The Strait of Hormuz in Contemporary Geopolitics: Energy Security, Great Power Competition, and India's Strategic Autonomy

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil trade passes, has long occupied a central place in discussions of energy security. What has changed is the nature of its strategic weight. The strait today sits at the intersection of competing great power interests, ongoing regional instability, and the fragmented architecture of a post-unipolar international order. This article argues that Hormuz is no longer primarily an energy transit route: it has become a pressure point where maritime security, sanctions politics, bloc competition, and balancing diplomacy converge. India's position is particularly consequential. As a major energy importer with broad regional relationships and a foreign policy tradition of strategic autonomy, India faces both acute vulnerability and complex diplomatic constraints in how it manages the strait's centrality to its national interest. The article examines Hormuz's physical geography and energy significance, its embedding in contemporary geopolitical competition, India's evolving exposure and response, and the strategic relevance of the Chabahar Port project before considering three plausible future scenarios and their implications