Lately I’ve been increasingly thinking that what this war has truly changed may not be just oil prices.
In the past, whether a country had energy security depended on whether there was oil underground.
In the future, it may depend on this too: whether the country can continue to function normally after it no longer relies on oil.
If a war can cause a country that imports tens of millions of barrels of crude oil every day to suddenly cut those imports by several million barrels, yet the economy does not grind to a halt—then electrification is no longer merely an industrial upgrade.
It becomes a kind of—
geostrategic defensive capability.
And in the next round of national competition, what countries truly compete for may not only be:
who controls the oil fields.
But rather—
who has the ability to “get off” oil fields.
In the past, whether a country had energy security depended on whether there was oil underground.
In the future, it may depend on this too: whether the country can continue to function normally after it no longer relies on oil.
If a war can cause a country that imports tens of millions of barrels of crude oil every day to suddenly cut those imports by several million barrels, yet the economy does not grind to a halt—then electrification is no longer merely an industrial upgrade.
It becomes a kind of—
geostrategic defensive capability.
And in the next round of national competition, what countries truly compete for may not only be:
who controls the oil fields.
But rather—
who has the ability to “get off” oil fields.