The Revolution That Changed America

The Fractured World of the Global Energy Map 

Weissword 

 

 

“Safety and certainty in oil lie in variety, and variety alone.”
—Winston Churchill, British House of Commons, 1913

One man, somewhat less well known than the names that accompany us, such as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Sam Altman, is responsible for the enormous transformation of the United States from an energy-importing country into one of the world’s largest exporters. His name is George Mitchell, and he persistently advanced various technologies for extracting gas from rock formations. He agreed to finance experiments for years, even when the wells did not justify the investment. Most importantly, he was not looking for the perfect well, but for an inexpensive process that could be repeated again and again. The revolution associated with his name was not the discovery of a new resource, but the discovery of a new way to produce a resource that was already known.

 

 

At the beginning of the 2000s, the United States worked vigorously to import enormous quantities of gas from Algeria, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Qatar, Oman, Australia, Malaysia, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Egypt. Vast investments were made in infrastructure intended to connect it to gas suppliers in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East. American gas became more expensive in the early 2000s, conventional production appeared to be stuck, and demand for electricity, heating, and industrial use continued to rise. In practice, the Americans competed against other LNG-importing countries during those years, including countries in Asia and Europe. The country that paid more received the tankers at the expense of other countries.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Washington did not try to keep Russian gas out of the American market. On the contrary. The George W. Bush administration viewed Russia as a potential source for diversifying the world’s energy supply. In 2002, Bush and Putin launched a joint “energy dialogue.” The declared objective was to increase Western investment in the Russian energy industry, develop Siberia, the Russian Far East, and offshore regions, and expand Russian energy exports to global markets. Perhaps you now understand why, years later, the United States opposed Germany and acted against it over Nord Stream. It was not because of Europe’s dependence on Russia, but because more gas flowing from Russia to Europe would come at the expense of the United States and, above all, would provide Europe with the ultimate ability to dictate elements of American foreign, economic, and industrial policy.

The United States and Russia declared that they were interested in American investment in Russian LNG facilities and in increasing Russian LNG exports to the American market. The two governments even sought to advance actual projects by 2008. At that stage, Russia was viewed in Washington in three ways: as an alternative to OPEC countries and the Persian Gulf in the oil market; as a new source of LNG for the Atlantic market; and as a country that could be integrated into the Western trade and investment system. This policy was almost the opposite of the one that developed after 2014. Washington was still concerned about Russia’s political power and its influence over its neighbors, but in the field of energy, it hoped that investment, trade, and integration into the Western market would turn Russia into a more predictable partner.

Qatar developed the North Field and became one of the world’s largest LNG exporters. The relationship was not limited to purchasing cargoes. Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil jointly established the Golden Pass terminal in Texas as an import facility. The model was that Qatari gas would be liquefied in the Persian Gulf, cross the ocean, and enter the American pipeline system. Following the shale revolution, that same project was converted into a facility for exporting American gas, while Qatari ownership remained part of the project. The Department of Energy describes Golden Pass as a joint venture in which Qatar held 70 percent and ExxonMobil approximately 30 percent.

During the 2000s, the United States prepared for a future in which a growing share of its gas would arrive by ship from Russia, Africa, and the Middle East. However, the American soil was blessed by the heavens, and an entrepreneur like George Mitchell, through the teams working under him, found an inexpensive method for extracting gas from rock formations. The shale revolution erased that future almost overnight. LNG imports fell rapidly after their 2007 peak, while American gas production increased by almost 80 percent between 2007 and 2021. Before the shale revolution, Russia and Qatar were potential suppliers that the United States wanted to integrate into its market. After the shale revolution, they became competitors of the American industry in the global market.

In 2011, the State Department established the Bureau of Energy Resources. Its purpose was to place energy at the center of American diplomacy: to manage the geopolitics of energy markets, work with producing and consuming countries, protect transit routes, and shape the energy policies of other countries. In 2014, the White House itself emphasized that LNG exports were a long-term solution. Large export facilities were not yet operating, constructing a liquefaction terminal took years, and some of the gas would be sold according to market prices rather than by government order. The reason is that if the United States supplies energy to countries around the world, it will be able to use energy as a political weapon and force countries to bend according to its interests against competing states.

 

 

 In February 2016, Sabine Pass began exporting commercial LNG. From that moment, the United States was no longer merely talking about diversifying the gas supply; it was capable of actually sending cargoes. By the end of the Obama administration, the policy explicitly connected LNG exports with European security. The administration helped Ukraine reduce its dependence on Russia, promoted European infrastructure, and expected that a more liquid LNG market would weaken Moscow’s ability to use gas as an instrument of pressure. Yes…yes…the Obama administration.

The first Trump administration did not invent the geopolitical use of gas. The Obama administration had already laid the foundations and used the possibility of exports against Russia. Trump’s change was in the language, pace, and scale. In June 2017, the White House said that turning the United States into a major energy exporter was a “strategic advantage” that could advance American interests abroad, and that energy policy was also foreign policy. The administration adopted the term “Energy Dominance,” promoted LNG permits, and linked gas deals to trade negotiations with Europe, China, and Asian countries.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was the stage at which the strategy became a large-scale supply system under the Biden administration. The Americans told the Europeans that they could supply gas instead of Russia, whereas years earlier they had only proposed alternatives to Russia, such as connecting pipelines to Central Asia. When the United States becomes the alternative to Russia as Europe’s gas supplier, it effectively dictates the foreign and security policies of European governments. The sanctions against Russia and the measures being led by the European Union against Chinese industry could only come into existence through the energy weapon employed by the United States. For the Europeans, the choice is between Moscow and Washington, and naturally, the United States is the preferred alternative.

 

 

In November 2025, the Trump administration published the United States’ National Strategic Policy. The document included a sentence that translates the declarations into the reality now taking shape: “Expanding the United States’ net energy exports will deepen its relationships with allies and reduce the influence of its rivals.” The document adds that energy will help the United States defend itself and, when necessary, project power. This is much more than “Drill, baby, drill.” Cheap energy at home is the foundation of reindustrialization, providing the United States with a technological and military advantage, and as energy exports grow, the dependence of its allies on the United States becomes greater, thereby reducing the influence of America’s rivals.

Three different presidents—one policy.

What Is the Meaning of the War in Hormuz?

The United States wants to be less dependent on energy passing through Hormuz, but it is not prepared to allow a rival to control the energy that passes through it to the rest of the world. The United States itself is not as dependent on Hormuz as it was in the past. But China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Europe are still affected by it. Therefore, the importance of the strait has changed. It is less of a direct American vulnerability and more of a point of control over the energy system of competitors and allies.

Is Trump in a hurry to reopen Hormuz, or does the crisis serve the United States? An increase in risk, insurance costs, and fears of disruption is enough to increase the relative value of American energy. A shipowner transporting oil or gas will not want to endanger the ship’s crew, the ship itself, or the cargo it carries in an unstable region if oil and gas can be transported more safely to global markets from another region, such as the American continent.

Shipping through Hormuz stopped on the third day of the war because insurance companies could not provide coverage, and the American administration did not say a word about this step. In practice, Washington did not provide British intelligence with information regarding the developing situation in the Persian Gulf, and British intelligence could not provide any information to British insurance companies. The use of this technical element gave the United States the change it wanted to achieve from the countries of Asia…and it came.

 

 

The Hormuz crisis demonstrated that gas exported from the Gulf may be inexpensive at the point of sale, but it must pass through a narrow strait, in a sensitive region, aboard a vessel that requires insurance. American gas travels along longer routes, but it leaves from coasts that are not dependent on Hormuz. China was the country that anticipated the expected crisis in Hormuz and prepared for it for many months. Other countries in Asia were forced to diversify their energy imports away from the Persian Gulf and toward the United States.

The Changing Energy Map

What is new today is that geopolitics determines energy policy far more than “market forces,” and what was once efficient and economical is no longer relevant today. The world has changed and continues to change. The number of conflicts between countries is rising, and the arms race is in full swing. The crises in Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Black Sea are not separate campaigns, but rather a single system intended to disrupt the energy map in the war between the great powers. For example, transporting oil from Venezuela to India is not an efficient or economical route, but it is much safer than the Persian Gulf.

I will begin with the Middle East. The regime in Iran is divided between politicians who seek to reach an agreement with the United States and, by doing so, moderate the influence of extremist elements within the Revolutionary Guards. Those extremists are, in practice, a cartel that controls weapons, drugs, oil and gas, food imports, medicine, and more, and they are the ones who run Iran. An agreement with the United States neutralizes their power because it transfers the revenues from Iranian oil and gas exports into an American supervisory system that allows food and medicine to be purchased.

The cartel is not prepared to lose billions of dollars in revenue, and therefore, the war is being conducted against elements within the Revolutionary Guards rather than against Iran as a state. The cartel has no interest whatsoever in rebuilding Iran or restoring its economy. As with cartels in other countries, a crisis gives them an opportunity to rule. It is no different in the Red Sea against the background of the Houthi attacks. This does not involve all of the Houthis, but rather those elements connected to the Iranian cartel. In the Israeli context, one can see the pressure being applied to Lebanon, which for years served as the cartel’s drug field.

The Americans will try to strike the cartel surgically, and this presents the Americans with a problem for which, at present, they have no tools to deal with. Elements in China know this and are exporting weapons to the cartel in order to wear down the Americans in the Hormuz region, inflict casualties, and encourage them to withdraw from Hormuz.

According to a Reuters report published several days ago, Iran signed a deal to purchase 300–400 Chinese-made portable air-defense systems, mainly QW-12 and FN-16 models, at an estimated value of $60–70 million. The first shipment is expected to arrive within weeks. These are short-range missiles carried and operated by a small team, intended primarily for low-altitude targets such as helicopters, drones, and low-flying aircraft.

 

 

According to the report, the contract was signed with a Hong Kong company called Zhongqing Baoshang International Investment, which allegedly served as an intermediary between Iran and the Chinese supplier. The reported plan is to transport the systems from Urumqi in western China, through Pakistan, and from there to Iran. The sources could not say with certainty whether the Pakistani leg would be carried out by air or by land.

If those elements in Iran lose their ability to protect the energy infrastructure, China loses an oil supplier, a strategic partner, and leverage against American power in the Gulf. Therefore, Russia and China are providing intelligence to those Iranian elements so that they can strike American targets across the Middle East with precision. By doing so, they hope to wear down decision-makers in Arab countries, who may come to view the American presence as a security burden, and to erode the status of the United States in the region.

Another crisis is taking place in the Black Sea. The Ukrainians are striking Russian energy facilities, but, for some reason…Kazakhstan’s energy facilities are also being hit. What is strange is that Ukraine, which is supported by the Europeans, is striking the pipeline that transports oil from Kazakhstan to Europe, while European decision-makers remain silent. In the first quarter of 2026, Kazakhstan was the European Union’s third-largest oil supplier, after the United States and Norway, providing approximately 9.6 percent of European oil imports. The media focuses far more on the strikes in Saudi Arabia than on those in the Black Sea.

Finally…this week, Cyprus announced that it would export gas to Europe through Egypt. Almost anyone who opens a map can see that this makes no economic sense, since Cyprus is closer to Europe. But…geopolitics.

Turkey opposes projects in the Eastern Mediterranean that, in its view, ignore it or the rights that it attributes to Northern Cyprus. It also wants to become the main energy transit country between the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Europe.

On July 28, the energy companies Eni and TotalEnergies announced the final investment decision for the development of Cyprus’s Cronos field. The plan is to transport the gas from Cyprus to the Zohr facilities in Egypt, liquefy it in Damietta, and export it mainly to Europe beginning in 2028. Eni presented the move as a structural renewal of Egyptian LNG exports and the establishment of a regional gas hub in the Eastern Mediterranean.

One day later, on July 29, a drone struck two gas vessels inside the port of Damietta. It is difficult to ignore the timing. It does not prove that the Cronos announcement was the reason for the attack, but it certainly justifies examining the possibility that the target was selected because of Damietta’s future role in Europe’s energy map.

 

 

 Strikes on energy facilities and infrastructure have become legitimate means, and as a result, the world’s energy map is changing. The impact will be quite extensive on foreign policy and international economies across every continent, and almost every person, everywhere, will feel it.