While diplomats gathered in Brussels for a NATO meeting on June 18th, two German naval vessels were already moving. The minesweeper Fulda and the supply ship Mosel were transiting the Suez Canal, bound initially for Djibouti — a deployment that German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius described not as a commitment but as a preparation. The distinction matters enormously in German constitutional law, and it reflects a wider European caution about being drawn into a conflict that no one has yet formally declared. The strategic logic is straightforward.

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman, carries roughly a fifth of the world's traded oil. Any mining of those waters — a tactic Iran has threatened in the past during periods of maximum pressure — would send energy prices sharply higher across Europe, Asia and beyond. By pre-positioning assets near Djibouti under the existing EU naval mission Operation Aspides, Berlin can act quickly if conditions allow, without first navigating the slow machinery of a Bundestag mandate. That mandate would only be sought, Pistorius stressed, once a clear legal framework and the explicit consent of both Iran and Oman had been secured.

That consent remains far from guaranteed.