Is the Strait of Hormuz a Straitjacket for Democracy?

This episode host Heather Bakken is joined by Pendulum colleagues Jennifer Irish and Yaroslav Baran to discuss how the seemingly unplanned aspects of U.S. strategy in Iran are actually playing out geopolitically and what impact it has on Canada.The trio unpacks what the war reveals about great power dynamics and the consequences that reach well beyond the Strait of Hormuz.Irish argues this conflict is an example of what warfare is going to become in the hybrid warfare space, which involves multiple fronts, and the implications for Canada. She notes the yawning gap in cognitive warfare readiness as Iran deploys AI-generated disinformation at unprecedented scale.Baran raises the stakes by arguing Canada needs to get serious about energy sovereignty and that while Trump keeps score on who shows up to help and who doesn't, the NATO military alliance underpinning Canadian security for 76 years may be more fragile than Ottawa wants to admit.It`s time to make hard calls on Arctic sovereignty, energy infrastructure, and the information integrity that holds a democracy together.