TRAVERSE CITY - Rising tensions in the Middle East are causing global concerns and experts say the impact will be felt in Northern Michigan through disrupted supply chains. Retired Marine Major General Michael Lehnert warned that these international conflicts create ripple effects that reach local citizens regardless of their ties to the region.
The primary concerns center on the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow shipping lane between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea controlled by Iran and Oman. Delays in this corridor are expected to influence fuel prices and the availability of consumer goods as the situation develops.
Lehnert is a retired Marine major general and serves as the co-chair of the International Affairs Forum at Northwestern Michigan College. He explained that national actions have direct consequences for the public, even for those without personal ties to the military or the region. “Anything that we do as a nation ultimately affects our citizenry,” Lehnert said. “And, you know, the simple fact is, there are ripple effects, in terms of the actual people here that perhaps don’t have anybody in the military don’t, travel to the Middle East, it will still affect them because it will disrupt supply chains.”
The Straits of Hormuz serves as a primary shipping lane for energy and consumer goods. Lehnert noted that tankers and cargo ships are currently facing significant delays in the corridor. “Right now we have tankers and cargo ships lined up on both sides of the Straits of Hormuz,” Lehnert said. “They’re not going to move for a while and so it’s going to affect fuel prices. It will affect the availability of goods that are shipped through the Straits of Hormuz.”
Lehnert said every move in a conflict can trigger additional consequences that leaders must be prepared to address. He compared the nature of international instability to the ripples created by a stone thrown into water. “Just to remind the viewers that every action creates additional, weapon effects,” Lehnert said. “It’s like throwing a rock in a pond. You can’t do just one thing.”
The retired major general also discussed the difficulty of ending military engagements once they have begun. He suggested that the complexity of withdrawing from such conflicts is a challenge often overlooked by politicians. “The first thing to understand is that wars are a lot easier to get into than they are to get out of,” Lehnert said. “It’s a lesson that most politicians never learned or at least learned to make, during their tours of duty. It is going to be much more difficult to get out of this than it was to get into it.”