Iran has demonstrated that even a country badly outmatched militarily by the United States and Israel can exert effective control over one of the world's most critical shipping lanes. Drones and cyberweapons have made disruption cheaper, easier and more sustainable than at any point in modern history.
Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O'Sullivan write in Foreign Affairs that the norm against targeting civilian energy infrastructure is eroding fast. They point to Russia's attacks on Ukraine's electric grid, Russian-linked cyber-operations against energy networks - including the 2021 attack on a U.S. gas pipeline and the 2025 attack on Poland's power grid - and Trump's threat to attack Iranian power stations in late March, as reported by Foreign Affairs.
The weaponization of energy extends well beyond kinetic strikes. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States issued sanctions and intercepted tankers to restrict fuel shipments to Cuba, exacerbating shortages on the island. Before Trump ordered the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, the U.S. military had set up a blockade to stop Venezuelan oil exports. After Maduro's seizure, Trump declared that Venezuela's new leadership would be "turning over" the country's oil to the United States.
The authors stress that "there are now many ways to constrict energy flows" - shipping, insurance, finance and payment systems can all become targets, and directly attacking production is not the only way to cause disruption. The first three months of 2026 alone saw energy weaponization across multiple theaters and through multiple instruments simultaneously.
Clean energy offers no refuge from these risks. China's stranglehold on rare-earth processing and clean energy manufacturing gives Beijing leverage over the very technologies meant to replace fossil fuels. When Beijing restricted rare-earth exports in 2025, the impact rippled through Western manufacturing, driving home the lesson that "dependence could be weaponized in the clean energy economy just as easily as it had been in the fossil fuel market," as Bordoff and O'Sullivan put it.
Bordoff and O'Sullivan warn there is "little reason to expect energy crises to taper off in the future." As great-power rivalry intensifies and the international economic order fragments, countries are increasingly willing to exploit the dependence of others on global energy markets to advance foreign policy objectives.
"Hvylya" previously reported that even one tanker hit weekly could shut down the Strait of Hormuz entirely.