Filenews 26 June 2025
By Guney Yildiz
The 200 Israeli fighters that took off before dawn on June 13, 2025 carried out the largest airstrike in the Middle East since 1973. The fragile ceasefire – mediated by the US and Qatar – has frozen the exchange of fire, but not the rivalry between Israel and Iran.
These 12 days did not reshape the Middle East's borders, but redefined risks in three interrelated areas: maritime bottlenecks, the energy market, and capital flows. The map from Rotterdam's storage terminals to Riyadh's tech hubs has changed.
Two coalitions
The airstrikes revealed the arena: two coalitions, but not two "iron alliances".
– The "Coalition of Loose": the United States, Israel and some Gulf states share common satellites, codes and synchronized air defense. They diverge on their goals: Israel wants Iran's arsenal to be downgraded "completely, forever", the Gulf states want calm "sea routes" for oil and... their revenues.
The "Coalition of the Hard" – Tehran's so-called "Axis of Resistance" ideologically links Hezbollah, Iraqi militias and Yemen's Houthis, but precision munitions and air cover are not its trump cards. The result is a dogmatic asymmetry: Iran can threaten sea routes and cyberattacks, but it cannot respond to 200 aircraft. It tries to compensate for its weaknesses with "grey" tools: mines, ransomware, bots.
The restraint of the great powers eventually limited the escalation in the Middle East. Beijing warned of a shock to oil prices, Moscow remained busy with Ukraine, and Washington limited strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. However, middle-aged players still harbor fantasies of winning, bringing to the fore the risk of some "accident" in the future.
Maritime "bottlenecks"
The markets did not "see" a missile strike in the Strait of Hormuz. But insurance companies priced that risk anyway – and not only. They recalled that on March 4, 2025, the Houthi-attacked Rubymar ship anchored three fiber optic cables in the Red Sea, knocking out about 17% of Asia-Europe internet capacity and revealing how a maritime "incident" can paralyze not only the oil market but also data flows.
When Israel attacked Iran on June 13, insurers priced this double exposure to the Gulf crossing: by June 23 the premiums for tankers under threat of war had doubled to about 0.5% of the hull value (≈ $4,000 a day), even though Hormuz remained open – brokers in London cited the "combination of risk to shipping and cables" as a reason.
A minefield now costs double the premium
The crisis has revealed that a minefield is now priced at a double premium: both for commercial cargo transported and for broadband. The risk protocols that separate "shipping" from "data" do not reflect modern reality.
Investment drought sets new price caps
Brent jumped nearly 9% to $78-79 a barrel in the week of June 13-22, 2025, at its highest level since early April, even though the Strait of Hormuz was not closed. The real "culprit" was not the interruption of supply, but the lack of supply. Global crude production capacity is below 4 million barrels per day and below 70 percent in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The OPEC Secretary-General has repeatedly said that "insufficient investment, not demand, is the real risk" to price stability. Twelve days of war confirmed this view: markets adjusted the forward curves based solely on market psychology, since no barrels had been removed from the market.
Goldman Sachs now sees a risk premium of $10-$12, reflecting the new reality. The ceiling can appear overnight...
Gulf state funds chase instability, they do not "hide" from it
While the missiles were still falling, Gulf sovereign wealth funds were quietly rewriting the "investment in times of crisis" textbook. Abu Dhabi's ADQ closed a $25 billion deal. with the U.S. ECP fund to build power plants and smart grids across North America for artificial intelligence. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has finalized a deal for a $1.8 billion artificial intelligence "vehicle." first announced at the Technology Summit, LEAP.
There is a fundamental change: Gulf funds no longer go into hibernation during geopolitical turmoil – they arbitrate them, buying energy assets whose strategic value increases in times of instability.
The boards of directors of the corporate entities that manage the Gulf funds must make new calculations. Today's investor can become tomorrow's price maker in a turbulent market.
The ceasefire as a timer
Israel's doctrine of "rolling denial" suggests another precision strike within 6-12 months, to keep Iran constantly in response, but not "in the corner." Tehran's possible response: cyberattacks, sabotage of undersea cables and drones.
Options not as explosive as ballistic missiles. Therefore, the markets will respond more quickly compared to the start of the recent attacks.
The physiology of new risks
Twelve days of limited combat have revealed that the danger is now spreading along supply networks much faster than along the battlefields. A missile takes a few minutes to reach its target – the reaction of premiums and data delay can occur in seconds.
A ceasefire is measured in trading sessions, not time periods. The manuals for the next crisis cycle are already being written.
Those who view a truce as a solution rather than a preparation may find that resilience pays off in a twelve-day cycle of events. The margin of error has shrunk to the speed of light traveling through underwater cables, and the stakes have expanded to include every supply chain passing through the world's most vital sea routes.
The next crisis will come faster, it can hit harder, and it will require reactions measured not in days but in algorithmic milliseconds. The question is no longer whether global supply chains can withstand geopolitical shocks, but whether they can adapt quickly enough to survive.
The sudden "12-day war" between Iran and Israel has shown how a missile near Hormuz can trigger a serious supply chain risk at two "bottlenecks." The Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb found themselves at the center of threats from drones and anti-ship missiles, risk pricing algorithms lagged behind freight premiums, insurance companies redefined risk clauses overnight, and global supply chains learned how fragile "resilience" can be.
