As bombs, missiles and drones fell over the Middle East this past week, another story with far-reaching and dramatic repercussions was developing in the region.

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The Strait of Hormuz was shut down following attacks. The move sent shockwaves through the global economy, with the immediate coverage focusing on what it meant for the energy and oil trade.

But container shipping was affected in the same way. The attacks caused ships to have to immediately re-route and led companies like Maersk to reverse their decision to resume operations in the region.

The alternative, for the foreseeable, will likely now be to navigate around the Cape of Good Hope at the Horn of Africa.

This is a catastrophe for global trade. The chaos those ships in the area now find themselves in and the extended detours they will now have to take will lead to massive delays and indefinite supply uncertainty.

This is a huge issue for all manufacturing, but in a situation so febrile, where it seems large parts of the world are being dragged into war, it is especially dangerous for arms manufacturing.

Europe still has import dependencies on raw material and components, ranging from rare earth minerals and semi-conductors to energetic materials.

Despite President Trump’s protestations that the US supply of weapons is ‘virtually unlimited’, according to the Wall Street Journal, there is concern within the Pentagon about how long such an enormous operation can be prosecuted, and how long the US’ stockpile of defensive and offensive munitions will hold out.

Both defensive and offensive actions are consuming incredible amounts of explosives.

And that’s the US; the most advanced and powerful arms manufacturer in the world. European nations have fallen behind in recent years; not investing in domestic production capacity and instead relying on America for support.

Therefore it is Europe that will be hit hardest by logistical disruptions to the arms manufacturing sector, and it is Europe that can’t afford to fall behind.

Russia and China both massively outgun us when it comes to production capacity, and the US, who have traditionally bolstered that capacity, is now dangerously depleting its own stockpile while also paying less attention when it comes to supporting their allies.

The message it sends - that Europe’s manufacturing industry can be neutralised - or at the very least significantly disrupted via a few attacks on container ships - is a profoundly dangerous one.

We find ourselves in the alarming situation where our ability to fight for a sustained period of time can be throttled because of our reliance on a geographical chokepoint in one of the most unstable regions on Earth.

So what should Europe be doing? A lot has been said, including by me, about the need to scale up its industrial capacity and make sure we utilise local supply chains.

And it cannot be denied that the mobilisation for rearming Europe has been impressive.

But the factories you build are only as useful as the supply chains that feed them.

To use a specific example, what use is a factory building air interceptor missiles if the electronic components or explosives you need for them are stuck on the other side of the world due to supply chain disruption?

Europe needs to be bringing its supply chains home. It’s why I've been building one of the first TNT factories in Europe since the Cold War.

Western nations need to think about their defence holistically; if the world is getting more chaotic and fractured, it stands to reason that you shouldn’t make relying on countries on the other side of that fragmented world a key part of your strategy.

As those in the energy and civilian manufacturing sectors have also been warning, the world of seamless global supply chains existing without disruption is over, as the chaos in the Strait of Hormuz has shown.

The world is now predictable in its unpredictability and the best way to safeguard ourselves against it is to make our supply chains shorter and bolster domestic capacity.

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Joakim Sjöblom is the CEO and co-founder of SWEBAL (swebal.com), one of the very few European companies specialising in the manufacturing of energetics for munitions.

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