Foresight briefing 002 · 2026

With Marco Rubio confirming that the offensive stage of Operation Epic Fury is over, the Iran conflict has entered a new phase. That does not mean the risk is fading. It means the risk is changing shape — from an acute military shock into a more persistent, harder‑to‑read environment of contested corridors, controlled access and embedded business uncertainty.

That shift matters because diplomacy is now active but still fragile. Iran said on 6 May that it would accept only a “fair and comprehensive agreement” with the United States, while President Trump said “great progress” had been made, but Reuters also reported that efforts to turn talks into a concrete deal have so far failed to produce results and that previous Iranian proposals linked to reopening the Strait of Hormuz were rejected. For senior leaders, this is exactly the kind of moment when the headlines suggest de‑escalation, but the underlying business risk remains unresolved and may continue to settle into costs, constraints and resilience questions over the next 2–18 months.

This matters especially in manufacturing, financial services and technology. In those sectors, one stretch of contested geography can affect physical supply chains, energy markets, cloud performance, transaction flows and client service continuity at the same time.

Hormuz after Epic Fury

The immediate shock around Hormuz is well understood. What matters now is what a low‑simmering or partially frozen conflict does over the next 2–18 months.

The US has moved from offensive operations to a defensive posture around the Strait of Hormuz, but that does not create a clean return to normal. It creates a more ambiguous operating environment: continued naval presence, periodic incidents, and a corridor where political signalling, security guarantees and commercial movement remain tightly intertwined.

For businesses, that matters because uncertainty becomes structural. In this phase, the relevant question is less whether Hormuz is formally “open” or “closed” and more whether shipping, insurance and energy assumptions have become reliable enough to support planning again. At the moment, they have not. Commercial traffic remains heavily disrupted, routing assumptions are still in flux, and any diplomatic opening could still stall or reverse.

For manufacturers, that means continued pressure on energy inputs, shipping reliability and inventory planning. For financial institutions, it means a different risk profile for clients exposed to energy, shipping and trade, alongside tougher resilience conversations with supervisors. For technology firms, it raises more fundamental questions about cloud regions, data routes and digital infrastructure linked to the Gulf.

What pushes Hormuz beyond a standard geopolitical issue is that the theatre is now digital as well as physical. Reuters reported in late April that Iran had warned submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz were a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy. Those cables help connect Asia, the Gulf and Europe and support the data flows behind cloud services, transactions and cross‑border operations. Reuters also noted that the conflict had already disrupted regional infrastructure, including data centres in Bahrain and the UAE, and that indirect cable risk could arise from damaged vessels or maritime congestion even without a deliberate strike.

That makes Hormuz relevant not only to commodity markets but to business models that depend on continuity in cloud, connectivity and transaction systems. It is no longer just an energy chokepoint. It is a cross‑domain business risk.

Undersea cables are no longer a technical side issue

The Hormuz story matters even more because it fits a wider pattern. In April, the UK publicly revealed a month‑long covert Russian submarine operation around British and allied cables and pipelines north of the UK. According to the UK government, no damage occurred, but the operation showed that undersea infrastructure is being actively monitored and treated as a strategic target set.

That is what makes the link between Hormuz and deep‑sea cables so important. These are not two separate stories awkwardly stitched together. They are two recent examples of the same shift: the infrastructure that underpins trade, data, payments and cloud services is being drawn more openly into geopolitical competition.

For financial services, that means cable disruption is not just a telecoms issue. It can affect latency, payments, market operations and regulatory scrutiny around operational resilience. For manufacturing, it reaches into logistics visibility, outsourced operations and the digital coordination that modern supply chains rely on. For technology firms, it goes directly to cloud concentration, service continuity and the geographic assumptions built into infrastructure strategy.

In other words, undersea cables are no longer background plumbing. They are part of the strategic environment senior leaders now have to take into account.

Why this matters for you

If you lead a manufacturing business, the relevant question is not simply whether Hormuz eventually reopens. It is whether the next 12–18 months bring a more expensive, less predictable operating environment across energy, freight and the digital systems that coordinate supply chains.

If you lead a financial institution, this is not only a market story. It is also a resilience and supervisory story, involving third‑party dependencies, transaction continuity and the need to evidence preparation for cross‑domain disruption.

If you lead a technology company, the issue is broader than cyber security in the narrow sense. It is about whether the cloud regions, connectivity routes and infrastructure dependencies behind your service model remain robust in a world of contested chokepoints and fragile diplomacy.

The main risk in all three sectors is the same: a conflict that appears to have moved into talks may still be increasing operational exposure across several parts of the business at once.

Where the HORIZON Futures Engine adds value

This is the kind of environment where a futures approach earns its keep. The challenge is not a shortage of information; it is recognising when a geopolitical event has shifted into a long‑tail business risk that cuts across domains.

HORIZON helps by maintaining structured horizon scanning with a 2–18 month view of developments around critical corridors like Hormuz, connecting political, market, digital and regulatory signals into one coherent picture. It also helps identify which weak signals are beginning to matter commercially, so leadership teams can focus on the next‑order implications rather than simply reacting to headlines.

Signals to watch over the next 12–18 months

• Whether any US–Iran agreement meaningfully restores commercial traffic through Hormuz — and on what terms — or whether controlled access and rerouting remain the practical norm.

• Changes in how critical providers — shipping firms, cloud vendors, telecom carriers or major outsourcers — describe routing, regional exposure or resilience investment tied to the Gulf or key cable corridors.

• New regulatory or supervisory language on operational resilience, third‑party concentration or cross‑border digital dependencies following recent cable and corridor developments.

• Continued government and multilateral focus on subsea cable resilience, signalling that undersea infrastructure is moving higher up the strategic agenda regardless of whether a diplomatic agreement is reached.
  

Questions for your next executive or risk committee meeting

• Where do the business’s energy, freight, cloud and connectivity dependencies intersect with corridors like Hormuz and major cable routes?

• If those routes remained constrained or politically conditional for another 3–6 months, what practical alternatives do we have — in providers, routing or operating model — and how long would they take to activate?

• Have we tested a scenario that combines prolonged Hormuz disruption with a meaningful connectivity or cloud incident along key cable routes?

• If diplomacy stalls and disruption persists, what would regulators, investors or key clients expect us to be able to show about our preparation?
  

This is the kind of moment when strategic risk is less about predicting the next headline and more about recognising when a conflict has moved into a slower, more persistent phase that still reshapes the infrastructure your business depends on.