Global geopolitics

Revealing the Means by Which Energy, Finance, and Force Uphold the Global Dominance of Nations

What many take to be a scattering of troubles across the globe, wars here, trade unsettled there, and a lingering unease in distant regions, cannot be rightly understood as separate misfortunes. They are threads, though tangled to the casual eye, which when drawn together reveal a pattern shaped by deliberate design. For there are signs, plain enough to those who care to observe them, in the shifting currents of energy, in the firm yet unseen hand upon finance, and in the careful placing of armies and fleets, that these matters are not left to chance. Rather, they suggest the work of a powerful company of interests, stretching across borders, rooted chiefly in the institutions and enterprises of the Western world, and resolved above all things to preserve its long-held command. It is the contention of this account that such a class, bound not by nation alone, but by shared interest and advantage, seeks to maintain its supremacy through many instruments: by securing dominion over energy, by exerting its will upon the seas, by troubling the works and designs of rivals, by ensuring the world’s reliance upon its chosen currency, and by holding fast the great channels of trade. These are no isolated acts, nor hasty responses to passing events, but rather parts of a single, considered design, an answer to the rising strength of other powers, most notably those gathered under the banners of China and Russia, along with the growing fellowship known as BRICS, whose ascent threatens to unsettle the old order of things.

The argument proceeds in two stages, beginning with an examination of the mechanisms through which this system operates, followed by a materialist analysis explaining why such a strategy has emerged. The distinction is necessary because observable actions, military operations, sanctions regimes, infrastructure disruptions, constitute only the operational surface of a deeper structural logic rooted in class relations and capital accumulation. The first component of the “how” concerns energy dominance as the foundation of power. According to the International Energy Agency, the United States became the largest combined producer of oil and natural gas by 2023, surpassing traditional producers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. This shift fundamentally altered the strategic position of the United States compared to earlier decades marked by vulnerability to supply shocks, including the 1973 oil crisis. Energy self-sufficiency combined with export capacity allows control not merely over domestic supply but over global pricing structures and distribution patterns.

Control over energy becomes decisive only when combined with the ability to shape market access. European dependence on Russian pipeline gas, facilitated through infrastructure such as Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, previously constrained the market for alternative suppliers. Following the Ukraine conflict and coordinated sanctions by the European Union and the United States Department of the Treasury, this supply relationship was disrupted. Data analysed by Ben McWilliams at Bruegel indicates that “the reconfiguration of Europe’s gas supply has entrenched higher structural energy costs relative to pre-crisis baselines,” demonstrating how removal of lower-cost suppliers restructures dependency toward higher-cost alternatives. The second mechanism involves systematic pressure on competing energy producers across multiple regions, combining sanctions, infrastructure disruption, and supply interference to remove alternative sources from the market.

Russian exports have been constrained through sanctions, price caps, and maritime restrictions following the Ukraine conflict, including measures targeting shipping, insurance, and port access under regimes coordinated by the European Union and the United States Department of the Treasury, which reduced Russian oil flows to Europe by approximately ninety percent in 2023. In parallel, the global LNG system experienced severe disruption following missile strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex, the world’s largest LNG hub, removing up to 19 million tonnes of supply and triggering sharp price increases across Europe and Asia. Analysts noted that such attacks could “roil gas markets for years” and significantly tighten global supply. Given that Qatar supplies roughly one-fifth of global LNG exports, disruption at Ras Laffan exposes the structural vulnerability of alternative suppliers. Additional strain on supply has emerged from external shocks affecting other exporters, including weather-related disruptions in Australia’s LNG infrastructure, further tightening market availability. At the same time, Venezuelan production has declined from over three million barrels per day to below one million following sanctions and economic collapse, sharply reducing exports historically directed toward China. Iranian exports, which account for a significant share of China’s seaborne crude imports, remain constrained under enforcement by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, while ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf has disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit route for global energy. As Erica Downs of the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy observed, “Chinese refiners benefit from discounted sanctioned crude, but this dependence introduces geopolitical risk linked to enforcement variability.” Taken together, these developments demonstrate how simultaneous pressure on Russia, Qatar, Venezuela, Iran, and other suppliers reduces the availability of discounted or independent energy sources, thereby restructuring global supply toward more constrained and higher-cost channels.

The pattern does not remain dispersed across regions or commodities. It converges upon a single structural point within the global energy system, where multiple supply lines intersect with industrial dependence. China occupies that position through its reliance upon discounted crude originating in Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Combined flows from these suppliers account for approximately one-third of Chinese crude imports, reflecting not only volume but also access to lower-cost streams outside conventional Western pricing structures. These imports reduce exposure to dollar-denominated benchmarks and sustain cost conditions required for heavy industrial output. Independent refining capacity inside China depends upon this arrangement in a more specific way. The so-called “teapot” refineries operate on margins derived from heavy and medium crude grades, which align closely with output from the same sanctioned or constrained suppliers. Processing systems, investment models, and procurement channels reflect long-term adaptation to these feedstocks rather than generalised global supply.

Simultaneous pressure on Russia, Iran, and Venezuela therefore affects not only aggregate availability but also the composition of inputs required for those facilities. Russian supply faces sanction-driven redirection and logistical constraint, altering both price formation and delivery reliability. Venezuelan production has contracted sharply under sustained economic pressure, reducing export capacity that previously moved in significant proportion toward Asian markets. Iranian exports remain restricted through enforcement mechanisms overseen by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, while instability in the Persian Gulf introduces additional risk to maritime transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a corridor carrying a substantial share of China’s seaborne crude imports. Each disruption operates through distinct mechanisms, yet the combined effect reduces access to specific grades of crude rather than merely lowering total supply. Replacement barrels exist within global markets, though they arrive under different pricing structures, contractual conditions, and refining compatibility constraints. Substitution therefore alters cost structure and operational continuity rather than restoring prior equilibrium.

Pressure across these three suppliers compresses the availability of discounted and politically insulated energy inputs that previously underpinned China’s refining system. Adjustments in procurement shift exposure toward markets governed more directly by Western financial and regulatory frameworks, where settlement, enforcement, and pricing remain tightly integrated with dollar-based systems. Energy flows that once moved through parallel channels increasingly return to a consolidated structure of pricing and control, reinforcing dependency on established maritime routes and financial intermediaries.

The third mechanism is maritime coercion, which represents a shift from territorial occupation to control over flows. Approximately sixty percent of global oil trade moves through maritime chokepoints, making naval capacity central to enforcement. The global reach of the United States Navy allows persistent presence across these routes, enabling both disruption and protection. Historical precedent from the tanker conflicts during the Iran-Iraq War demonstrates how interference with shipping can produce global price volatility. Contemporary increases in insurance premiums, reported by Lloyd’s of London, reflect heightened risk conditions that raise costs independently of production levels. The fourth mechanism involves financial enforcement through the dollar system. Despite the end of gold convertibility under Richard Nixon in 1971, the dollar remains central to energy transactions. Zoltan Pozsar, formerly of Credit Suisse, stated that “commodity markets remain structurally anchored in dollar liquidity due to the depth of US financial markets and the integration of energy trading with dollar-denominated instruments.” When supply disruptions force countries to secure energy on global markets, they must obtain dollars, reinforcing currency dominance even in periods of economic strain.

The fifth mechanism concerns the relocation of industrial capacity. Elevated energy costs in Europe and parts of Asia have coincided with increased investment flows toward the United States, where domestic energy is cheaper. Companies such as BASF and Volkswagen have announced expansions in North America. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development confirms rising foreign direct investment into US manufacturing sectors between 2022 and 2024. This process reflects how energy pricing differentials can reconfigure global production geography, drawing capital toward the centre of energy control. These mechanisms collectively form a system in which energy monopolisation, maritime enforcement, infrastructure disruption, and financial control operate in tandem. The outcome is a restructuring of global dependency, where access to energy becomes conditional on participation in a system anchored in US-controlled production and financial channels.

Understanding why this system is being pursued requires a shift from descriptive analysis to materialist explanation. Research by Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics demonstrates the concentration of capital ownership within transnational networks, where major investors hold diversified assets across multiple jurisdictions. Asset managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard Group maintain significant stakes across energy, finance, and industrial sectors simultaneously. This concentration produces aligned interests that transcend national boundaries and orient toward the preservation of global capital accumulation. Adam Tooze of Columbia University noted that “energy markets are not merely economic arenas but are structured by security guarantees, regulatory frameworks, and geopolitical alignments,” indicating the integration of state and corporate power. Leslie Sklair argued that “globalising elites operate through interconnected economic and political institutions, shaping policies that sustain their collective interests,” providing a framework for understanding coordination across national systems.

Within a Marxist-Leninist framework, these observations correspond to the operation of a transnational ruling class whose primary loyalty is to capital rather than nation. State institutions function as instruments through which these interests are advanced, particularly where military and financial tools can reshape global markets. Policies that impose costs on domestic populations, such as higher energy prices or industrial relocation, remain compatible with elite interests if they enhance overall capital returns. Liberal ideological frameworks obscure this dynamic by focusing on states, leaders, or isolated policy decisions. By treating markets as neutral mechanisms and conflicts as contingent events, liberal analysis fails to account for the structural role of ownership and class power. The persistence of energy-centred conflict demonstrates that material control over production and distribution remains decisive. As Eric Hobsbawm observed, “the history of the twentieth century cannot be understood without reference to the control of energy resources,” a statement that retains explanatory power under current conditions.

Historical continuity reinforces this interpretation. The post-war financial system established at Bretton Woods, the transition to the petrodollar in the 1970s, and earlier interventions such as the removal of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 all demonstrate consistent alignment between state action and energy control. These precedents indicate that contemporary strategies are not aberrations but extensions of long-standing patterns adapted to new technological and geopolitical conditions. The consequences of this strategy manifest unevenly across classes and regions. Data from the International Labour Organization shows that energy price increases correlate with declining real wages in import-dependent economies, while energy firms record unprecedented profits. This divergence reflects the structural position of labour and capital, where costs are externalised onto populations while gains accrue to asset holders.

The visibility of these processes remains limited because their mechanisms operate through complex institutional layers rather than singular events. Disruptions appear as separate crises, wars, sanctions, supply shortages, rather than components of a unified system. Liberal frameworks reinforce this fragmentation by attributing outcomes to discrete causes rather than structural relationships. As a result, the underlying pattern of coordinated economic and geopolitical action remains obscured. Assessment of the long-term viability of this strategy requires consideration of its internal contradictions. The concentration of energy control can generate short-term gains, including strengthened currency demand and capital inflows, but it also imposes costs on allied economies and accelerates efforts to develop alternative systems. Initiatives by BRICS countries to expand non-dollar trade mechanisms, alongside investments in energy diversification, indicate attempts to reduce vulnerability. However, as long as physical trade routes and energy flows remain susceptible to disruption, these alternatives face structural constraints.

The trajectory toward a multipolar system is therefore shaped by the interaction between these competing dynamics. The capacity to control energy flows provides significant leverage, but it does not eliminate the material base of rival economies. Industrial capacity, technological development, and resource endowments continue to exist outside the dominant system, creating the conditions for ongoing contestation. What appears, at first glance, to be disorder in our present age is not mere chaos, but rather a grand reshaping of the world’s affairs. The great powers, unwilling to surrender their long-held stations, marshal their influence through command of energy, dominion over the seas, and the quiet yet firm pressure of finance, weaving these forces together as one. And still, the old principle endures beneath this changing surface: that those who hold the essential materials upon which industry depends may, in turn, govern the price of goods, the flow of money, and the fortunes of nations themselves, binding others to them in ties not easily broken.

The United States is increasingly repositioning its energy architecture away from reliance on external Gulf supply chains toward a combined domestic production base and controlled external reserves. This transition underpins a broader shift from a classical Petrodollar system, anchored in Middle Eastern oil flows, toward a Petro-Gas configuration structured around North American production capacity and externally enforced market access. Within this framework, global demand is directed toward American energy exports, priced under monopoly conditions, denominated in dollars, and transported through maritime routes secured by United States naval power. The operational logic is not neutral market adjustment. It depends upon the systematic removal or containment of competing supply sources through sanctions, infrastructure disruption, and maritime pressure, thereby narrowing the field of viable exporters and consolidating pricing power within a smaller number of controllable nodes.

Historical precedent clarifies the strategic risk embedded in such arrangements. The Suez Crisis demonstrated that control over chokepoints does not guarantee permanent systemic dominance, even for established imperial powers. British influence declined not through immediate economic collapse, but through the gradual transfer of logistical and financial centrality to the United States, which retained the structural advantages of maritime control and dollar-based settlement. A comparable inflection now appears in the global energy system. The Strait of Hormuz occupies a position analogous to Suez in terms of systemic importance, but its exposure affects a far larger share of contemporary energy flows, particularly those directed toward Asia. Sustained disruption or militarisation of this corridor does not simply reshape trade patterns; it risks accelerating the relocation of economic gravity toward Eastern industrial centres already developing alternative settlement and supply mechanisms outside Western control.

Whether the present configuration succeeds in maintaining primacy depends on its capacity to manage fragmentation without producing counter-alignment at scale. As alternative energy routes, financial systems, and maritime strategies develop beyond Western coordination, the coherence of a dollar-centred energy order becomes increasingly contingent rather than structural. The outcome is therefore not predetermined stability, but a contested transition in which control over energy corridors determines the pace and direction of broader geopolitical rebalancing.

Authored By: Global GeoPolitics

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