Strategic Chokepoints Shaping the World Order

ESILUX Vice-president and Director or Research Christophe Lesschaeve was featured in Luxemburger Wort and Télécran in an interview on the strategic chokepoints on which the contemporary world order increasingly depends. The article, titled “Acht Knotenpunkte, an denen die Weltordnung hängt,” examines how military conflict, economic disruption, technological dependence, and infrastructure vulnerability can produce global consequences when they converge around a limited number of critical nodes.

Lesschaeve’s central argument is that the idea of a “chokepoint” should be understood broadly. It does not refer only to narrow maritime passages such as the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab, or the Bosporus. It also includes technological dependencies, military supply chains, digital infrastructure, semiconductor production, and critical raw materials. In each case, the strategic problem is similar: when a single node becomes blocked, threatened, or politically weaponised, the effects can cascade far beyond the immediate region.

The Strait of Hormuz remains, in Lesschaeve’s view, the most consequential chokepoint in the world because it has no real alternative. Oil exports from the Persian Gulf depend on this narrow passage, and existing pipelines cannot replace maritime trade. A prolonged closure would produce severe energy shocks, especially in South and Southeast Asia, and could also trigger food crises in parts of Africa and Asia through disruption to fertiliser supplies. Europe would be less exposed than some regions, but no part of the global economy would be fully insulated.

The interview also highlights Europe’s dependence on the United States in technology and defence. Lesschaeve points to American cloud infrastructure, military logistics, intelligence, spare parts, and software updates as areas in which European autonomy remains limited. This does not mean full independence is realistic or desirable. Rather, the strategic objective should be diversification. As Lesschaeve puts it, Europe will have to sacrifice some efficiency in order to gain resilience.

Several examples underline this logic. Bab al-Mandab, the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez route, shows that even threats can be enough to redirect shipping, raise insurance costs, and disrupt trade. Taiwan illustrates a different form of chokepoint: the world’s dependence on advanced semiconductor production, reinforced by the unique role of the Dutch firm ASML in producing the machines required for the most sophisticated chips. China’s dominance in rare earths and critical minerals offers another example, though Lesschaeve stresses that this is not a natural inevitability. Europe could develop its own capacities, but has chosen not to bear the environmental and social costs.

The article also identifies less obvious or changing chokepoints. The Danish Straits could be used more effectively to constrain Russia’s shadow fleet and oil revenues. The Suwałki Corridor, once seen as NATO’s Achilles’ heel, has lost some of its strategic salience after Finland and Sweden joined the Alliance. The Bosporus remains important, but Turkey’s implementation of the Montreux Convention has limited Russia’s naval options in the Black Sea.

A key takeaway from the interview is that not every vulnerable infrastructure is equally strategic. Pipelines, undersea cables, and data centres matter, but redundancy often makes them less catastrophic than commonly assumed. The broader lesson is clear: the coming decade will be defined less by the pursuit of maximum efficiency than by the need for redundancy, diversification, and resilience. For Luxembourg and Europe, this is precisely the kind of strategic debate ESILUX seeks to advance.

Photo credit: Thomas Parker, Pexels.