The appropriate question is not whether every Trump economic policy is individually good or bad. It is whether these policies collectively produce the American industrial capacity, skilled workforce, higher productivity and greater economic independence they are intended to create.

Commercial systems react independently to risk. Those reactions can nevertheless reshape the battlespace in ways that subsequently influence military decisions.

Saudi Arabia built the East-West Pipeline precisely so its crude would not be hostage to Hormuz. The attack on that pipeline, combined with Houthi advances toward Bab el-Mandeb, demonstrates the next stage of the contest: the battle is migrating from the chokepoint to the network designed to bypass the chokepoint.