There is something almost ritualistic about the moment when oil prices cross the psychologically powerful threshold of $100 per barrel. Markets shudder. Politicians panic. Economists dust off old vocabulary—shock, disruption, stagflation. The global economy, so modern in appearance yet so primitive in its dependence on fossil fuel, begins to wobble.

This week that threshold was crossed again. Crude oil surged past $100 per barrel for the first time in nearly four years following military strikes tied to the escalating confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran. Brent crude—the international benchmark—briefly hovered near $101, while U.S. futures surged sharply in a single trading session. Such abrupt price movements are rare. Oil markets do not usually move like cryptocurrency.

Yet the numbers themselves are only the surface of the problem. Beneath them lies a deeper structural anxiety: the vulnerability of global energy supply to geopolitical conflict.

History offers uncomfortable parallels. In 1973, when Arab oil producers imposed an embargo following the Arab–Israeli war, oil prices quadrupled. The shock shattered Western economies that had grown accustomed to cheap energy. Inflation surged, economic growth collapsed, and a new word entered the economic vocabulary—stagflation.

A similar dynamic unfolded in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution disrupted oil production. Prices doubled again. Lines formed outside gas stations across the United States. Governments realised, perhaps too late, that geopolitics and energy markets were inseparable.

Today’s crisis echoes those moments, though the geopolitical landscape........

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