Energy Warfare: The Geopolitics of Oil and Global Power

In October 2023, Finnish and Estonian engineers observed a major drop in pressure within the critical undersea gas pipeline connecting both nations. Instruments indicated no technical malfunctions, prompting a scramble to identify the cause of the anomaly. With every piece of information that surfaced, it became clear that this was an act of sabotage.

A Chinese cargo ship had reportedly dragged its anchor for hundreds of kilometers along the ocean floor, tearing a hole in the pipeline and uprooting vital undersea communication cables. In that moment, both Estonia and Finland had been plunged into a modern form of conflict. Warfare has evolved far past ancient limitations where opponents faced each other on a traditional battlefield.

In the twenty-first century, conflicts can occur anywhere, at any time, and through any means. War is no longer solely soldier versus soldier; it calls on new strategies, with energy warfare emerging as a primary vector. This style of conflict can turn every military vehicle into a monumentally expensive paperweight, starve a domestic population without a single shot being fired, and coerce political alliances just as effectively as the barrel of a gun.

The Foundations of Energy Warfare and Coercive Control

Energy warfare encompasses a wide spectrum of geopolitical maneuvers. In 2014, the Islamic State seized Syrian oil fields to fund its operations. In 2022, Russia curtailed oil and gas supplies to Europe, aiming to freeze the continent into withdrawing its support for Ukraine.

In 2010, Qatar utilized its vast natural gas wealth to secure a bid for the FIFA World Cup. These events showcase the diverse ways energy warfare is fought. Three primary factors drive energy warfare: the scarcity of fossil fuels which drives global demand, the universal requirement of fossil fuels for modern nation-states to function, and the unequal geographic distribution of these resources.

This imbalance creates the strategic gap where energy warfare exists. If a resource-rich nation seeks an economic partnership with a resource-dependent neighbor, the dependent nation’s foreign policy choices become intrinsically linked to its energy security. The dominant state can deter its neighbor from aspiring toward unfavorable policies by threatening to halt energy exports.

Controlling natural resources serves as a powerful diplomatic and coercive tool in a world with ever-changing political allegiances. When nations refuse to cooperate from a position of strength, states increasingly attempt to coerce and blackmail each other through energy resources for political gain. NATO defines the violent side of energy warfare as a subsidiary of hybrid warfare, where the goal is to undermine or harm a target through overt and covert means.

For energy, this involves targeting critical infrastructure through cyber-attacks, conventional kinetic warfare, and economic pressure to politically or militarily harm other nations. Oil, frequently referred to as black gold, remains the most effective resource for manipulating global politics. It is a vital component of fuels, plastics, and everyday products that nation-states require for survival.

Access to oil and the manipulation of its supply have triggered numerous historical political crises. A prominent historical example of energy coercion occurred during World War Two. Japan’s seizure of Korea and its brutal campaign in China alarmed policymakers in Washington.

When Japanese forces moved into Southern Indochina with the intent of taking British Malaya, the United States imposed an oil embargo aimed at curtailing Japanese aggression. This embargo ultimately led to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, illustrating how energy coercion can force states into volatile reactions. Without oil, even mid-twentieth-century nations ground to a halt rapidly.

Less fanatical regimes than Imperial Japan might have chosen to negotiate when threatened with a similar resource cutoff, but the United States’ gambit demonstrated the high stakes of leveraging energy dependency.

The Geopolitics of Oil Cartels and Global Hegemony

The United States is not the only country capable of exerting energy coercion. Modern nations have frequently exploited global and even American dependence on oil for their own strategic gain. The most significant example of oil politics affecting the United States occurred during the crisis following the Yom Kippur War.

After Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) pledged to embargo all nations supporting Israel. Because the United States had just provided Israel with an emergency aid package worth over $2 billion, OAPEC initiated a severe embargo. Gas prices in 1973 quadrupled to over $11 per gallon and remained elevated even after the embargo ended in 1974, proving that even a global hegemon is vulnerable to energy warfare.

Today, the United States relies on its alliance with OAPEC’s largest producer to prevent a repeat of the 1970s oil crisis. Saudi Arabia, holding the second-highest global oil share behind Venezuela, serves as a vital strategic partner for Washington. However, this partnership provides Riyadh with significant leverage.

The United States secures oil and a regional ally, while tacitly supporting Saudi Arabia’s regional realpolitik. The ongoing humanitarian disaster in Yemen, driven by a Saudi-coalition-enforced blockade, has led to severe suffering. Concerns persist that pressuring Saudi Arabia over Yemen could prompt a reduction in oil production, driving up global prices.

Saudi analyst Najah al-Otaibi noted in 2022 that the Ukrainian crisis provided Saudi Arabia with increased leverage to use its oil assets to pressure powerful nations, including the United States. Manipulating global oil prices requires broad cooperation among producing states. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) encompasses nations that are net exporters of oil, controlling an estimated 79% of global oil reserves.

Challenging this oil cartel is highly precarious, as Russia discovered in 2020. The increased prevalence of American shale oil prompted the Saudi-led OPEC to propose cutting oil production to stabilize prices. Russia, economically reliant on fossil fuel exports, refused the cuts, arguing that reducing production would simply hand the United States a larger market share.

In the ensuing dispute, OPEC flooded the market with oil, causing prices to plummet by 21% overnight. Although Moscow was ultimately proven correct regarding market dynamics—a 2023 report noted that despite OPEC cutting production by 3.7 million barrels a day, other producers quickly made up the shortfall—the Kremlin’s moral victory was economically punishing. The complexities of orchestrating global supply demonstrate that while cartels wield immense power, executing sustained energy coercion requires delicate and often fragile international cooperation.

The Failure of Coercion in the Ukraine Conflict

Energy coercion is not infallible, as demonstrated by the modern conflict in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin’s weaponization of energy resources ultimately weakened Russia’s ability to conduct energy warfare and highlighted the vulnerability of a foreign policy heavily reliant on resource coercion. Before 2022, Russia held enormous swathes of the global natural gas supply, with Europe acting as its largest buyer.

Between Nord Stream 1, the Yamal pipeline, Blue Stream, and TurkStream, Russia shipped 175.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe annually in 2021. Pipelines accounting for 40 billion cubic meters of that total ran directly through Ukraine. When Russia invaded in 2022, the TurkStream pipeline extension and Nord Stream 2 were under construction, indicating robust plans for post-war energy expansion.

The Kremlin based its invasion strategy heavily on Europe’s reliance on Russian resources. This gamble failed entirely. Rather than acquiescing to Russian demands to preserve access to natural gas, European nations condemned the military operation, supplied Ukraine with military resources, trained Ukrainian troops, and collaborated against Russia.

In response, the Kremlin halted flows through multiple pipelines to Europe, attempting to starve the continent of the cheap oil and gas required to heat homes as winter approached. Russia gambled that the average European would not accept severe price hikes and a cost-of-living crisis simply to uphold Ukrainian sovereignty. Europe rallied in defiance despite spiking inflation.

While conventional military wisdom suggests a nation cannot be bombed into submission, the European response proved a population cannot be frozen into submission either. By 2022, the American shale gas revolution had transformed the United States from a minor player in the liquified natural gas export market into a global behemoth. Europe turned to Washington, and to a lesser extent Norway, to bridge the supply gaps.

Fiona Hill, former top expert on Russia at the National Security Council, noted in 2019 that Putin viewed American fracking as a profound threat to Russian interests. The realization that the United States could resupply the continent makes Russia’s decision to cut off its primary energy customer a significant strategic miscalculation. Despite this major failure, Russia retains the capacity for energy coercion within its immediate sphere of influence.

On NATO’s doorstep, Moscow’s cheap exports bolster the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria, helping maintain a buffer zone between Russia and NATO-aligned Europe alongside a small military garrison. However, the balance of power is shifting; Moldova is increasingly connecting itself to the Romanian energy grid, potentially giving Chisinau the ability to cut off Transnistria’s supply. Energy warfare also overlaps with soft power, as resource-rich nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar engage in global charm offensives, leveraging their wealth to sanitize their global image and secure influence among Western allies, blurring the line between energy warfare and traditional geopolitics.

Direct Attacks on Critical Energy Infrastructure

The vulnerability of energy grids has become a pressing global security concern. States are increasingly witnessing an upward trend of unprotected energy infrastructure being targeted and sabotaged. In January 2024, German prosecutors launched a probe into the attempted sabotage of a liquified natural gas pipeline in northern Germany.

Similarly, Iranian pipelines were targeted in February of the same year. In both instances, the perpetrators remained unidentified, highlighting a growing threat: modern nations are deeply reliant on infrastructure where a single point of failure can render a pipeline inoperable for weeks. This vulnerability is exponentially higher for undersea infrastructure, where access and repair operations are highly complex.

Europe faced a major infrastructure shock on September 26, 2022, when the Nord Stream pipeline was sabotaged by a series of underwater explosions off the Swedish coast. Swedish prosecutors concluded that a state actor was the most likely culprit, with subsequent investigations suggesting Ukrainian involvement. The ambiguity surrounding the attack illustrates a core feature of modern hybrid warfare bleeding into energy conflicts: neutralizing an adversary’s energy grid without attribution offers immense strategic value.

Ukraine’s strategy of explicitly targeting Russian oil refineries has become one of the most visible forms of kinetic energy warfare. Russia relies on oil revenues to fund its military operations and mitigate the impact of international sanctions. Crucially, the Russian military requires refined fuel to operate tanks, trucks, ships, aircraft, and missiles.

By degrading Russian energy infrastructure, Ukraine ensures the opposing military cannot move, fire, or resupply effectively. In 2023, Russian oil refinement capacity stood at approximately 6.8 million barrels per day. Through a sustained campaign of missile and drone strikes, Ukraine systematically targeted refinery infrastructure.

By April 2024, Russian refinery capacity had dropped to 5.2 million barrels per day, meaning the Ukrainian campaign reduced capacity by roughly 1.5 million barrels daily—almost a quarter of 2023 levels. These refinery attacks reportedly cost the Kremlin $135 million in April 2024 alone, roughly equivalent to the cost of multiple SU-57 fighter jets. Hemorrhaging this much revenue severely curtails Russia’s ability to expand and equip its military forces.

This kinetic approach extends globally and digitally. Energy infrastructure has historically been a prime military target, from Saddam Hussein’s forces burning Kuwaiti oil fields during the Gulf War to NATO targeting Serbian electrical grids during the Kosovo War. Today, cyber-attacks provide an asymmetric method for striking infrastructure that is difficult to reach conventionally.

Following the invasion of Ukraine, cyber-attacks on European energy grids surged. In 2021, the American energy pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline suffered a ransomware attack—attributed to the Russian hacker group Darkside—that crippled the company’s systems and caused massive disruptions to regional energy supplies, forcing a ransom payment of over $4 million in Bitcoin. Physical and digital targeting of infrastructure serves as the kinetic enforcement arm of energy coercion.

Mitigating Vulnerabilities and the Future of Energy Security

The physical and digital targeting of energy infrastructure acts as the destructive counterpart to geopolitical energy coercion. A $285 million pipeline like the Balticonnector can be disabled by a dragging anchor, Russian refineries are crippled by cheap commercial drones, and millions of dollars of oil can be left burning in the Red Sea by a $10,000 Houthi anti-ship missile. Nations are now forced to explore mitigation strategies to protect their infrastructure from both kinetic attacks and coercive control.

The foundation of mitigating energy warfare requires a multi-track solution, as relying on a single defensive posture is as dangerous as relying on a single resource stream. Energy independence remains the most straightforward method to limit external coercion. Nations with vast domestic reserves, such as Iran, face fewer immediate structural consequences from international sanctions because they do not rely on external imports to power their domestic grids.

However, true energy security requires a diverse mix of energy sources and, for nations that must import, a diversified portfolio of supplier countries. Relying heavily on one nation for natural gas or oil creates a critical vulnerability. While investing in storage and battery infrastructure provides emergency backup supplies, current technological limitations make this only a temporary stop-gap.

Nuclear power has emerged as a gold standard for energy security when administered correctly. France, operating 56 nuclear reactors, stands as the world’s largest electricity exporter. During Russia’s 2022 gas cutoff, France suffered significantly less economic turmoil than its neighbors, experiencing a peak inflation rate of 5.2%, compared to 6.9% in Germany and 18% in the Czech Republic.

France’s surplus nuclear generation successfully shielded the country from an acute economic crisis. However, nuclear energy carries immense risks during wartime; Ukraine relies heavily on its nuclear grid but faces persistent threats of Russian strikes on its nuclear facilities, echoing the lasting specter of the Chernobyl disaster. Renewables like wind and solar offer another avenue for diversification.

Individual turbines and solar arrays are difficult to neutralize entirely with conventional munitions, providing decentralized grid resilience, though they face growing vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks due to their reliance on integrated digital systems. Defending critical energy nodes from kinetic strikes requires distributing infrastructure across wider geographic areas. While ten small pipelines are more expensive to build than one massive pipeline, they significantly complicate an adversary’s targeting matrix.

Concentrated assets like nuclear plants cannot be dispersed, necessitating the deployment of advanced intelligence networks and expensive air defense systems. Every anti-air battery assigned to protect a power plant is one less system available to defend a civilian population center. As fossil fuels slowly phase out and renewables become more efficient, domestic energy generation will increase, softening the potential for international energy coercion.

Nevertheless, energy warfare will remain a central pillar of geopolitical strategy. Asymmetric warfare has fundamentally altered the global security landscape, and an effectively executed energy warfare campaign possesses the power to cripple a modern nation overnight.

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