If corruption exists within the coal economy, beneficiaries could include businessmen, brokers, transporters or officials with no ideological connection to the BLA whatsoever. That possibility may actually be central to the investigation.

ssue No. 6 of State of the Strait examines how Tehran is tying the reopening of Hormuz to the wider postwar settlement, even as shipping contracts, oil prices rise, and the international system searches for ways around Iranian coercion.

strategic competition is increasingly being expressed through infrastructure, industrial capacity, mineral supply chains, maritime access, workforce development, and commercial relationships rather than through military activity alone.