When War Becomes Strategy: The Dangerous Economics of Permanent Conflict

There is a dangerous moment in international affairs when war ceases to be regarded as an exceptional failure of diplomacy and begins to become an instrument of permanent strategy. That moment may be approaching.

The latest escalation between the United States and Iran should therefore not be viewed merely as another episode in the long history of Middle Eastern confrontation. The renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz, the attacks on shipping, the continuing American blockade of Iranian oil exports and the increasingly explicit threats against energy infrastructure have demonstrated how quickly a regional conflict can become a problem for the entire world economy.

The Strait of Hormuz is not simply a narrow waterway between Iran and the Gulf states. It is one of the arteries through which the modern global economy breathes. Before the present conflict, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments passed through it. Today, traffic has fallen dramatically. Reuters reported that average daily commodity-ship transit had dropped to about ten vessels over a ten-day period, compared with substantially higher pre-war levels.

That is why the present confrontation matters far beyond Washington and Tehran. The central question is no longer simply who is winning the military contest. It is whether the international system is gradually becoming organised around a succession of conflicts in which military pressure, economic sanctions, blockades, technological warfare and control of strategic resources become normal instruments of international policy.

This is where the idea of “strategic sequencing” becomes important. In 2024, American strategist Wess Mitchell argued that the United States faced a growing risk of simultaneous conflict involving Russia, China and Iran and suggested that Washington would need to deal with these challenges sequentially rather than simultaneously. The argument was fundamentally about avoiding strategic overstretch.

But there is a profound irony in the concept. A strategy designed to prevent simultaneous wars can, if poorly managed, produce something almost as dangerous: a world of successive wars in which one conflict has barely ended before another begins.

The danger is not necessarily that the world suddenly descends into one conventional Third World War. The more plausible danger is a fragmented system of permanent confrontation: Ukraine and Russia; Israel and its regional adversaries; the United States and Iran; tensions surrounding Taiwan; competition in the South China Sea; cyber warfare; sanctions; economic blockades; attacks on shipping; proxy conflicts and struggles over strategic minerals, energy routes and technological supply chains.

Each conflict may remain geographically contained. Their economic consequences will not. The present crisis in Hormuz provides an extraordinary illustration. Oil prices have risen sharply as renewed U.S.–Iran fighting has increased fears of further disruption. Brent crude was approaching $100 a barrel on September 8, while analysts warned that prolonged instability could keep energy prices elevated well into 2027.

Yet the deeper economic consequences are more complicated than the price of crude oil. Higher energy costs feed directly into transportation, electricity, food production, manufacturing and international trade. They raise the cost of fertilizer and agricultural inputs. They increase shipping insurance premiums. They place pressure on currencies and foreign-exchange reserves in import-dependent countries. They intensify inflation and make it more difficult for central banks to reduce interest rates.

For developing countries, the consequences can be particularly severe. A conflict thousands of kilometres away can therefore translate into a higher petrol bill in Nigeria, more expensive food in Ghana, increased freight charges in Kenya, a wider fiscal deficit in Egypt or greater pressure on the foreign-exchange reserves of an Asian or African economy.

This is the paradox of globalization: economic interdependence has made prosperity more interconnected, but it has also made vulnerability more interconnected.

The military dimension is equally revealing. The USS Abraham Lincoln reportedly spent 266 days on deployment, most of it in a combat environment, before departing the Middle East. Its extraordinary deployment illustrates not only American military capacity but also the immense logistical requirements of sustaining modern warfare across distant theatres.

That should provoke a wider economic question. How much of the world’s productive capacity is increasingly being devoted to preparing for, sustaining or recovering from war?

Military expenditure is not inherently economically destructive. Defence can protect sovereignty, secure trade routes and preserve national stability. But when geopolitical competition becomes structurally permanent, resources that might otherwise finance infrastructure, education, healthcare, industrialisation, climate adaptation and technological development are diverted into military preparation.

This is particularly troubling for Africa. The continent does not possess the financial capacity of the major military powers, yet African economies remain highly exposed to the consequences of their strategic rivalry. Africa imports much of its refined petroleum products, machinery, fertiliser and industrial equipment. Its currencies are vulnerable to external shocks. Its governments already struggle with debt-service costs and limited fiscal space.

When war raises the price of energy and transport, African households do not merely experience an abstract geopolitical shock. They experience it as inflation. And there is another danger: the militarization of economic policy.

Sanctions, export controls, investment restrictions, technology bans, financial exclusion and the weaponisation of payment systems are increasingly becoming part of international economic competition. Some of these instruments may be legitimate responses to aggression or violations of international law. But when economic interdependence itself becomes a battlefield, the global trading system becomes less predictable.

Countries then begin to ask not simply, “Where can we buy most efficiently?” but, “Who can we trust?” That question will reshape globalization. It will encourage countries to diversify supply chains, build strategic reserves, develop domestic production and create alternative payment systems. Gulf states are already exploring alternative energy and trade routes to reduce their vulnerability to disruption around Hormuz.

For Africa, this should not be interpreted merely as a threat. It should also be understood as a strategic warning. The continent must stop treating strategic autonomy as a rhetorical aspiration. Energy security, food security, industrial capacity, digital infrastructure, regional transport corridors, payment systems and manufacturing capability are all components of national security.

This is where the present crisis intersects directly with the economic philosophy of the Islamic Economist Review. Islam does not romanticize power for its own sake. Power is an amanah — a trust. Wealth is a trust. Political authority is a trust. The Qur’anic conception of justice requires that human power ultimately serve human welfare rather than become an end in itself.

The Qur’an’s warning against corruption and excess is therefore relevant to the economics of war. When enormous resources are mobilized indefinitely for destruction while millions remain without adequate food, healthcare, education or shelter, the question is not merely whether the expenditure is strategically rational. It is whether the international order itself remains morally rational.

There is a profound difference between defending people and organizing the world around perpetual conflict. The international community therefore needs something more ambitious than temporary ceasefires. It needs mechanisms capable of preventing regional conflicts from becoming permanent geopolitical ecosystems.

Diplomacy must regain its status as an instrument of strategy rather than an activity reserved for moments when military strategy fails. Maritime security needs international frameworks rather than unilateral contests for control of strategic waterways. Energy security must be diversified. Development finance must be protected from geopolitical shocks. And developing countries must be given greater voice in decisions whose economic consequences they are forced to absorb.

Most importantly, the world must resist the temptation to normalize permanent war. A generation ago, globalization was presented as a process that would make major war increasingly irrational because economic interdependence made everyone vulnerable. The present crisis is demonstrating the reverse possibility: economic interdependence can itself become a weapon.

That is why the real lesson of Hormuz is not simply that Iran possesses leverage over a strategic waterway or that the United States possesses overwhelming military capabilities. The deeper lesson is that modern power has become inseparable from the global economy.

Whoever controls energy routes, technology, finance, logistics and strategic infrastructure possesses influence far beyond the battlefield. The challenge before the world is therefore not merely to prevent the next war. It is to prevent war from becoming the organizing principle of the international economy.

For Africa, the response should be neither isolation nor helplessness. It should be strategic economic transformation: greater energy independence, stronger intra-African trade, resilient food systems, deeper regional value chains, sovereign technological capabilities and financial institutions capable of absorbing external shocks.

The objective should be simple but profound: to build economies that cannot easily be held hostage by conflicts elsewhere. The great geopolitical question of our time may consequently not be whether one power defeats another.

It may be whether humanity can recover the idea that power exists to secure peace, prosperity and justice — rather than that peace exists only between successive wars.