04b Theory and Analysis

Why opinion on AI is so divided– www.technologyreview.com

pgnewser April 14, 2026 0

Why opinion on AI is so divided– www.technologyreview.com
News Source
EXCERPT:

In an industry that doesn’t stand still, Stanford’s AI Index, an annual roundup of key results and trends, is a chance to take a breath. (It’s a marathon, not a sprint, after all.)

This year’s report, which dropped today, is full of striking stats. A lot of the value comes from having numbers to back up gut feelings you might already have, such as the sense that the US is gunning harder for AI than everyone else: It hosts 5,427 data centers (and counting). That’s more than 10 times as many as any other country.

There’s also a reminder that the hardware supply chain the AI industry relies on has some major choke points. Here’s perhaps the most remarkable fact: “A single company, TSMC, fabricates almost every leading AI chip, making the global AI hardware supply chain dependent on one foundry in Taiwan.” One foundry! That’s just wild.

Scientists Push to Grow ‘Brainless’ Human Clones for Wealthy Elites– slaynews.com

pgnewser April 13, 2026 0

Blurb:

A chilling new report is raising fresh alarm over how far elite-backed science may be willing to go, revealing that some researchers are openly discussing the possibility of growing “brainless” human body clones for future use by wealthy individuals who are aging or dying.

The idea sounds like dystopian fiction.

However, according to a new investigation, a billionaire-backed startup has been tied to discussions about creating non-sentient replacement bodies, human clones without functioning brains, that could one day serve as vessels for brain transplants.

AI Will Be Met With Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It– www.thealgorithmicbridge.com

pgnewser April 13, 2026 0

Blurb:

The first thing you learn about a loom is that it’s easy to break.

The shuttle runs along a track that warps with humidity. The heddles hang from cords that fray. The reed is a row of thin metal strips, bent by hand, that bend back just as easily. The warp beam cracks if you over-tighten it. The treadles loosen at the joints. The breast beam, the cloth roller, the ratchet and pawl, the lease sticks, the castle; the whole contraption is wood and string held together by tension. It’s a piece of ingenuity and craftsmanship, but one as delicate as the clothes it manifests out of wild plant fibers. It is, also, the foundational tool of an entire industry, textiles, that has kept its relevance to our days of heavy machinery, factories, energy facilities, and datacenters.

Milgram’s electric shock experiment: The test that exposed dark side of human obedience to authority |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser April 13, 2026 0

Blurb:

Stanley Milgram’s 1961–62 Yale University experiment tested obedience, where participants believed they delivered painful electric shocks to others under authority.

In the early 1960s, a deceptively simple question took shape inside a laboratory at Yale University: how far would an ordinary person go if instructed by an authority figure to harm someone else? The answer, offered by psychologist Stanley Milgram, would become one of the most cited, and most contested, findings in modern psychology.Milgram’s obedience experiments, conducted between 1961 and 1962, did not begin as abstract inquiry. They were shaped by the aftermath of the Holocaust and, more specifically, by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, who defended his role in organising the logistics of the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps, a central part of the Nazi programme of systematic mass murder, by claiming he had been “just following orders.” In his 1974 book Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram framed the question directly: “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”

AI Is Exposing The Limits Of Economics– thefederalist.com

pgnewser April 7, 2026 1

Blurb:

There is a particular pleasure in watching a scholar dismantle the monument he has spent a career admiring. Tyler Cowen named his blog after the Marginal Revolution; he has spent decades explicating, celebrating, and applying marginalist thinking to every aspect of modern life. In Cowen’s compact and astringent book, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution, he turns to survey the edifice and finds it, if not crumbling, then visibly retreating from the frontier where the real intellectual work gets done. The result is one of the more honest performances in recent economic writing: a love letter that doubles as an elegy, delivered without sentimentality.

The book’s method is itself something of a marginalist exercise. Rather than mounting a frontal assault on large questions about the future of economics, Cowen begins at the margin, with the history of a single idea, the doctrine that value is determined not by the total utility of a good but by the utility of an additional unit of it. Many readers arrive at this book knowing that definition. Cowen’s first service is to show how much that belief has concealed. Marginalism is not one thing but several: There is intuitive marginalism, tautological marginalism, engineering marginalism, and social marginalism. The further one presses into the concept, the more it ramifies. Even the ideas we think we understand resist the grip that holds them.

The U.S. Military Risks Letting Contractors Define How It Sees the Battlefield– warontherocks.com

pgnewser March 31, 2026 0

Blurb:

In the 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove, an emergency war plan called “Plan R” allows an unhinged U.S. Air Force commander, Jack Ripper, to launch a nuclear strike without presidential authorization. Once the president, the joint chiefs, and the Soviet ambassador convene in the war room, the bombers are already airborne. Only Ripper knows the three-letter prefix needed to recall them, until his aide, Lionel Mandrake, reconstructs it from Ripper’s notes. Although nearly all planes are turned back, one damaged B-52 cannot receive the recall message and successfully drops its bomb, triggering the Soviets’ secret doomsday machine and bringing about global destruction.

The film’s lesson is not only about nuclear weapons, but also about what happens when critical systems are not governed effectively.

How hacked surveillance cameras are fueling assassinations in Iran– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser March 26, 2026 0

Blurb:

Since a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, scores of Iranian senior officials have also been killed. According to the Associated Press, two anonymous sources—an intelligence official and a person briefed on the operation—said that hacked Iranian surveillance cameras helped plan the initial attack.

Camera hacking has become a recurring feature of modern warfare. Hamas hacked Israeli cameras before the October 7, 2023, attack; Russia has hacked them in Ukraine, and Iran has hacked them in Israel. But the cameras in question are not exotic spy technology. They’re often unremarkable, much like millions of other devices around the world.

The Dems Are Now Legislative Terrorists. What Should the GOP Do Now?– townhall.com

pgnewser March 26, 2026 0

Blurb:

The biggest argument against democracy is five minutes with the average voter. The Democratic Party might be making that argument stronger. I’ve never seen a party push to eliminate elections and voting the way Democrats have in this fight over Department of Homeland Security funding.

Yes, this stubbornness over funding a key agency that’s been shut down since Presidents’ Day weekend is more about anti-Trump hysteria, but it also reflects the Democrats’ long-term goal of defunding ICE. Republicans understand this — that’s why they funded the agency through 2029 during the first reconciliation.

With TSA agents quitting due to lack of paychecks, the Democrats believe hurting regular people to get their way will work. We’re dealing with legislative terrorists. I was hesitant about ending the filibuster, but I am now leaning entirely toward it because Democrats want unrealistic concessions, and shutting down DHS over deportation disputes isn’t a valid argument.

Kristen Clarke Reveals the Left’s Weaponization of Civil Rights– www.dailysignal.com

pgnewser March 26, 2026 0

Blurb:

After a yearslong legal battle, the Supreme Court vindicated a Colorado Christian baker hounded by a “Civil Rights Commission” for the sin of refusing to craft a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. A woman by the name of Kristen Clarke found that ruling “devastating.”

Clarke, who would go on to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Joe Biden, arguably grew to embody the weaponization of civil rights law against conservatives. Yet on Wednesday, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hailed Clarke as a “civil rights giant” in announcing her new position as NAACP general counsel.

Germany looks to AI for help with combat decisions – army chief — RT World News– www.rt.com

pgnewser March 26, 2026 0

Blurb:

Berlin plans to use Ukraine’s experience to develop an advisory tool, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding has said

The German military is developing an artificial intelligence system to speed up battlefield decision-making by analyzing combat data, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding has said, adding that it will draw on Ukraine’s experience of fighting Russia.

The remarks by Freuding, the commander of the German land forces, come as the country is undertaking a major military buildup. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is seeking to make the German military “the strongest conventional army in Europe.” German officials have set 2029 as the deadline for the armed forces to be “war-ready,” citing the supposed Russian threat. Moscow has dismissed claims that it harbors hostile intentions as “nonsense” aimed at justifying increased military spending.

“I think it’s important that we get something up and running quickly,” Freuding told Reuters on Wednesday. He had previously overseen German arms supplies to Kiev before taking up his current position in October 2025. An advocate of close military cooperation between Berlin and Kiev, Freuding previously unveiled plans for the Ukrainian military to help train German troops for a possible conflict with Russia.

How China Is Killing Oil Chokepoints While Trump And Tehran Clash Over Hormuz– www.ndtv.com

pgnewser March 25, 2026 0

Blurb:

 

While the world fixates on the Strait of Hormuz, China is working to make the entire conversation obsolete.

Each flare up in US Iran tensions sends oil markets into overdrive, with prices swinging and supply fears dominating global narratives. But Beijing is not playing that game. It is building an alternative system designed to sidestep the very risks others are pricing in.

At the centre of this effort is State Grid Corporation of China, a sprawling network that already covers more than 80 percent of the country and powers over a billion people. Alongside China Southern Power Grid, it is constructing what increasingly looks like a long term energy power play. A nationwide supergrid meant to reduce reliance on imported oil and the fragile sea lanes that carry it. LIVE UPDATES

The blueprint is expansive. Ultra high voltage transmission lines are being rolled out at speed, linking inland regions rich in coal, wind and solar to the industrial coastline where demand is concentrated. The aim is to electrify more of the economy, move power efficiently across vast distances, and reduce exposure to external shocks.

The War with Iran May Already be Lost– sofrep.com

pgnewser March 25, 2026 0

Blurb:

With special thanks to Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Timothy Grimmett.

If wars were won by bombastic press conferences, the White House should already be planning another military parade in our capital’s streets. In America’s latest war of choice, President Trump’s styled Secretary of “War” is emerging as the head cheerleader for our misadventure in Iran. Mr. Hegseth has already mistakenly defined what constitutes victory — the destruction of various portions of the Iranian Navy and military production facilities. Unfortunately, his definition is flawed. Despite possessing some military experience as a junior officer, he has shown that he is completely out of his depth. For most intents and purposes, the war with Iran might have been lost before the first missile was launched.

Some of the lessons that Mr. Hegseth should have learned by now:

Operational excellence is not a guarantee of strategic success — The best military on the planet cannot win a war if the national strategic objectives selected by the National Command Authority are faulty. This fact was proven in both Afghanistan and Iraq, which like Iran, were wars of choice and not necessity. Does Mr. Hegseth grasp the gap between his definition of victory and that of his boss?

Mr. Trump has demanded “unconditional surrender” of Iran — That choice could cost many lives. America demanded unconditional surrender of both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The word “unconditional” suggests that there will be no negotiated settlement. The only means of achieving that objective in Germany and Japan was first a land invasion of the “Father Land” followed by the deployment of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is this where we are heading?

If Thune Blocks The SAVE Act, U.S. Citizenship Soon Won’t Mean Much– thefederalist.com

pgnewser March 19, 2026 1

Blurb:

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is determined to continue missing opportunities, but wants you to know that it’s not his fault. In the latest scene of this farce, last week Thune swore that he would bring the SAVE Act to the Senate floor for a vote (like he already promised to do at the end of February) … but, since he doesn’t have 60 votes, he would be “very, very surprised” if it passed.

The word “saboteur” comes to mind.

The Republicans could easily end the “zombie” filibuster — a piece of Senate paraphernalia of no nostalgic or traditional importance — by lowering cloture (the procedure to end debate and actually vote on a bill) from 60 to a simple 51 majority with Vice President Vance ready to break any ties.

But it’s even easier than that. Several weeks ago, in Human Events, Connie Hair (Rep. Louie Gohmert’s chief of staff for more than ten years) wrote concerning the Senate misheva over SAVE:

The Senate’s Standing Rules have been dissected ad nauseam since the House took S.1383, a bill already passed by the Senate, gutted its text, replaced it entirely with the SAVE America Act, and returned it as a privileged message. That procedural posture matters. There is no need to “nuke” the filibuster lowering the cloture threshold from 60 votes to 51 to call up the bill (emphasis mine). Under the Senate’s existing rules, the message can be called up for debate. After the two-speech rule is exhausted or there is no one left wishing to speak, the bill is voted up or down by simple majority.

Military Operational Thinking in an Age of Artificial Intelligence– warontherocks.com

pgnewser March 19, 2026 0

Blurb:

In recent years, as AI has begun to enter military planning and operational design, a persistent unease has surfaced among practitioners. Even with improved tools, increased tempo, and unprecedented access to data, plans continue to falter on integration, coherence, and a shared sense of direction. Marco Lyons’ recent War on the Rocks article on the perceived decline of operational art gives voice to this unease in a way that is both timely and important.

We do not know enough about the specific wargame, its constraints, or its internal dynamics to adjudicate these conclusions directly. What Lyons’ account nevertheless captures with clarity is a set of recurring difficulties that many practitioners recognize: fragmented campaigns, sequential decision-making, and a widening gap between planning activity and operational coherence.

Drawing on our experience teaching operational art and experimenting with planning, we share this concern. Yet Lyons’ observations may also point to something deeper: a tension between different ways of thinking about operations.

‘Not a one-person regime’: Why Iran’s Islamic Republic is so hard to topple– www.france24.com

pgnewser March 19, 2026 0

Blurb:

Since February 28, Israel and the United States have pounded Iran with targeted air strikes, taking out one powerful Iranian official after another.

The death toll among top regime officials has so far been confirmed at nine, but Israel claims it has reached 11.

Both the United States and Israel have brandished the growing list of dead Iranian elites as evidence of their military success.

On Tuesday, after the Israeli army announced it had “eliminated” Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar declared that his country had “already won” the war against the Islamic Republic.

The Power Problem Behind AI Infrastructure | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org

pgnewser March 19, 2026 0

Blurb:

With AI becoming increasingly present in everyday life, the race to build AI infrastructure is only speeding up. At the center of that race is the rapid creation of data centers, with new ones opening on a nearly weekly basis in America. But as more data centers begin to integrate AI infrastructure, the amount of electricity required to operate them is growing at an alarming rate. Data centers are now expected to account for roughly 40 percent of US power demand growth in 2026, and the gap between what we need and what we can build is widening fast.

On today’s episode of Explain to Shane, I am joined by Lynne Kiesling, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she leads the Electricity Technology, Regulation, and Market Design Working Group. Kiesling also directs the Institute for Regulatory Law and Economics at the Northwestern University Center on Law, Business, and Economics, and is a member of the US Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee. I am also joined by Steve DelBianco, president and CEO of NetChoice and a seasoned expert on internet governance. Their combined expertise on this issue can help us understand how we can power the AI revolution.

The Pentagon is making plans for AI companies to train on classified data, defense official says– www.technologyreview.com

pgnewser March 18, 2026 0

Blurb:

Training versions of AI models on classified data is expected to make them more accurate and effective in certain tasks, according to a US defense official who spoke on background with MIT Technology Review. The news comes as demand for more powerful models is high: The Pentagon has reached agreements with OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI to operate their models in classified settings and is implementing a new agenda to become an “an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force” as the conflict with Iran escalates. (The Pentagon did not comment on its AI training plans as of publication time.)

Training would be done in a secure data center that’s accredited to host classified government projects, and where a copy of an AI model is paired with classified data, according to two people familiar with how such operations work. Though the Department of Defense would remain the owner of the data, personnel from AI companies might in rare cases access the data if they have appropriate security clearance, the official said.

Whence the ‘Woke Reich’ and Iran? – RedState– redstate.com

pgnewser March 18, 2026 0

Blurb:

Nearly three weeks into a war against a crazed theocracy, the political and media focus has been, like a complaining child in the back seat of a car on a long trip, “When will it be over?”

This ridiculous impatience is a product of a Democrat opposition to Operation Epic Fury that will exploit every misstep, whether occurring out of strategy, operations, rhetoric, or unintended consequences. It is akin to getting a work assignment that the employer and employee both know will only reasonably produce results after weeks of long hours, at minimum, but nonetheless getting harangued by the boss every day: “You’re not done yet!?”

Now, the boss may be just an intolerable micro-manager, or he may be trying to get you to quit out of frustration. But it’s fairly certain, given the Democrat decades-long foreign policy record, that productive oversight of the conflict is not their goal.

Between the now ascendant neo-Marxist left and the “river-to-the-sea” crowd, the Democrat war objectives are clear: sabotage.

The US reactivates an electromagnetic railgun capable of firing projectiles at over Mach 6 without explosives, resumes an abandoned project, and signals a new military race for hyperspeed weapons on the global stage. – CPG Click Petróleo e Gás

pgnewser March 18, 2026 0

Blurb:

The US reactivates an electromagnetic railgun capable of firing projectiles at over Mach 6 without explosives, resumes an abandoned project, and signals a new military race for hyperspeed weapons on the global stage.  CPG Click Petróleo e Gás
from news.google.com

What Happens When There’s Not Enough Regime Left to Change? – PJ Media– pjmedia.com

pgnewser March 18, 2026 0

Blurb:

Ali Larijani, the closest thing Iran’s Islamic Republic currently has (er, had) to a political leader, is believed dead following an Israeli airstrike Tuesday. And that’s just the start of today’s good news concerning Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion.

It seems like only yesterday [It was only yesterday, Steve —Editor] that we discussed how Iran’s regime losses — from the topmost echelons all the way down to Basij street-thug enforcers — make the country increasingly ripe for regime change.

Well, yesterday’s news of limited drone strikes on individual Basij thugs pales in comparison to today’s news from Mossad Commentary [unofficial]: “Overnight strikes reportedly killed ~300 Basij commanders and field officials, targeting key command, logistics, and operational centers across Tehran.”

Facilities hit include “vehicle repair units, Mohammad Rasoulollah Corps HQ, Imam Hadi command center, and Imam Ali battalions.” The result is that “the Basij’s capability to mobilize against protests and maintain internal control” is severely degraded.

It’s this big a deal:

Senate Republicans Can Help Dems to Pass The SAVE Act– www.dailysignal.com

pgnewser March 16, 2026 0

Blurb:

Can Democrats take “Yes” for an answer?

As the Senate weighs the SAVE America Act, Republicans should help Democrats overcome their objections to this bill.

Racist Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., complain that black folks lack photo ID. Democrats insist that expecting supposedly witless or listless blacks to show poll workers photo ID is “Jim Crow 2.0.”

Democrats never offer to give IDs to these invisible legions of undocumented blacks. Imagine if Democrats handed photo ID to these poor, benighted souls: Blacks and others of color could cash checks, jet across America, get paid to shovel snow in New York City, and even vote in states with photo ID rules.

Democrats also attack SAVE for requiring birth certificates to register to vote. “Got one of those handy with you, in your purse?” Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., prodded a congressional correspondent. “I doubt it.”

So, Senate Republicans should open the SAVE America Act proceedings by making Democrats vote first on legislation that I would call The Voting Documents for All Act.

• Any adult US citizen could visit his state’s DMV office and receive a free photo ID card (not a driver’s license).

• The federal government would reimburse states for the cost of each free photo ID card, plus 10%, to encourage their assistance. This would be a funded mandate.

SAVE Act Will Pass Only If There Are Consequences For Opposing It– thefederalist.com

pgnewser March 16, 2026 0

Blurb:

The leadership shrug is a remarkable new political gesture.

Members of Congress who declared their opposition to Lyndon Johnson’s most important legislative priorities tended to be woken by phone calls in the middle of the night from an angry president. Johnson was fond of physiological imagery, so members of his party who declared their independence would hear that he planned to cut their throats or alter their sexual anatomy. In profane rants, holdouts learned that federal spending for things like highways was about to become quite scarce in their district or their state, and everyone back home was going to know who had caused the sudden money drought with his stupidity.

In person, the “Johnson Treatment” – “an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages” – was known for its physical aggression, as the 6’4″ president leaned forward and shoved his face into deeply uncomfortable proximity with men who weren’t getting with the program. When he met with members of Congress, Johnson wasn’t asking.

Last week, Senate Republicans announced that they just don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act, an election security bill with measures that Republican voters have strongly supported for years. “That’s just a function of math, and there isn’t anything I can do about that,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. This is how Republicans are pretending that Congress works: Leaders ask every member what they feel like doing, and then the members all say how they want to vote, and then leadership accepts their decision and the conversation ends. A caucus is a counting mechanism, and can’t be anything else. Thune’s “there isn’t anything I can do about that” is a gesture of make-believe helplessness that defies 250 years of legislative history.

 

Europe’s Willful Irrelevance In Iran War Proves JD Vance Right– thefederalist.com

pgnewser March 10, 2026 0

Blurb:

When Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, he delivered a blunt critique: Europe had retreated from fundamental values like free speech, pursued decades of progressive policies that eroded strength, and left the continent too weak to robustly defend the West. European leaders dismissed his criticism as “absurd” and “not acceptable.”

Yet the war against Iran has underscored Vance’s point.

The European Union has long-standing grievances against Tehran: decades of terrorism on European soil. Tehran has also taken numerous European visitors as hostages over the years, using them as leverage to extract concessions such as prisoner swaps, debt repayments, and asset releases. A striking example is the case of British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in 2016 and was only freed in 2022 after the UK government repaid a long-standing debt of nearly £400 million.

Facing this persistent threat, Europe had a clear opportunity to unite with allies against a common foe. Instead, major nations delivered lackluster, divided responses — slow, sidelined, or obstructive.

UC Riverside professor says ‘sexual identity’ labels ‘harm trans people’– www.thecollegefix.com

pgnewser March 10, 2026 0

Blurb:

In new book, gender studies professor says it’s time to abolish these labels

“Sexual identity” labels should be abolished because they “harm trans people” in their dating and sex lives, a UC Riverside professor argues in a new book.

Brandon Robinson, a professor of sociology, gender, and sexuality studies, wrote the book “Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom” based on interviews with men who identify as women (“trans women and trans femmes — trans people who identify with a feminine gender expression”) and their Reddit conversations about dating and sex.

The book documents these individuals’ experiences in “the bedroom,” “restaurants,” “dating apps,” and other typical dating spaces, and the discrimination that they often face, according to Robinson.

“… dominant understandings of sexual identities—which center desires around gender and genitals—harm trans people. They also limit how everyone can love and feel pleasure,” according to the book description.

AI-Ready Biodata Is America’s Next Strategic Infrastructure– warontherocks.com

pgnewser March 9, 2026 0

Blurb:

There is little doubt in Washington that AI is a powerful technology that will help determine which country rules the 21st century. Policymakers from the Hill to the White House have made U.S. AI leadership a priority and invested significant resources towards staying ahead of competitors. Yet the United States is at perhaps greater risk than ever before of losing the broader global technology competition.

Despite growing investment in AI, U.S. policymakers have failed to prepare for its convergence with biotechnology, a fusion that will define economic and national power in the coming decades. While competitors are building coordinated AI-bio ecosystems, the U.S. biodata (biological data) environment remains fragmented, underfunded, and insecure. Without a federally led effort to build AI-ready biodata as national infrastructure, the United States risks ceding leadership in both AI and biotechnology at a critical moment.

The Strategic Importance of the AI-Biotechnology Nexus

Compute, talent, and capital are necessary for AI-enabled biotechnology, but biodata is the binding constraint. Without large, representative, and interoperable biological datasets, AI models cannot generalize, scale, or translate into real-world impact.

DAVID BLACKMON: Geopolitical Risks In The Strait Of Hormuz And Implications For Global Energy Markets– dailycaller.com

pgnewser March 5, 2026 0

Blurb:

Recent developments in the Middle East, including U.S. military actions against Iranian targets and reported damage to key export infrastructure like Kharg Island, have once again drawn attention to the vulnerability of global energy supplies.

Iran’s threats to fire on tankers trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz have created an insurance crisis for shippers, forcing oil prices to rise. At the same time, Iranian attacks on Qatar’s LNG infrastructure led the world’s second largest exporter to suspend production.

A new analysis from Enverus Intelligence Research finds that these events introduce a significant risk premium to oil prices, with Brent crude potentially facing an additional $10 to $15 per barrel if disruptions escalate. The firm’s baseline forecast had Brent at around $63, but prolonged instability in the region could push prices higher as markets price in supply concerns. Given that the Brent price had already risen by more than $9/bbl as of Tuesday, this seems a conservative projection unless the situation is quickly resolved.