Energy frontlines: Russia and Iran

All states act exclusively in accordance with their national interests. The collective West has done this throughout the 20th Century. Even now, it is not holding back and is doing everything in its power to reconfigure the global geoeconomics and geopolitics as it sees fit. What is wrong if Russia and Iran are acting in their state interests and do everything as they see fit? Two theatres of war, one involving Russia and the other involving Iran, are defining the new global order. The new era in global politics began with Donald Trump's arrival on the global scene as American President. The strategic objective of the US under his presidency is to reconfigure global geoeconomics and geopolitics, and the transatlantic partnership makes it a strategic objective of the collective West.

Make no mistake that Russia and Iran are currently the targets of this strategic objective, with China to follow. To achieve this strategic objective, two gray zones have already been created. One is Ukraine, and the other is the Arabian Peninsula. Both gray zones appear at the junctions of geographic spaces that are under US dominance: Ukraine between Russia and Europe, and the Arabian Peninsula between the Arab world and Israel. A gray zone can be defined as a space that possesses certain official state forms or lacks legal recognition but features a system of governance. Ukraine has been under martial law since 2022, and although its government operates legally under the Ukrainian Constitution, it did not hold parliamentary elections in 2023 or presidential elections in 2024. That makes it a gray-zone country that fights a war planned and aided by the collective West. The current status of the Strait of Hormuz and now Bab-el-Mandeb also makes the Arabian Peninsula a gray-zone geographical space. Both Russia and Iran, the principal targets of gray-zone strategies, are oil-rich states; however, their energy vulnerabilities differ significantly. In Russia's case, much of the critical energy infrastructure is located far from the front lines; in Iran's case, much of the energy infrastructure is located close to, or directly exposed to, the front line.

So, the collective West is employing gray-zone strategies against both. The striking feature of this strategy is its deliberate ambiguity. In Russia's case, it seeks to impose costs while avoiding actions that might trigger a direct conventional military response from the collective West. In Iran's case, the objective is to gradually weaken it while maintaining uncertainty about the nature and extent of the American response and allowing that ambiguity to persist through the midterm elections. In both theatres of war, the collective West is employing energy as a strategic weapon, thereby increasing the political, economic, and military costs of the conflicts. This serves the interests of Western defence industries, particularly in the US, by generating demand for advanced military capabilities. Ukraine requires enhanced long-range missile capabilities and air defense systems, while the Gulf states continue to seek increasingly sophisticated American and European military assistance. The scale of this demand is reflected in the recent US approval of a $24.3 billion sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.

Degrading Iran and Russia's financial and logistical ability to wage war by denying them the oil revenue is the core objective of this gray zone strategy. Using energy as a coercive tool of statecraft is not new. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin attributed the Allied victory over Nazi Germany to the Red Army's success in denying Hitler access to oilfields in the Caucasus. Then there was the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which caused a nearly 300 per cent rise in the price of gas in the US. As the world stands at the dawn of a new age of energy weaponisation, it must realise that weaponising energy only inflicts public pain rather than achieving the required strategic objectives. Arab oil embargo failed to compel the West to abandon Israel. Even after Hitler was defeated, NATO's expansion towards the East has once again brought the war to that frontline.

Ukraine argues that its long-range strikes against Russian oil infrastructure are consistent with international law because they target an industry that directly sustains Russia's war effort. By disrupting oil refining and processing capacity, Ukraine seeks to impose economic costs inside Russia, raise the price of petroleum products, reduce Russian oil revenues, and constrain Moscow's ability to finance the war. Yet a similar logic is applied very differently when Iran targets US military bases or energy infrastructure that it regards as sustaining the war against it. Iran is portrayed as a pariah or rogue state acting in violation of international law. This raises a broader question about how international law and the rules-based international order are invoked and applied. Russia and Iran face condemnation when they escalate in response. Israel's conduct, and particularly its rejection of de-escalation in Gaza, generates a different response from the collective West.

The return of great-power rivalry, coupled with the growing weaponisation of energy, is creating new opportunities for states to use energy as an instrument of influence and a means of pursuing foreign policy objectives. In this emerging environment, policymakers must rethink the relationship between energy security, foreign policy and national security to avoid confronting their own "energy Pearl Harbors" or "energy 9/11s". For Pakistan, the stakes are particularly significant. The defence minister has stated that the Makkah Defence Pact "has reached the point of its implementation". The pot, therefore, appears to have boiled, but no one yet knows what it contains. This uncertainty suggests that Pakistan needs to rediscover the democratic principle of meaningful debate on matters of foreign policy and national security. A representative parliament should have the opportunity to deliberate on decisions that could carry significant long-term geopolitical consequences for the country.

Pakistan can potentially meet its energy requirements from three major directions: Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But the price of oil cannot be measured merely in financial terms. Each source carries its own geoeconomic and geopolitical implications, and the strategic cost may ultimately depend on where Pakistan chooses to source its energy. The emerging era of global politics demands difficult strategic decisions at the national level. Such decisions require not only informed debate but also competent national leadership capable of defining Pakistan's interests as per the aspirations of the people of Pakistan and pursuing them consistently and without any ambiguity.