Under the pressure of extreme energy prices, the ideologically driven miscalculations of the EU—and Germany in particular—are revealing their fatal, destructive magnitude. Europeans must do everything in their power to make the Strait of Hormuz navigable again.

The Hormuz crisis threatens to become a catastrophe for Europeans. No region is as dependent on oil and gas supplies as Europe, while the United States can operate from a comparatively sovereign position of energy self-sufficiency.

Precisely for this reason, Europeans should have a vital interest in securing the Strait of Hormuz militarily in order to safeguard their energy flows.

The geopolitical chessboard is shifting rapidly: U.S. President Donald Trump has raised the question of whether it is even in America’s interest to keep this lifeline open under heightened risk—a shocking message from a European perspective, yet one that has largely passed without reaction.

From the very beginning of the crisis, the United States has made a decisive move by announcing its push into the maritime insurance business.

Following a fourfold increase in premiums and the refusal of key insurers such as Lloyd’s to cover the risks of passage through Hormuz, the United States is now preparing a state-backed reinsurance mechanism to take over this geopolitically crucial sector.

In doing so, it will determine who can transit—and who cannot.

Europe thus finds itself in an increasingly precarious strategic predicament. Militarily, it is largely incapable of acting, and economically, due to its flawed energy policies, it is dependent in multiple ways on external actors—not least on LNG supplies from the United States.

It fits the pattern that President Trump openly questioned on Wednesday whether the U.S. Navy should ensure the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz at all.

Through the leverage of insurance and maritime security, concessions in trade, industrial, and regulatory matters can be extracted in the future. This applies not only to Europe, but also to China.

If the United States succeeds in bringing the Strait of Hormuz under its control, it will effectively set the price Europeans must pay for their energy supplies from this region. Only then will the true cost of Europe’s misguided energy policies become fully apparent.

Modern civilization, which at its core is a derivative of secure and affordable energy supply, rests on a few fundamental pillars: the production of synthetic fertilizers, cement, steel, aluminum, and plastics—all energy-intensive yet indispensable materials that enable complex economic activity and higher levels of civilization.

That nations or cultures would voluntarily abandon the production of these goods—by artificially creating scarcity, as is the case in Europe—is historically almost without precedent.

Brussels is creating artificial shortages in precisely these essential sectors, with dangerous consequences.

As an energy-dependent continent, Europe relies on cooperative solutions and should strengthen its internal economy through deregulation and maximum competition in order to produce the goods that make affordable raw material and energy imports possible in the first place.

In Germany’s case, these were once automobiles, machinery, and chemical products.

In Brussels, a bureaucratic perpetuum mobile has emerged, one that has translated virtual, narrative-driven processes into real power.

Lacking direct democratic legitimacy, the European Commission now operates with its own budget framework, its own bond issuances such as NextGenerationEU bonds, and increasingly acts on behalf of the member states as a mediator on the international stage.

Brussels anchored its political-material power with the establishment of the green transformation project under the agenda name “Green Deal.” This represents a systematic shift of competencies from European capitals to Brussels. With growing financial flows, the central bureaucracy gains control and increasingly intervenes in national legislative processes.

The price is the centralization of energy policy and the corresponding erosion of national sovereignty, along with the destruction of what was once a functioning market design in this critical sector of the economy.

What is happening in Europe—the ideologically driven, almost naive stance toward Russia, and the refusal to secure oil and gas tankers jointly with the United States under European military escort through the Strait of Hormuz—carries the potential for an economic catastrophe, particularly for Europe.

Fifty-seven percent of its energy is imported, while the United States remains largely energy self-sufficient.

Following the attack on the PARS oil field on March 18, the already numerically weakened and structurally degraded forces of the Iranian regime may have lost their final economic lifeline.

From a realistic assessment of military capabilities, there is little doubt that the United States will ultimately prevail in the power struggle over the Strait of Hormuz and the broader Middle East.

What is going on in the minds of political decision-makers in Brussels, Berlin, London, and Paris? How can they fail to recognize the civilizational rupture on the horizon, misreading the warning signs so fundamentally? If energy supply collapses, the foundations of civilization crumble. Even a basic understanding of causality should make this clear.

Yet this does not appear to apply to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Despite the looming energy crisis, he has once again rejected a return to nuclear energy. Germany remains under the sway of globalist ideologues and has already paid a trillion-euro price for undermining its own economic foundations in the name of green dogma.

What should one make of a policy that fails to respond to sabotage against critical energy infrastructure, pours vast resources into a green patronage economy, and simultaneously abandons nuclear energy to secure symbolic victories for a political fringe? EU energy policy has effectively become a civilizational catastrophe—the product of a political class that places moralism above reason.

Europe would be well advised to pursue a de-ideologized policy and defend the shared interest of a sovereign Europe composed of capable nation-states.

In the question of the Strait of Hormuz, everything is being decided in these days. And the American president has repeatedly extended his hand to establish a jointly organized military security framework.

The question is: how long can Europeans afford to continue their current energy policy trajectory? And how much time will pass before Europe’s capitals begin to correctly interpret the imbalance between their geopolitical ambitions and their actual weakness?

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Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss/ Germany, is a graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.