Dear all,

The Third Gulf War has been on-going for over a month now and its time for an emergency update to all subscribers. Whilst the conventional military campaign has gone well and the capabilities of the Iranian regime have been significantly degraded, the other war, the Energy War has gone disastrously wrong.

Iran has effectively closed the Straights to most oil and gas flows for 4 weeks now. Much of the world outside major oil and gas producers are staring at a huge energy and economic hit within weeks, with particular focus on South Asia, East Asia, Australasia and Europe.

What this map shows (JP Morgan) is the dates when the last tankers from the Gulf arrive at different regions around the world. Basically between now and mid April no more tankers arrive for the entire world, which will result in a physical supply shock by around the 20th April 2026.

What does that mean in real life? Energy lockdowns are coming around the 20th April for most of the Old World: rationing of petrol and diesel consumption, work from home guidance, restrictions on non-essential flying and supply issues around a wide range of goods dependent upon Gulf based resources. The length of the energy lockdowns will depend upon how long the Straights remains effectively closed, which is impossible to forecast at the moment.

Even if the war ended tomorrow, it will take a month for things to re-open, tankers to return and start going out to re-supply importers around the world. And in reality there are no signs that peace is about to emerge in this troubled region. As an individual there isn’t much you can do, other than maybe order whatever you need now (when supplies are still available), don’t order any holidays for the coming months and revisit, if you haven’t already, your personal resilience lifestyle.

Longer term, this crisis will pass and we will see a partial recovery as things stabilize. But it reminds us all of the wisdom of John Greer’s advise to “collapse now and avoid the rush”, something I have been writing about for years now.

The wider point I would also like to discuss is this Iran war seems to be accelerating the end of the Pax Americana which will involve the partial or total withdrawal of the US from the Middle East and Europe. President Trump is now openly talking about leaving NATO. The timeline from which the US strategically withdraws to the western hemisphere appears to be accelerating again leaving Europe at huge risk by the end of the 2020s (and just in time for the Greater Depression that I am expected will erupt around 2030).

Tough times are coming folks. Buckle up.