Comparisons between tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and the 1956 Suez Crisis have become increasingly common in geopolitical analysis. The argument is straightforward: just as Suez exposed the limits of British power after World War II, Hormuz may reveal the limits of American hegemony in the twenty-first century.
The parallel is appealing. It is also misleading.
The resemblance between the two crises is largely geographic. Both involve strategic maritime chokepoints and the flow of global energy and commerce. Yet the historical context, the structure of the international system, and the nature of American power today differ fundamentally from those of Britain in 1956.
The real question is not whether the United States is undergoing a period of strategic transformation. Great powers continuously adapt to technological change, energy transitions, and shifts in the international order. The question is whether Hormuz represents for America what Suez represented for Britain.
So far, the evidence suggests otherwise.
A more fundamental issue concerns how great powers cease to function as the strategic center of the international system. History suggests that dominant powers rarely decline because of a single crisis or the loss of a single corridor. More often, decline occurs when trade, finance, technology, and security networks gradually reorganize around alternative centers of gravity.
Rome did not lose its position because one trade route became insecure. It lost its centrality because economic circulation slowly migrated elsewhere. If there is a genuine question about the future of American power, it is not whether Hormuz could be temporarily disrupted. It is whether the architecture of global circulation is beginning to operate outside the U.S.-led order.
This distinction highlights one of the central weaknesses in the Hormuz-Suez analogy.
British power in 1956 rested heavily on territorial control, colonial administration, and physical dominance of trade routes. Strategic chokepoints were integral components of the imperial structure itself. Losing control over them meant weakening the foundations of imperial power.
American power operates differently.
The postwar American order was built less on colonies than on control of the mechanisms that sustain the global economy: the international financial system, the dollar, military alliances, advanced technology, strategic supply chains, and maritime superiority. As a result, tensions surrounding a single maritime corridor do not automatically produce the same strategic consequences that Suez produced for Britain.
The difference is even more apparent in the energy domain.
For Britain, the Suez Canal served as a vital artery connecting the metropole to imperial markets, colonies, and energy resources. Any threat to the canal directly affected Britain's economic and strategic functioning.
Hormuz remains one of the world's most important energy corridors, but it does not exert the same direct influence on the United States. Its impact on America is largely indirect, operating through European allies, Asian economies, and global energy markets. The United States today is far less dependent on Persian Gulf energy imports than it once was, owing to domestic oil and gas production and its growing role as an energy exporter.
In this sense, instability in Hormuz does not necessarily weaken the American position. In many circumstances, it can increase allied dependence on U.S. military protection, financial stability, and energy capabilities.
Recent developments underscore this reality. Last month, May 26, the tanker Arosa departed the United States carrying approximately 1.3 million barrels of crude oil to the Philippines, including oil released from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The episode highlighted not American dependence on Hormuz, but America’s capacity to offset disruptions and reinforce energy security among its partners.
Nor should Hormuz be viewed solely as a regional crisis or as evidence of linear American decline.
Recent developments suggest that Washington may be using the broader strategic environment to reconfigure alliances and reinforce its presence across key global corridors.
This becomes clearer when several seemingly separate developments are viewed through the same strategic lens.
American interest in Greenland reflects the growing importance of Arctic routes, which are becoming increasingly accessible as ice coverage recedes. In the Indo-Pacific, expanding security cooperation with Indonesia strengthens U.S. access near the Straits of Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok—three of Asia's most important trade and energy corridors.
At the same time, strategic cooperation with Morocco enhances American positioning near the Strait of Gibraltar, while developments in Venezuela are tied to broader efforts to influence global energy markets and resource flows.
Taken together, these developments suggest strategic repositioning rather than strategic retreat.
Even the concept of “crisis” itself helps illuminate the nature of the current moment. The word derives from the ancient Greek “krisis,” meaning judgment, separation, or decision. In international affairs, crises often serve not only as moments of instability but also as opportunities for major powers to redefine priorities and reshape security architectures.
Viewed through this lens, Hormuz appears less as an American Suez than as one component of a broader effort to secure the corridors through which energy, commerce, and global supply chains flow.
None of this precludes the possibility that the United States may face serious constraints, challenges, or transformations in the decades ahead. But the linear comparison with Suez remains problematic because it assumes that American power functions according to the same logic that governed the European colonial empires of the twentieth century—a logic belonging to a world that no longer exists. If Suez exposed Britain’s dependence on strategic corridor, the Arosa shipment suggests that Hormuz may instead be revealing the extent to which other economies remain dependent on the resilience of the American-led system.
Endrit Reka is Director of the Security Policy Department at the Albanian Policy Center and a national security analyst focused on strategic affairs, NATO, and geopolitical competition.
