Time for some straight talking about the Straits

For decades now, successive US administrations have done military planning and organised war games to see how a US conflict with the Iranian regime would play out. These exercises invariably concluded with the unremarkable discovery that Iran would react to US military strikes by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for 20% of world oil and gas supplies and for other key products such as iron ore, helium, ammonia, and nitrates for 30% of global fertiliser stocks as well. It would take Iran only a fraction of the military resources that the US (and Israel) would use to bomb Iran for the Islamic Republic to impose a comparable level of pain in the economic domain on the US. And whereas US strikes would achieve a diminishing impact after the first few days of a campaign, as Iran adjusted and hunkered down, a small but persistent retaliation by Tehran against economic targets would have a progressively larger impact as oil and gas prices surged to unprecedented highs – and stayed there. As hostilities continued, the time to stave off a global recession would become ever shorter. This would give Iran the upper hand as the longer the war went on, the more Washington rather than Tehran would come under domestic and international pressure to end it. Recognising the likelihood of massive economic disruption from an attack on Iran, US planners calculated that short-term military objectives, such as pushing back Iran’s nuclear programme and missile and drone production, could be outweighed by the longer-term economic risks. So, they wisely advised US Presidents to forget about the use of force and go back to the negotiating table with the Iranians and use diplomacy to get the best deal possible.  

For some reason known only to himself, President Trump has chosen to ignore this good advice. And so, as his war against Iran enters its second month, the Iranians have stopped commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz for three weeks already. They have not had to do too much. Just firing projectiles and drones at 20 oil tankers thus far has been enough to halt traffic except for ships belonging to “friendly countries” (like India and China) not involved in the war, which Iran is allowing through, although in some cases demanding a transit fee of $2mn per vessel. This has led US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to speak of a “Hormuz toll booth”.  

Some countries such as Indonesia, India and Vietnam, have already sought bilateral deals with Iran to secure freedom of navigation for their tankers. Yet 300 ships and their crews have remained stranded in the Strait with insurance rates soaring and most operators unwilling to use the waterway in current circumstances. As a result, the price of Brent Crude has risen to $115 a barrel and gas by 40%, increases that have been accentuated by Iranian strikes against Saudi and Qatari production sites at Ras Tanura and Ras Laffan. The strikes have added production and refining stoppages to the problem of transport and distribution. According to the International Energy Agency, 11 million barrels a day have been taken off global oil markets. Consumers in Europe and North America are already feeling the pinch. Diesel prices in California have hit $7.17c a gallon and there has been panic buying in Australia, obliging state governments to make public transport free for a month. The Philippines worried about running out of oil imports has announced that it is turning to Russia. In a dramatic turnaround and to stabilise jittery markets, the US has temporarily lifted oil sanctions on Russia and even Iran while attacking it. Asia is already experiencing shortages and governments in Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia have asked their citizens to avoid travel, work from home and conserve energy. Rationing is now on the agenda. China has banned exports of refined petroleum. Shops and restaurants in Egypt have been told to close early. These measures may well spread to Europe over time. Forecourt prices for motorists are up by around 40% and farmers are warning of higher food prices and reduced agricultural output because of a lack of fertiliser and soaring energy costs. A similar situation applies to air travel and although Western governments are not indicating fuel shortages and the need for rationing yet, there are worries about the availability of diesel and jet fuel coming down the line if the Iran war drags on for weeks or even months. There is definitely no end in sight at the moment. Inflation will rise along with household bills and the vulnerable will be hit hardest. Governments forced to restore the energy subsidies that characterised the early months of the war in Ukraine in 2022 will see again their public finances and national debt spiral out of control. But the anxiety of motorists and air travellers pales into insignificance when we consider the impact on global hunger if less developed countries in Africa and Asia are unable to obtain the oil and fertiliser to drive their agricultural production and feed their people, putting more pressure on international food aid and development assistance that the US and some major European countries are currently cutting.  

The UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, and the Director of the UN World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, have already issued sharp warnings. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has set up a Fertiliser Taskforce anticipating a drop in wheat, corn and rice supplies if the 30% of global fertiliser that is shipped through Hormuz stays away from markets for another week. Trump may say that this disruption is a price worth paying to curb Iran and that he doesn’t care much anyway as the US is today self-sufficient in oil and LNG production (and will rake in more money from higher international prices and profits) but the rest of the world may beg to differ. Hormuz is a timely reminder that even in an age of digital business, pipelines, road haulage, trains and cargo planes, ships still carry 85% of global trade by volume and 55% by value (as bulk goods can sometimes be of less financial value than smaller items such as mobile phones or Swiss watches).   

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has confronted President Trump with a critical choice. Having failed (so far) to achieve regime change in Tehran (not the same as changing regime faces) and running out of military targets after conducting more than 10,000 strikes, Trump may decide to declare victory and stop the war. As his war objectives have constantly shifted, it would be easy for him to now say that Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes have been sufficiently degraded for the Islamic Republic to no longer pose a threat to its neighbours (or to the US itself). But the other option is that confronted with the chaos on global energy and stock markets that his war has unleashed, Trump may decide that the US now needs to achieve permanent control over Middle East transport, critical infrastructure and energy production and distribution.  

First and foremost, by denying Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz and notwithstanding the fact that in the 5-point peace plan that it has published, Iran is demanding US and international recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait. Yet if full US control is Trump’s aim, the question is how could the US do it? Securing freedom of navigation is the obvious starting point. It means demining the Strait. Iran is thought to possess around 6000 mines of various types, including moored mines that hover just below the surface and acoustic or magnetic mines that sit on the seabed and are triggered by the signatures of ships passing overhead. There is an irony here in that the US Navy, which has long neglected mine warfare in both training and procurement, scrapped its last Avenger-class minesweepers stationed in the Gulf last January. The Pentagon has boasted of its success in destroying Iran’s navy, claiming to have sunk over 120 naval vessels and 44 mine–laying ships. Yet it does not require sophisticated naval vessels to lay mines and Iran still has plenty of fast patrol boats that can be used for this purpose. Although Iran has not mined the Strait yet (and indeed needs this vital waterway to move its own oil to markets in China and Asia), it will have the capacity to do this quickly if it so decides.  

A second priority for the US is to encourage commercial shipping companies to use the Strait by providing military escorts. This was done by the US Navy back in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war (when the US was not a combatant) but it proved costly and inefficient. There were simply too many tankers and too few escorting warships for normal commercial operations to be resumed before the end of hostilities, making maritime protection unnecessary. The US and its allies tried something similar during the 2011–2018 period when Somali pirates were seizing commercial vessels for ransom in the Gulf of Aden. It took three separate international task forces (with the EU and NATO running their own separate counter–piracy operations called Ocean Shield and Atalanta) and the involvement of private security companies onboard the commercial vessels, before the problem was brought under control. But many shipping companies solved the problem at considerable extra cost by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope and avoiding the Gulf of Aden (and transit through the Suez Canal) altogether.  

Today with cheap drones, howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems in abundant supply, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open would be even more challenging. Convoys would require much more air cover in the form of interceptor drones, helicopters, fighter jets, reconnaissance aircraft and tactical short-range air defence as well as electronic jamming equipment. Maritime experts have calculated that it would require a destroyer to protect every two tankers – a highly expensive and unwieldy prospect if the escort operation has to be kept up for months. Yet the US Navy currently has 14 warships in the Middle East region. Six of these are being used to protect the two aircraft carriers that are being used for air operations against Iran. So, the US Navy would have to bring in more assets from the US, Europe and Asia. The Asian allies would be alarmed given that the US has already stripped the region of Patriot air defence batteries and two Marine Expeditionary Units to send to the Gulf. It will take the US several weeks to assemble a maritime task force in the Gulf to reopen the Strait of Hormuz even if commercial vessels are willing to cooperate and run the Iranian gauntlet. US naval priorities elsewhere, such as fighting narco trafficking in the Caribbean or patrolling through the South China Sea and Strait of Taiwan would suffer, and European navies would need to assume even more of the burden of monitoring the activities of the Russian shadow fleet in the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean, defending Greenland and protecting the sea lines of communication across the North Atlantic. Given that even the US Navy would find patrolling the Strait of Hormuz a stretch, it is no surprise that Trump has called on the European allies to send ships to the Gulf to support the US. He seems to believe that this is a NATO responsibility, although NATO is a defensive alliance that responds when one of its members (like the US after the 9/11 terrorist strikes) is attacked, not when a member launches an unprovoked assault on someone else.  

Yet Trump did not consult NATO or its members collectively or individually before launching his Gulf operation. The explanation given by NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, that the US needed to preserve operational secrecy is unconvincing, given that the US had been building up its naval and air forces in the Gulf for months, clearly increasing the likelihood of a US attack. There is ‘no taxation without representation’ and European allies would have wanted to know what the US strategic objectives were, how they could contribute to the military plan and rules of engagement and what legal basis existed for such an operation. A NATO operation is, after all, led militarily and overseen politically by NATO, that is to say all 32 allies – clearly something not what Trump, expecting allies to be vassals rather than equal partners, has in mind. Yet Trump has made unquestioning European followship once again a test of his own commitment to uphold US security guarantees to NATO members. He said that the “US won’t be there for them” in the future, underscoring again that he sees NATO treaty obligations in transactional terms with Europe expected to compensate the US in other areas. The Europeans were called “cowards”, coming to the fight after the US had already won it, and the offered but rejected UK aircraft carrier dismissed as a “toy”. In typical Trump style, the US President oscillated between calling on the Europeans to come to his assistance one day and saying that he did not need their help the next. Yet the US administration at no time made clear what type of European support it wanted, where and when, making it difficult for the Europeans to prepare their forces and consult parliaments and public opinion. Whether Trump will make good on his threats to punish the reluctant allies for their hesitations is still unclear. Much will depend on how the Iranian war ends for him politically. But he could well order more US troops out of Europe or cancel US participation in NATO exercises as part of the Pentagon’s forthcoming Global Posture Review. He has even threatened to withdraw the US from NATO altogether but, given the legal and Congressional obstacles, has so far not followed through on this threat. Yet in the perverse logic that characterises the Trumpian foreign policy, forcing the Europeans to do more for their own defence will make it harder for them to help the US out in the Middle East or Asia, even if next time round they may be more politically inclined to do so.  

The pitfalls of maritime strategy in the Strait of Hormuz have swung the debate onto the use of ground forces. The US assault ship, Tripoli, has arrived in the Gulf from Asia with a 3500-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit onboard. A second one is en route as are US special forces and units from the 82nd Airborne Division. Within days, the US will have 10,000 ground troops in or near the Strait. And 40,000 more at US bases throughout the region that could be used as well. Trump may be bringing these forces together to put pressure on Iran to reopen the Strait. He has already extended his ultimatum to Tehran by 10 more days as if he is playing for time to work out what to do next. But whenever Trump puts US forces somewhere, such as off the coast of Venezuela or near Iran prior to his attack, he ends up using them. The Washington Post has reported that the Pentagon has drawn up options and plans for the use of US ground troops in Iran. One intent could be to seize Kharg Island in the Strait, which is Iran’s major oil loading terminal responsible for 94% of its exports. If the US destroyed the facilities, it could cripple Iran as an oil exporter for decades. Other Gulf islands disputed between Iran and the UAE – such as Abu Musa, the Greater and Lesser Tunbs – could be occupied too. Alternatively, the US ground forces could try to establish a presence on the Iranian shoreline to prevent Iran from firing rockets or drones against ships in the Strait or to hunt down and destroy the Iranian storage sites and launch platforms. Yet as Iran can fire drones and rockets from deep inside the country, a thin line of US forces strung along the coast will not be able to stop Iran from disrupting shipping in the Strait if it chooses to do so. At the same time, the risks for the US and Trump himself are enormous. It is much easier for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the army to strike ground forces than aircraft and warships or to shoot down incoming missiles. US casualties, limited thus far, could suddenly skyrocket. Iranians would come together in defiance of a foreign occupation of their territory. Trump’s MAGA base, already uneasy about the war, could fracture further and Republicans in Congress (who have defeated motions from Democrats calling for Congressional oversight up to now) could change sides. Like Johnson in Vietnam, Bush in Iraq and Obama in Afghanistan, Trump could be caught up in the same messy quagmire that he promised to avoid. Marco Rubio said at the G7 meeting near Paris last week that the US could achieve its objectives in Iran without ground troops but his boss, forced to escalate the war because he doesn’t know how to end it, may well see things differently. Trump is now caught in a vicious circle. The longer he continues the war, the more he needs to show significant gains; which means in turn that he needs to continue the war.  

Those of us who dabble in geopolitics will see the current situation in the Strait of Hormuz as another illustration of the importance of “strategic seas” to the global economy and the security of the major powers. This is not a new thought. At the beginning of the 20th century, a generation of military strategists in the UK, Germany and the US emphasised the key role of certain maritime choke points. The British First Sea Lord on the eve of the First World War, Admiral John “Jackie” Fisher, proclaimed that “five strategic keys lock up the world”. He was referring to places that facilitate control of vital waterways and had in mind Singapore, Cape Town, Alexandria, Gibraltar and Dover. In an age of Entente Cordiale and Anglo-German harmony, modern–day admirals may dispute the inclusion of Dover in this list but they would certainly add Hormuz (since the massive expansion of consumption of Middle East oil after 1945) and also the Bab al–Mandab Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal from the south. The Gulf of Aden has been back in the spotlight since the Houthis in Yemen, financed and supported by Iran, responded to the Israeli bombing of Gaza after 7 April, 2023 by firing rockets at warships and commercial vessels transiting between Yemen and Somalia through the Bab al–Mandab. In some cases Houthi commandos boarded the ships from helicopters and diverted them to ports in Yemen. On all 30 commercial vessels were attacked. Before Somali pirates, followed by the Houthis began to disrupt this traffic after 2008, the Gulf of Aden was the conduit for 10% of global trade. Today as shipping has looked for safer routes the figure is only 4%. It could be even less in the future if the Houthis now join in the Iran war. They stayed on the sidelines at first, having been bombed by Israel and the US last year, but have now fired a rocket against Israel and renewed their threats against Gulf of Aden shipping. Coupled to the blockage in Hormuz this could be very disruptive as the Saudi strategy has been to send its oil cross–country to its port of Yanbu on the Gulf of Aden and load it there onto tankers. The Saudis were planning to pump 4 million barrels a day to Yanbu and circumvent Hormuz but this approach will not work unless the Gulf states working with the US and the Europeans can keep the Houthis in check and make the Bab al–Mandab safe for commercial shipping.  

Yet the past two decades have given European defence planners plenty of other maritime headaches too. The war in Ukraine has seen Russia mine the Black Sea and bombard Ukrainian ports like Odesa to hinder Ukraine’s ability to export its grain, critical for global food supplies. Difficult and expensive overland routes across eastern Europe have had to be found instead. The Dardanelles and the Montreux Convention have constrained Europe’s ability to send warships into the Black Sea although they have prevented Russia from reinforcing its Black Sea Fleet as well. In the Baltic Sea, Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers have played havoc with undersea cables and have been implicated in drone operations and intelligence gathering. As Russia exports 35% of its oil across the Baltic Sea, the defence of vital sea passages such as the Kattegat, Skagerrak and Øresund makes Denmark vitally important to NATO’s collective security. In the Atlantic the growing strength and activities of Russia’s Northern Fleet have forced NATO to take a new look at how it can close the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap in wartime, overhaul its anti-submarine capabilities and send warships to defend Greenland. If the polar ice pack melts away and China and Russia use the High North more for military power projection, the control of the Bering Strait will become ever more contested. And further afield, maritime choke points abound too. The Strait of Malacca is the most important conduit for oil and goods. Over 80% of China’s imported oil passes through that waterway. If China controls the Taiwan Strait and suffocates Taiwan into submission, 90% of supplies of the world’s most advanced semi-conductors could be affected. In the Western Hemisphere, Trump has made access to the Panama Canal a central point of his National Security Strategy. He has forced China to relinquish the management of the two ports on either side of the Canal. It accounts for only 3% of global trade but 40% of US container shipping and is vital for the US Navy to move ships between the Pacific and the Atlantic.  

Of course, not all these vital waterways are threatened at the same time or in the same way. The main problem facing the Panama Canal is climate change with drought reducing water levels in the Canal and halving the number of ships that can transit it at any one time. Another reason for Trump to want the US Navy and US–owned vessels to have the priority. Some choke points are easier to circumvent than others if they are suddenly closed in wartime. Asia is easier in this respect than the Middle East or the Mediterranean. If large numbers of ships are stuck in the Persian Gulf or the Mediterranean shipping rates for those ships still potentially available elsewhere can soar while prices for goods also go up when ships need to take longer routes and burn more fuel. Re-routing overland (as in the Saudi pipeline to Yanbu) is also a possibility and can enhance diversification and reduce vulnerability to blackmail. But building pipelines to Russia or road connections to Pakistan (as China is doing) takes time and costs a lot of money. Yes indeed it would be wonderful if we could have fully green economies with our energy coming mainly from renewables over which we have control rather than the fossil fuels, which are controlled by Iranian mullahs or Gulf sheikhs. But this is still going to take decades even if we do not throw overboard the EU net zero targets. Thus, the vulnerability of Europe and the global economy to sea transport (which Hormuz has graphically demonstrated) cannot be resolved overnight. So, Europe will need to pay more attention to maritime choke points and have a strategy to be able to better protect them where its critical security and economic interests are threatened. What are the priorities?   

First, it makes sense for Europe to focus on the Gulf of Aden rather than the Strait of Hormuz. The reason is that European navies, whether as part of the EU’s Atalanta mission or NATO’s Ocean Shield, have gathered decades of experience operating there. This includes cooperating with the riparian countries as well as the commercial shipping and private security companies. The EU has deployed a new maritime mission to the Gulf of Aden called Asperis, which is particularly mandated to deal with the Houthi threats. It has been in the Gulf for two years and has an agreed mission concept and legal basis. Other partners like the UK, Canada or Norway can be associated. So, it makes sense for the EU to tell Washington that it will specialise in the Gulf of Aden. To the extent that the EU is successful, this route will remain open and allow the Gulf countries to export more oil and gas through the Bab al–Mandab in both directions and ease some of the pressures caused by the closure of Hormuz to the east. The EU could also explore with NATO and the US additional support that could be provided to Asperis in the form of intelligence, aerial reconnaissance and counter–drone technology. It could also explore the possibility of burden sharing with NATO if the Alliance were able to send one of its Standing Maritime Groups of multinational naval assets to the Gulf of Aden on a rotating basis. NATO planners and naval officers could be invited to join the EU operational headquarters for Asperis.  

Second Europe should remain cautious when it comes to a role in the Strait of Hormuz. Naval assets are precious and, as we have seen, in high demand across the strategic seas of the world. Europe’s navies are also not what they were during the Cold War years. The UK Royal Navy, for instance, is down to 17 frigates and destroyers – 6 Type 45s and 11 Type 23s. An ageing fleet also means more frequent maintenance intervals. The UK had 23 ships the last time that Labour was in power. A new generation of warships (Types 26 and 31) have been ordered, some in conjunction with Norway. But the first of these will not be commissioned before the end of the decade. Other European countries are building new ships too and France and the UK operate modern aircraft carriers. Yet a good portion of their naval procurement budgets goes on their nuclear missile submarines (also being upgraded). This is good for deterrence but not so useful for day-to-day maritime patrolling. Some ships that were sent to the Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus were being readied for deployment to the North Atlantic.  

In sum, European allies need to consider where they get the best security value from their naval assets. There are not enough warships to be everywhere all the time. At the moment, a mission in the Strait of Hormuz in wartime poses great risks while having only little chance of success. US war aims are no clearer today than at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury. US and European warships would operate under different rules of engagement with the US Navy still engaged in a combat mission. If Iran is able to continue to strike production facilities across the Gulf there would be less oil to ship. The same would apply if the US blows up all of Iran’s oil structure, as Trump is threatening to do. That would mean that European escort ships could well be under-utilised while being seen by Iran as co-belligerents and therefore legitimate targets. The European ships would require expensive force protection in the form of counter–drone, counter–torpedo and counter–mine capabilities. Given this high cost and employment of additional military assets, it makes more sense to keep European ships in the Eastern Mediterranean to protect NATO ally, Türkiye, which has already been fired upon four times by Iran. In the meantime, European contingency planning for reopening Hormuz should continue, looking at all the options together with the shipping companies, insurers like Lloyd’s and the UN International Maritime Organisation. Already, 35 countries, including the UAE and Bahrain, have signed a declaration of intent to work and plan together, and the UK has offered to host an international conference when the time is right to move forward. This means a ceasefire and a US-Iran agreement setting out specific provisions for the operation of the Strait. Yet we are still a long way from reaching this point as the current US and Iranian peace plans give diametrically opposed positions. Both are insisting on their right to control the Strait exclusively.  

Third, Europeans participating in the France-UK–led Coalition of the Willing need to engage Türkiye and the other NATO countries with Black Sea coastlines on a long-term maritime security framework for this waterway following a ceasefire in Ukraine. There will need to be demining and safe corridors across the sea for commercial ships. Ukraine’s ports, grain storage and loading facilities will need to be prioritised in reconstruction projects. This is to help global food supplies but also Kyiv to generate income from grain and mineral exports, which can help it to finance reconstruction. Europe can also involve the Ukrainian navy in ship construction as many of its vessels from the Black Sea Fleet are now obsolete, where they were not seized by Russia after its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. In return, Ukraine can share its underwater drone technologies with its European partners. A Ukrainian submarine force could be a deterrent against Russia being able to project power in the Black Sea in the future. Both NATO and the EU should conduct regular training and exercises with the Ukrainian navy. They will need to send naval task forces through the Turkish Strait on a regular basis to assert their presence and push back against Russian aerial harassment, as happened frequently after 2014. All these measures are designed to ensure that Russia does not drive European navies out of the Black Sea in the future, and that Ukraine has untrammelled use of the sea for its prosperity and development.  

Fourth and finally the EU needs to look at the ways in which maritime choke points could impact its global logistics networks. The assessment needs to identify where there is a high impact from even minimal disruption and vice versa. It should also analyse the possible workarounds in terms of alternative supply routes (land, air, sea) and where using other routes would need more advance work, such as access to ports, hardening critical infrastructure, joint ventures on pipeline construction, or negotiating storage facilities. The merits of using force to reopen a vital choke point versus leaving it and activating another,alternative route need to be balanced. Vulnerability to attack or disruption along these logistics routes should be part of security contingency plans with cyber attacks receiving the same attention as sabotage or onshore missile threats. Where a waterway is far distant from Europe but still important for Europe’s trade and supply chains of critical minerals and materials, the EU’s diplomats and military planners could intensify consultations and practical cooperation with regional partners who are in the lead. An example is the Strait of Malacca where Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand cooperate against piracy. Their cooperation is wary given different positions on the status of territorial waters in the Strait and interactions with the EU might bring them more closely together. Cooperation on choke points can also emerge from the bilateral security agreements that the EU has signed with a number of key Asian maritime powers, such as Japan, South Korea and just last week, Australia. Of course, contingency planning only gets you so far.  

In a globalised economy, disruptions produce knock–on repercussions at warp speed and protecting oneself against the shocks and spillover is well nigh impossible. And you still need the military assets to make a difference and the planning and political will to use them effectively and in the right place at the right time. But being prepared is always better than leaving it to chance and praying for wars to end quickly or hoping that allies, such as the US Navy, will protect your vital interests and do the job for you. And if planning and preparation can not always guarantee the best outcome, they can usually prevent the worst. Where the EU cannot find substitutes and workarounds, it can build strategic reserves and stockpiles of oil and gas and also critical materials and rare earths to provide a cushion during periods of war or crisis. Back in the 19th century, another maritime geo-strategist, the American Alfred Thayer Mahan, hoped that the oceans would become a “wide common” for the use of all nations trading freely with each other. But in the 21st century, sea space has become as contested as other domains such as cyberspace, physical territory, air transport corridors or the information space. Choke points are the windpipes where adversaries can apply pressure and increase pain levels quickly and easily. EU member states and the EU institutions need to do some straight talking with each other about the Straits. And quickly. 

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.