Bangladesh, July 27 -- For decades, the global economy has lived with a simple assumption: oil markets are resilient. Wars come and go, supply chains adjust, governments intervene, and eventually prices stabilize. But todays energy crisis is exposing the dangerous limits of that confidence. The latest surge in crude oil prices is not merely another temporary reaction to geopolitical turmoil-it is a warning that the worlds emergency buffers are rapidly disappearing.

The renewed conflict involving the United States, Iran, and Tehran-backed Houthi forces has once again turned the Middle East into the epicenter of global economic anxiety. The Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly one-fifth of the worlds oil flows, has become increasingly un...