South Korea is among the most energy-import-dependent economies of any significant size in the world. It has no domestic oil production, minimal natural gas reserves, and a geography that makes pipeline connections to alternative supply sources impossible. Its entire hydrocarbon supply arrives by sea, a majority of it from the Persian Gulf, and all of the Gulf portion transits the Strait of Hormuz. The country has built one of the world’s largest economies and most sophisticated industrial sectors on an energy supply foundation that is concentrated in a single maritime corridor controlled in part by a government that has expressed willingness to disrupt it.