What about the suez canal or iranian oil fields
Why do you feel the need go single out "the west"? I mean, where do you think the container ships crossing the Suez go to and come from? Do you think that the likes of China would be totally ok with their main trade routes being severed and instead having to go all the way around Africa?
You're framing things as if there's still a British empire syphoning the economies of their colonies all the way from Great Britain, with no one else involved or committed to any trade whatsoever.
Hell they're explicitly exploring using the northeast passage to bypass the Suez.
Why do you think this is relevant in discussions over who would respond to shutting down the Suez canal? I mean, do you have a map?
A few more than half century old examples don't change what we can all see is the case in the present day.
They only backed up when the US told the Brits and France they would tank their economies still on US life support.
And, pray, why did the Machado win the hypocrisy prize on Friday? Why are American ships outside the waters of Venezuela?
The British and the French were concerned about the Suez, but Israel was not dependent on the Suez and went to war over their navigation being blockaded by Egypt in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, which was a violation by Egypt of maritime law. Aqaba is in the Sinai peninsula which is also bounded by the Suez.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_passage_through_the_Su...
The waters have been internal waters literally for three millennia (or more) until foreigners came in and built a canal connecting what is actually a very narrow gulf to the Mediterranean.
Foreigners come in, unilaterally build a canal and now the locals lose national sovereignty over their waters?
Also, why does Egypt have to agree to the freedom of navigation of a state it did not (at the time) recognize?
Furthermore, why must Egypt agree to the laws of freedom navigation it did not sign?
The answer, of course, is that there is no such thing as international law, or a "rules based order". There's only power makes might.
> They only backed up when the US told the Brits and France they would tank their economies still on US life support.
But they did back off. The US was willing to stand up for Egyptian sovereignty even against their own allies. That isn't an example of non-western countries being unable to enact protectionist policies, it's an example of the opposite.
I suppose installing el-Sisi is also an example of protecting Egyptian sovereignty:
https://www.cato.org/commentary/ten-years-after-coup-us-stil...
My example is about European piracy under the pretense of that foreign ownership supersedes sovereignty.
That is to say, hypocrisy.
The US' role was, of course, hypocritical. I mention it only to illustrate that even the US found the european actions blatantly imperialist.
> My example is about European piracy under the pretense of that foreign ownership supersedes sovereignty.
The British and French did something wrong 70 years ago and the world called them out for it, therefore it's hypocritical for the Dutch to call out a similar wrong thing being done against them now? Nonsense.
[1] https://www.latintimes.com/nicolas-maduro-losing-it-venezuel...
But talking seriously, the OP didn't say that other countries never do it. Just that the powers have innumerable examples of coups to knock out governments that do this. A lot of them were democratic and popular governments.
For some reason, over the past few decades the powerful countries from the West employed rhetoric to suggest that their actions are guided by principles and morals. That was most likely a reaction to a huge wave of anti-colonial revolutions and national liberation struggles that tore the Western empires apart. However, USA and Israel have taken off the mask over the past 2 years, and that weasly rhetoric is now over.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#Melian_Dialogue