War is forcing the world to reckon with geography’s power

LONDON – For decades we have lived in a world that seemed to transcend geography. Information, money, goods, germs and weapons have come to defy distance. Whispered confidences and billion-dollar bounties are traded instantaneously.

Smartphones, satsumas and sandals are delivered to your doorstep from across the globe. Ballistic missiles are able to traverse continents in minutes. But such everyday assumptions have been challenged by the economic havoc wrought by the blockage of a single vital shipping and energy route in the Persian Gulf.