The ongoing conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel, and the repeated disruption of the Strait of Hormuz have demonstrated that there may be no “normal” to return to.
The central challenge for all states affected by the crisis is not simply how they respond to individual crises, but how they operate under conditions of extreme disruption, uncertainty and geopolitical competition – features which have become persistent, even permanent, hallmarks of the strategic environment.
The experience of Hormuz is particularly revealing. The Strait is one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints, with around 20 million barrels of oil passing through it each day under normal conditions. But when around 2000 vessels were stranded in open waters as the strait was held to ransom, the consequences went well beyond the immediate actors involved in the conflict, driving up energy prices and hurting global supply chains.
Structural Volatility
The crisis is unlikely to resolve in the foreseeable future. The significance of Hormuz therefore extends beyond the immediate military confrontation and represents a new normal that states must try and contend with. The case is illustrative of what might be described as structural volatility: a condition of increasingly interconnected and recurrent crises within a fragmented international system. According to Kiva Allgood, Managing Director, World Economic Forum, this ‘is no longer a temporary disruption, but a structural condition leaders must plan for.’
This does not mean that crises are necessarily more frequent than in the past, nor that the international system has become permanently unstable. Rather, the distinction between a temporary crisis and a return to a stable status quo is becoming harder to sustain as the political faultlines have shaken the fundamental order of international relations.
States and organisations may therefore increasingly need to plan for prolonged periods of uncertainty rather than assume that disruption will be followed by a predictable restoration of normality.
From Regional Conflict to Global Disruption
The strategic importance of the Strait and the goods that pass through it means that any pressure on maritime traffic can have global implications. During periods of disruption, vessels can be delayed or diverted, shipping costs and insurance premiums can rise, and energy markets can respond rapidly to uncertainty over future supplies.
This is an example of the weaponisation of interdependence. States are increasingly able to exploit their position within interconnected economic and technological systems to create effects beyond the immediate crisis. Energy routes, financial networks, critical infrastructure and supply chains can all become sources of strategic leverage.
The implication for security planning is that physical distance from a crisis no longer insulates states from shock. A crisis does not need to reach a state’s physical territory in order to affect its security. Hormuz is a clear demonstration of how closely global economic and security systems have become intertwined.
A More Multipolar and Competitive Environment
Structural volatility is also being shaped by changes in the distribution of global power.
The United States remains the world's most capable military power and retains considerable influence through its financial, technological and diplomatic networks. For example, the US dollar accounted for 56.8% of global foreign exchange at the end of 2025. However, China’s economic, technological and military weight has increased substantially.
Beijing’s alignment with the Global South and its aspirations to become the world’s dominant manufacturing power, have challenged US hegemony as regional partnerships such as BRICS, ASEAN, and the EU begin to see China as a crucial trading partner.
Competition between the US and China through trade wars has split the global economy into spheres of influence, decoupling traditional alliances, generating protectionist trade policies and turning trade and supply chains into domains of competition (p.476).
However, multipolarity should not be understood simply as a source of instability. For many states, including those in the Middle East, a more plural international system creates opportunities to diversify economic and diplomatic relationships and exercise greater strategic autonomy. The challenge is that a more complex distribution of power also creates more competing interests and more potential pathways through which crises can develop.
From Multilateralism to Strategic Flexibility
A further characteristic of the emerging environment is the growing difficulty of relying on traditional multilateral institutions to manage every major crisis. The limitations of institutions such as the United Nations Security Council have been evident across a number of recent conflicts, including the ongoing war in Ukraine. At the same time, states have increasingly turned towards regional organisations, smaller coalitions and issue-specific partnerships to pursue their interests.
Examples of these so-called “mini-lateral” arrangements are the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), BRICS, G20, The Quad, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Such arrangements exist as a response to the effective decline of existing multilateral organisations.
But this does not mean that multilateral institutions are becoming irrelevant. Rather, the international system is becoming more institutionally diverse. Regional organisations, minilateral arrangements and bilateral partnerships increasingly operate alongside established global institutions and are built over shared interests instead of common values and ideology. Within smaller groups, decisions can be fast-tracked, consensus would be more achievable compared to large member group who often undermined by bureaucracy and political deadlock.
For states facing persistent geopolitical uncertainty, this makes strategic flexibility increasingly important. Governments may need to maintain multiple diplomatic, economic and security relationships simultaneously rather than rely on a single institutional framework or strategic partner.
Summary
The continuing instability around Iran and Hormuz illustrates a broader reality of contemporary geopolitics: regional security crises increasingly have consequences that extend across economic, political and strategic boundaries.
The answer is not simply to predict when the current crisis will end or when conditions of volatility will stabilise. Instead, governments and organisations need to consider whether their operating assumptions remain appropriate for an environment characterised by persistent uncertainty, interconnected risks and shifting centres of power.
Structural volatility does not mean that instability is inevitable. And neither does it mean that the international system is permanently condemned to crisis. It means that resilience increasingly depends on the capacity to anticipate disruption, diversify dependencies and adapt quickly when assumptions fail.
For Gulf states, the strategic objective should therefore be not merely to return to normal after the next crisis, but to build the capacity to operate effectively when there is no guarantee that “normal” will ever return.
