🟡 US bombs Kharg Island in Iran, US Marine unit deploying to Middle East, oil prices around $100 || Global Risks Weekly Roundup #11/2026

Executive summary

Geopolitics: The US bombed Kharg Island, home to Iran’s main oil terminal, but spared its oil facilities. A US Marine Expeditionary Unit is being sent from Japan to the Middle East. Trump and said that NATO faces a “very bad future” if its members didn’t send ships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and attempted to arrange a coalition to do so, but failed.

• Will the US attempt to seize or carry out a major strike on the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island before April 15, 2026? Our forecasters give this a 42% (20% to 75%) chance,

• Will 10 or more desalination plants in the Middle East be attacked from March 16 to April 15, 2026? Our forecasters assign a 11% (5% to 20%) probability of this happening.

• When will the US cease major military operations against Iran’s territory along with air and naval assets? Our forecasters’ aggregate point estimate is April 19 (March 28 to May 10).

Technology and AI: Anthropic is suing the Pentagon for designating the company a supply-chain risk, with Microsoft filing an amicus brief in support of Anthropic’s case. A wide range of voices, including Yoshua Bengio, Steve Bannon and Susan Rice, signed the Pro-Human AI Declaration, with polling appearing to show public support for many of its principles.

• In Pew’s 2026 polling, what percentage of Americans will be more concerned than excited about the use of AI in daily life? Our forecasters’ aggregate estimate is 51% (47% to 56%). What percentage will be more excited than concerned? Our aggregate estimate is 12% (10% to 15%).

Economy: Brent crude oil prices continued to hover around $100 per barrel. Trump threatened Iran’s oil terminal on Kharg Island, the US removed some sanctions on Russian oil, and a few Indian and Pakistani-flagged vessels managed to navigate the Strait of Hormuz thanks to deals negotiated with Iran’s regime.

• What will be the highest price for Brent crude from closing time on March 16 to closing time on April 15, 2026? Our forecasters’ medians average $134 ($110 to $180)

Geopolitics

Middle East

The Iran War entered its third week on Saturday. Six more US servicemembers died when a refuelling plane came down over Iraq, and five refuelling planes were damaged in an Iranian strike on Saudi Arabia. The total number of US and Israeli fatalities stands at 34 at the time of writing. In Iran, more than 1,400 people are reported to have been killed, while hundreds have died in Lebanon as a result of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Iran’s military capabilities have been degraded, though the rate of degradation may have slowed over the past week or so. Some of the country’s leadership remains intact, with President Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Araghchi and security chief Ali Larijani spotted walking the streets of Tehran on Friday. However, the country’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t been seen in public and is reportedly injured. Our forecasters generally think that Ali Larijani is currently the most powerful official in Iran and that his power is reinforced by the choice of an injured supreme leader.

The Strait of Hormuz remains nearly completely closed, and six vessels were struck by Iran in the past week. While the US military continues to reduce Iran’s capacity to strike ships in the strait, strikes using aerial drones and small drone boats are hard to stop. Iran is also laying a small number of mines in the Strait. Two US anti-mine littoral combat ships (LCS) that had been deployed to the Middle East were spotted at port in Malaysia on March 15; a third US anti-mine LCS has been in the Middle East. However, Iran’s oil continues to move through the Strait of Hormuz, and a handful of ships from India and Pakistan have transited the Strait (see the Economy section).

The strait is unlikely to be opened militarily within the next 1-2 weeks. Naval escorts for oil tankers (from the US Navy or an international coalition) are unlikely to occur before the end of March. Trump attempted to rally other countries including Britain, China and France to send ships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but failed. Later, he said that NATO faces a “very bad future” if its member states don’t help to reopen the Strait, and he also sought to pressure China by threatening to delay his planned visit to Beijing at the end of this month.

The US bombed military targets on Kharg Island after markets closed on Friday, hours after Trump unconvincingly denied that it was a priority in an interview. The island is Iran’s main oil terminal, and around 90% of its exports typically begin their journeys there. Trump said that Iran’s oil facilities were spared but warned that they could be destroyed if Iran continues to restrict movement through the Strait of Hormuz. Should that happen, our forecasters think that Iran would likely retaliate strongly (see below).

A thousands-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is being moved by the US from Japan to the Middle East. It is sprinting to the region and could arrive as early as this weekend, which might provide a lower bound on how long the war will last. Because the MEU is not a large invading force, it might have been sent to help protect US forces on bases in the Persian Gulf. However, if the Marines were to carry out ground operations within Iran, our forecasters generally think Kharg Island would be the most likely target, though it’s possible that the MEU could be used to attempt to secure the strait. Securing the north coast of the strait or some of the islands in the strait (such as Qeshm) would be operationally difficult, with multiple attack vectors that would be difficult to suppress. US Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted about gaining control of Kharg Island and signed it off with ‘Semper Fi’, the official motto of the US Marine Corps. Any operation on Iranian soil would more likely than not take us above the 1,000 boots on the ground threshold that we forecasted about last week.

Our forecasters think there’s a 42% chance (20% to 75%) that the US will attempt to seize or carry out a major strike on the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island by April 15, 2026. They point out that such an operation could be immensely destructive and cause long-lasting pain to the Iranian people, and thus invite further retaliation. But on the other hand the US could be trapped in an escalation spiral.

There are multiple escalation pathways from here. With Saudi Arabia making increasing use of its East-West Pipeline to avoid having to export its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis could try to seize or sink oil tankers in the Red Sea. If Iran’s oil facilities on Kharg Island are captured or destroyed, Iran could retaliate by attacking any US forces on Kharg Island or with stronger attacks against oil infrastructure in Gulf states. With a substantial portion of people in the Middle East relying on desalination plants for drinking water, another risk is that more of these facilities could be targeted (at least two have already been damaged, one in Iran and one in Bahrain). Our forecasters think there’s a 11% chance (5% to 20%) that >10 desalination plants will be struck between now and April 15, 2026.

Via the Institute for the Study of War.

Despite Trump’s AI czar David Sacks worrying about potential Israeli use of a nuclear weapon (seemingly in response to attacks on desalination plants by Iran), former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich seemingly suggesting that thermonuclear weapons be used to open up a new waterway for oil to pass through, and some online speculation that Trump will threaten the use of nuclear weapons to try to get Iran to surrender, our forecasters generally think the use of a nuclear weapon in the Middle East by the end of 2026 is extremely unlikely. However, some are below 0.1% on this happening, while others are in the 0.1%-1% range.

Trump has given conflicting signals on when the war will end. His aim is likely to calm the markets as much as possible while continuing the war for at least another couple of weeks. He previously said that the war is “very complete”, but also that the US hasn’t “won enough”. He later said that he would end the war when “I feel it in my bones”. The IDF’s Chief of Staff stated that ending the war now would be a mistake, and that Israel has planned for combat operations to last through Passover, which will be celebrated from April 1 to April 9. Our forecasters’ aggregate estimate for when the US will cease major military operations against Iran’s territory (along with its air and naval assets) is April 19 (March 28 to May 10). This cessation would have to last for at least one week from the stated date.

Asia

Large-scale Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) resumed after a sharp drop in the first 1-2 weeks of the Iran War. Twenty-six of China’s military aircraft were detected on Saturday.

Europe

European members of NATO declined to send ships to help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz despite Trump threatening the alliance with a “very bad future” if they don’t accede to his request. A spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that, “this war has nothing to do with NATO”, while a French government account said that its naval mission in the Eastern Mediterranean remains defensive in nature. British PM Keir Starmer is resisting Trump’s requests for warships to be sent and says that the UK won’t be drawn into a “wider war”.

Russia has been receiving a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars per day in oil revenue thanks to the rise in energy prices caused by the Iran War.

The Americas

Reports suggest that US Vice President JD Vance was and is opposed to the Iran War. When asked about these reports, he did not deny them. Our forecasters think this information was most likely released to the press by Vance and his team in order to distance himself from the war. It may be an indication of how he thinks the war is going, from his insider perspective. Alternatively, it could be an attempt by his rivals in the administration to portray him as unsupportive of a war that’s still endorsed by a large fraction of Republican voters.

The Trump administration’s AI czar, David Sacks, also voiced his desire for a negotiated settlement with Iran, warning of escalatory pathways involving desalination plants or even the use of nuclear weapons, which we considered above.

Trump has said, and Cuba has confirmed, that the US and Cuba are in negotiations, as Cuba faces its most serious economic crisis in decades. The country’s worsening economic situation has been brought to a head by the end of oil imports from Venezuela and other countries, under pressure from the US. In recent statements, Trump has also implied that if a negotiated agreement could not be reached, then the US military could be used. Trump said on Sunday that, “We’re talking ​to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba.”

Economy

On Monday afternoon, Brent crude oil prices remained relatively stable at around $100 per barrel. Between now and closing time on April 15, our forecasters’ median estimate for the maximum price of Brent crude oil averages $134 ($110 to $180) based on hourly numbers reported by Trading Economics.

The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. Iran also struck oil storage facilities at the Salalah port in Oman along with the UAE’s largest oil facility at Fujairah. Meanwhile, the US threatened oil facilities on Kharg Island if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. But as discussed above, it is unlikely that the strait will be opened by military intervention for at least two weeks, at which point US naval escorts are possible.

On the other hand, the US removed some sanctions on Russian oil and said that it has no problem with Iranian oil passing out of the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, a few Indian and Pakistani-flagged tankers have navigated the Strait likely because of deals negotiated with the Iranian regime. As noted earlier, Saudi Arabia is also making greater use of its East-West Pipeline to bypass the Strait. Additionally, there are rumours that the US Treasury may have been intervening in futures markets, with talk of a big seller in the market; our forecasters have varying levels of confidence that this is actually the case. Even without explicit manipulation, as the price rises the Trump administration would face greater domestic international pressure, leading it to take more desperate measures to bring the conflict to an end.

Meanwhile, QatarEnergy suspended helium production at its Ras Laffan facility, removing around 30% of global supply from the market. This has downstream consequences for semiconductor chip manufacturing, because helium is used to cool silicon wafers during fabrication. South Korean memory company SK Hynix said it was forced to look for alternative suppliers, though Taiwan’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Company only said that it is monitoring the situation.

Trump is also easing sanctions on Venezuelan fertilizer and oil to ease shortages resulting from the Iran war.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Anthropic is suing to block its blacklisting by the Pentagon, Microsoft filed an amicus brief in support of Anthropic’s case, along with a group of retired military leaders. The White House, meanwhile, is preparing an executive order to remove Anthropic’s AI from federal government operations. The Pentagon’s CTO claims that Anthropic’s Claude model is a supply chain risk because it has “a different policy preference baked in”.

A large group of experts, public figures, former officials, and organizations signed the Pro-Human AI Declaration, a set of principles for AI development that benefits humans. The signatories include Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck, Susan Rice, Ralph Nader and Richard Branson.

Polling released alongside the Declaration found that there is majority support among American voters for the Declaration’s principles. Our forecasters think that, in Pew’s 2026 polling, 51% (47% to 56%) of Americans will be more concerned than excited about the use of AI in daily life and that 12% (10% to 15%) will be more excited than concerned. This would be broadly similar to previous years’ results.

A judge stated that Elon Musk’s $134 billion claim against OpenAI relies on “numbers out of the air”, but said that jurors would likely understand this and allowed an expert backing Musk’s case to provide testimony to the jury in next month’s trial.

The US Commerce Department withdrew a draft rule on AI chip exports.

8 in 10 AI chatbots were regularly willing to assist users in planning violent attacks including school shootings, religious bombings, and high-profile assassinations. DeepSeek went as far as wishing the would-be attacker a “Happy (and safe) shooting!”.