From Sparta to “Çanakkale,” to Hormuz, then Taiwan:What Does the History of Straits Teach Us?
- sara john
- Mar 23
- 5 min read
Samir al-Taqi
Military history teaches us that nothing is more enduring than the lessons of geography, and nothing is older than the struggle over straits.
In the final years of the war between Sparta and Athens, Sparta took control of the straits at Aegospotami (near “Çanakkale,” Turkey) in order to cut off the grain route to Athens. The fragmentation of Athens then accelerated, only for Rome to succeed it decades later.
In the First World War, the Allies—led by Britain and France—confronted the Central Powers: Germany and Austria.
At the time, Russia demanded enormous loans from Britain and France in exchange for joining the Allies, with those debts to be repaid through Ukrainian wheat.
But Germany soon succeeded in persuading Ottoman Turkey to join the Central Powers and, consequently, to close the Dardanelles.
Churchill undertook to address rising wheat prices and the dangerous inflation that followed by dispatching a major naval force to open the Dardanelles, with the participation of twelve countries. At that time as well, Britain spoke of regime change in Ottoman Turkey.
Yet after Allied warships failed to destroy the Turkish fortifications, Churchill sent an amphibious landing force, which was swiftly crushed, causing a disaster for Churchill. In its aftermath, the great Ottoman Turkish commander Atatürk rose to prominence, and he soon destroyed with his own hands what remained of the Islamic Caliphate, in order to found the modern Turkish nation-state.
On the other side, the Allies’ defeat helped accelerate the decline of the British Empire itself, as well as the growth of Australian, New Zealand, and Scottish national consciousness.
This is attested by Les Carlyon’s Gallipoli (“Çanakkale”), a work rich in documents and soldiers’ letters, which records the rise of national feeling among the patient, witty, and courageous ANZAC soldiers, who were killed in the tens of thousands as a result of the absurd orders issued by Churchill’s leadership at the imperial center.
What a familiar film this is.
Strategic historians compare what occurs at the great turning points of human history—moments of rise and decline—to what is called the Thucydides Trap, as manifested at the Dardanelles.
For its part, the war in Ukraine, which began as an armored war, quickly turned into an artillery war (for the Russian army is, fundamentally, an artillery army). Yet the development of Ukrainian technologies transformed it in turn into a drone war, with drones becoming responsible for 80 percent of the losses.
And we should not forget that the Black Sea straits were a fundamental element in the Russian invasion of 2022. Had the Russians succeeded in taking Odesa, they would have deprived Ukraine of its grain and fertilizer trade, and the war would have ended long ago.
Indeed, thanks to cheap naval and aerial drones, Ukraine—which possesses no navy—broke the equation of the straits and retained Odesa, as well as the maritime routes to the Mediterranean.
Thus, we may say that the history of conflict over straits constitutes a central chapter in global military history. We do not mean that what happened at “Aegospotami,” “Çanakkale,” and Odesa will be repeated verbatim in Iran, but it does carry immense lessons.
We understand that precision weapons have, by 2026, created enormous differences from that earlier age in the strategic situation.
Yet, as in Afghanistan, that superiority would diminish greatly should Trump decide to put boots on the ground.
Now, the United States is not alone in employing asymmetrical methods; Iran employs them as well. All it needs to do is raise the risks surrounding the security of navigation in Hormuz.
As for the possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, the United States is learning the lessons of the Ukrainian war far too late. Indeed, Trump finds himself facing a structural economic dilemma known as “Ferguson’s Law”: great powers cannot long continue spending more on defense than they spend on interest payments on their debt. America crossed that threshold in 2024. It no longer possesses unlimited fiscal room for maneuver.
As for Zelensky, who failed at Davos to secure support for Ukraine’s anti-drone war industry “to prevent Russia from bombing Paris and Brussels,” Iran has now convinced America and many other countries to invest in Ukrainian drone production in order to protect the Strait of Hormuz.
Treasury Secretary Bessent says, “The president’s appetite for risk is even greater than mine.” But at the threshold of one hundred dollars per barrel, Trump’s own appetite comes to an end.
From another angle, and much as in the case of the Ottoman Caliphate, the political defeat of the Iranian regime is already visible by most measures. It may not be long before the Iranian economy reaches a catastrophic point, while the possibility ferments that, from the smoke, an Iranian “Atatürk” may emerge and refound the model of the state anew.
Like all wars over straits, the radical and profound changes will affect the entire structure of the region and its states, including, of course, Israel and Turkey.
Yet the scenario more dangerous than Hormuz by far is taking shape in another strait, against the backdrop of the global scene surrounding Taiwan.
The Strait of Malacca constitutes an economic chokepoint far greater than Hormuz, and 90 percent of the trade in high-quality chips necessary for artificial intelligence passes through it. Its closure would produce the current American crisis.
We do not assume that Xi Jinping is planning an invasion of Taiwan, given the enormous risks this would pose to the Chinese economy. But with international tensions rising and the instruments of peace preservation in the world deteriorating, China may move—without firing a single shot—toward imposing a customs blockade on the Strait of Malacca and Taiwan as part of what it considers China’s sovereign rights.
Although Trump says that “Taiwan is not that hill he wants to die on,” he would nonetheless be compelled to establish an air bridge to Taiwan. China’s control over Taiwan’s trade would place the Trump administration before a major strategic dilemma, especially under conditions of serious depletion in stocks of precision missiles during the Iran war, along with the erosion of the defense industrial base, such that it would require more than two years to recover, even if the required two hundred billion dollars were made available by Congress.
Especially after the Ukrainian and Iranian experiences, America requires a military-industrial revolution to redesign its capabilities in full, so that it may produce its cheap drones in the millions and move toward the next generation of attritable weapons.
Last year, he succeeded in exploiting his monopoly over rare raw materials and ending Trump’s trade war in his own favor. This reality creates a serious opportunity for Xi Jinping, though he appears cautious in seizing it.
Thus, the international knot is no longer tied at Hormuz, but rather to whatever Xi Jinping decides.
Yes, Trump may believe that he made the decision to wage war on Iran with full awareness, but he never considered the negative and collateral geopolitical risks.
For when a great power wages war, it must prove its strength in all international theaters at the same time.
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