Remote vulnerability: Risk and geopolitically transmitted harm in the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis

We introduce the concept of 'remote vulnerability' to describe how individuals and
communities are harmed by distant geopolitical events through global economic connections.
Although spatially removed from conflict, these populations suffer harm through material
linkages amplified by structural inequities and their inability to mitigate risk. This creates a
geopolitical vulnerability spectrum of three harm positions — proximate, intermediate, and
remote — each linked to the crisis through different mechanisms, transmission speeds and
policy decisions. We demonstrate that political geography need not be shared for harm to occur
and that existing crisis vocabularies are insufficient to capture remote vulnerability.