Global oil prices have surged about 60% since the start of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, with restrictions on tanker movements through the Strait of Hormuz creating the largest oil supply disruption in history. In some “America First” circles, however, the mood is upbeat about the notion that the strangled Mideast energy supply means tankers are rerouting toward the world’s largest oil supplier: the United States.

The catch is that a range of factors, including the tyranny of distance, make U.S. and Venezuelan oil unattractive buys for the Asian industrial economies that supply the bulk of the world’s manufactured products. One is a required change to industrial architecture and processes if refiners switch from “heavy” Middle Eastern oil to “light” American varieties.

Asia Editor Andrew Salmon examines the situation in a dispatch from South Korea, which is heavily reliant on Persian Gulf oil and is grappling with the dramatic price increases associated with switching away from it. The reality is that the vast additional distances Asian tankers would have to travel to plug into U.S. terminals would elevate costs for Asian companies that churn out the world’s goods, from cars to phones, from chips to ships.

Ukraine has ramped up assaults on oil-rich Russia’s energy infrastructure in a bid to dampen the windfall Moscow stands to gain as prices and demand soar in the wake of the U.S. blockade of Iran in the Persian Gulf. 

Russia has benefited economically from the Iran conflict, replenishing coffers drained by the war with Ukraine. Russia’s oil income is reaching its highest level since 2022 as the American closure of the Strait of Hormuz squeezes global supplies. Reuters reports Russia’s oil revenue doubled to $9 billion in April after Mr. Trump waived sanctions on Russian crude to ease the global energy crunch.

In the interim, Ukraine has increased drone strikes on energy targets vital to Russian oil exports. Notably, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium was attacked this week. “The goal is to cripple Moscow’s war financing,” said N.J. Ayuk, an oil expert and the executive chairman of the advocacy group African Energy Chamber.

China is rapidly building up space-warfare capabilities and by 2040 will be conducting low-level warfare powered by advanced technology aimed at weakening the United States, according to a new Space Force report.

The report, made public this week, is titled “Future Operating Environment 2040.” It describes a dark vision of conflict with Beijing below the level of declared war in the next 14 years.

“By 2040, the operating environment is marked by ongoing, hard-to-detect competition below the level of declared war,” the report predicts. “The line between peace and conflict has become unclear amid continuous electromagnetic activity, cyberoperations and covert interference in orbital regimes.”

The greatest loser in the Hungarian parliamentary elections was “not the prime minister, Viktor Orban, but rather the American president, Donald Trump,” longtime journalist Donald Kirk writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“The loss of Mr. Orban’s ultraconservative Fidesz party majority in the parliament had been anticipated for weeks,” writes Mr. Kirk. “After serving 16 years as Hungary’s leader, Mr. Orban had lost the support of voters fed up with their leader’s affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin, his refusal to support the valiant Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion and his hostility toward the European Union and NATO.

“Now, the parliament will vote into office the somewhat less conservative Peter Magyar, dedicated to cleaning up corruption and supporting the European Union and NATO while remaining on talking terms with Russia,” Mr. Kirk writes.

For nearly half a century, “every American president pledged that Iran’s theocrats would be prevented from acquiring the nuclear capabilities that could lead to the fulfillment of their grand ambition: ‘Death to America!’” writes Clifford D. May, founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Yet no serious actions were ever taken. President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action allowed enrichment, left Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure intact, imposed time-limited restrictions and legitimized a pathway to nuclear weapons,” writes Mr. May, a columnist for The Times and opinion contributor to Threat Status.

“If Mr. Trump had not struck when he did, then Tehran might have acquired nukes while continuing to build up an enormous arsenal of drones and missiles,” he writes. “The war that past presidents concluded was unnecessary would then become a war that future presidents could not win, or could win only at an exorbitant cost in blood and treasure.”

• April 20 — Shared Risk, Shared Responsibility: Lessons from Canada on Allied Burden-Sharing in Global WMD Threat Reduction, Stimson Center

• April 20 — The Impact of the Iran War on Turkey, Middle East Institute

• April 21 — Profiting from Chaos? Russia’s Energy Windfall from a Fragmented Middle East, Chatham House

• April 22 — Pakistan at the Center: A Year of Change at Home and Abroad for Islamabad, Stimson Center

• April 23 — The New India Conference: India’s Importance to American Interests, Hudson Institute 

• April 27 — Power, Religion and Ideology in North Korea, Brookings Institution