X.

Africa: wealth without leverage, or the scandal of non-transformation

Africa occupies a paradoxical position in this global recomposition. The continent has an increasing share of critical resources coveted by the energy transition, the digital industry and the reconfiguration of supply chains. However, too often it continues to appear as a supplier of raw materials rather than as a co-producer of strategic value. UNCTAD stresses the African potential for critical minerals and the need for local transformation, industrialisation, upscaling and diversification. In other words, Africa has decisive assets, but not yet the institutional, financial and industrial capacity to convert them into systemic power.

That is an essential point. The world is entering an era where raw resources are no longer enough. What counts is the control of the entire chain: extraction, refining, processing, logistics, standards, financing, intellectual property, military protection capability and diplomatic weight. Many African countries remain captive to an old model: low-processed export, expensive import, priced freight, dependent on the dollar, fertilizer, wheat, insurers and geopolitical arbitrations of others.

However, the current crisis should serve as a strategic lesson for the continent. In a world of imperfect blocks, Africa could increase its policy space not by passive alignment, but by active policy of transformation, regional integration, value-added negotiation and corridor security. The real African risk is not to be resource-poor; It is to be rich in a world that pays more for chain control than for the possession of deposits. The African issue is no longer just development; This is productive sovereignty.

XI.

Technology, finance and power: the dependencies of the 21st century

It would be incomplete to analyse the crisis by the energy prism alone. The 21st century has added other dependencies, less visible but equally structuring: those of technology and finance. U.S. platforms still dominate entire cloud, operating systems, productivity software, applied AI, capital markets and payment infrastructure. Recent EU work points to the fact that European strategic self-government is hampered by extraordinarily consolidated American positions.

Finance prolongs this asymmetry. The continued dominance of the dollar does not mean that the United States controls everything; It means that in times of crisis, almost everything still goes through them in one way or another. Reserves, debt, liquidity, markets, compliance, sanctions, banking arbitrations: US power also depends on this ability to transform its standards into global infrastructure. As long as the world remains dollarized, American choices retain a extraterritorial scope few states can neutralize.

The political consequence is immense. Allied countries or partners discover that depending on a friendly power can become problematic when this friend changes doctrine, priority or temperament. The question is no longer whether interdependence exists; It's about who owns the command nodes.

XII.

Towards a harder, more expensive, more lucid world

We enter a less comfortable age, but intellectually clearer. Illusions fall one after the other: illusion of self-regulated globalisation, illusion of abundant energy without geopolitics, illusion of unconditional American protection, illusion of a post-strategic Europe, illusion of an African wealth mechanically convertible into power, illusion of neutral technology, illusion of a finance without sovereignty. The ongoing war in the Middle East acts as an experience of truth.

The aftermath of the events remains deeply uncertain. Reuters reports both the possibility of new strikes, the attempt by OPEC+ to send a signal to markets, the search for new mediations, and the growing concern of European, Asian and Gulf actors. The only certainty is therefore uncertainty itself.

West The lesson is severe: prosperity does not abolish vulnerability.
Europe The lesson is urgent: security is no longer outsourced without risk.
Gulf The lesson is existential: the rent does not replace a sustainable security architecture.
Israel The lesson is tragic: strength is necessary, but it is never enough to produce peace.
Ukraine The lesson is cruel: the attention of the world is a rare strategic resource.
Africa The lesson is perhaps historic: either it remains the mining warehouse of a world made elsewhere, or it seizes the moment to become one of the places where the productive sovereignty of the twenty-first century is re-established.
China The hour is at methodical patience: watching others exhaust has often been, in the history of the powers, a way of preparing their own time.

The nations that will count will not necessarily be the most thundering; It will be those who can convert lucidity into strategy, dependency into diversification, wealth into capacity, and fear into method. It is in this silent conversion, much more than in the crash of statements, that the next balance of the world will be played.