Quick war story, in this case, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s: By 1983 the conflict had reached a stalemate, inducing both countries to fling missiles at one another’s shipping in attempts to strangle their opponent economically. Altogether some three hundred vessels were struck. About fifty were disabled, and a dozen sunk. Compared to the size of global shipping at the time, it was barely a footnote. But that handful of events nearly destroyed the global . . . insurance sector.
