A Reshaped Global Energy Board
Just five years ago, the global energy map was a board with multiple strong players. Russia supplied Europe with 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas through pipelines that had been operating for decades. Iran and Venezuela sold heavy crude to China outside the dollar-based financial system. Qatar provided a fifth of the world’s LNG from Ras Laffan, then the largest liquefaction facility on the planet. China was building the Belt and Road Initiative with an overland corridor through Iran, Iraq and Syria, allowing it to bypass maritime straits controlled by the US Navy. The world had options, and when a buyer has options, the seller has no power.
From Isolated Crises to Grand Strategy
Today that board is almost unrecognizable. If we stop viewing the geopolitical events of the last four years as isolated crises and instead see them as parts of a single sequence, the architecture of an American grand strategy becomes visible.
First Move: Capturing Europe’s Gas Market
The first move was Europe. The war in Ukraine provided the justification for sanctions that reduced Russian pipeline gas to Europe from 150 billion cubic meters to 40 billion. The destruction of Nord Stream then permanently removed any realistic prospect of a return to previous flows. The United States increased its share of Europe’s LNG imports from 28% in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million metric tons, the first country in history to exceed 100 million. Europe moved from being a customer with alternatives to a captive market, purchasing its survival in dollars.
Second Move: Cutting China’s Mediterranean Corridor
The second move was Syria. The fall of Assad severed the critical node linking China’s Belt and Road to the Mediterranean. The trilateral railway connecting Iran, Iraq and Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was destroyed. This geographically isolated Iran and cleared the path for what came next.
Third Move: Seizing Venezuela’s Heavy Crude
The third move was Venezuela. In January of this year, the United States effectively took control of the world’s largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast hosts the most advanced refining complex on earth, built specifically to process heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero and others are now positioned to refine hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude every day. The United States has captured a massive strategic reserve and consolidated its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, a sector worth 110 billion dollars in 2025 alone. Venezuela and Iran were the two major oil supply channels operating outside the dollar system, both selling heavy crude primarily to China and outside US financial supervision. Both are being neutralized within a span of ninety days.
Fourth Move: Engineering a Middle East Energy Shock
The fourth move is Iran and the Middle East energy shock. Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field, the world’s largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar’s Ras Laffan. QatarEnergy’s own assessment is that 17% of its export capacity has been lost and that recovery may take up to five years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices have spiked by 70%. Asian spot prices have doubled. The only remaining scaled supplier is the United States. If Iran falls and a successor government emerges under American influence, roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production, out of a total of 103 million, will effectively come under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the American-led coalition becomes the marginal producer.
From Petrodollar to Petro/LNG Dollar
This extends far beyond oil. We are witnessing the evolution of the traditional petrodollar into a hybrid petro/LNG dollar. The old system rested on Saudi crude priced in dollars. The new system rests on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The resulting dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long-term contracts and regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply arrangements for decades. Europe and the United States’ Pacific allies—Japan, South Korea and Taiwan—cannot easily switch providers. There is nowhere left to pivot. They are locked into the American energy system.
Markets Signal a Flight to the Dollar
The markets confirm this shift. The dollar index has risen from 96 to 101. Gold is down roughly 20% from its all-time high in January. Bitcoin is down 20% for the year. Brent is above 100 dollars. European and Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and cryptocurrencies to buy dollars, because they need dollars to purchase the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy denominated in American currency. Yet this strategy has an even deeper layer, and it is the one I consider most important.
Energy, AI, and Compute Dominance
Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive, uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily supplied by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium and rare earth elements. By choking the Strait of Hormuz and crippling Middle Eastern LNG and helium production, the United States is systematically degrading China’s ability to power data centers and manufacture semiconductors at scale. The United States is effectively energy self-sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves and expanding Gulf Coast capacity powered by domestic gas. China, by contrast, is import-dependent, and every joule it imports now passes through chokepoints controlled by the US Navy. Iran was the Belt and Road’s overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized, that corridor is severed. China faces a world in which its compute infrastructure competes for scraps in a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy.
Russia Cornered, China Constrained
Russia is next in this sequence. A postwar Iran reopening under American influence will compete directly with Russia for the same refineries in China and India, and likely at lower cost. Russia will lose its last structural advantage in heavy crude and thus its economic lifeline. Meanwhile, under the cover of war in Iran, Ukraine has been opportunistically striking Russian energy infrastructure. The message from Washington becomes brutally simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to be crushed, sign the Ukraine deal.
Trump, Xi, and the Endgame
At this point, Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. The United States has near-complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG dollar is entrenched. Iran has been cleared. Russia is cornered. China faces a world in which the Malacca Trap is fully closed, with no remaining overland energy bypass. Israel and the Gulf states are absorbing the kinetic costs of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, contrary to the prevailing narrative, is the United States. Qatar being offline for five years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of American exporters for the rest of the decade. The Gulf states face years of reconstruction. Europe faces its second energy crisis in four years. The average American may experience temporary moderate inflation and higher fuel prices. But if you are the architect of an American empire and you view the rise of China and Chinese ASI as an existential, winner-takes-all contest, this collateral damage is an acceptable cost.
Control of Energy, Money, and Compute
Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls both the monetary system and the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that will determine which civilization builds ASI first. The United States is moving to seize all three
