Claims

Trump successfully pressured China not to buy Iranian oil during his first administration and stated that as a result Iran was 'flat broke,' and he indicates he would repeat this policy in a second term.

Choke points have now become part of geopolitical vocabulary among a broad audience, whereas before only a limited number of specialists discussed them, representing a shift in how countries conceptualize energy security infrastructure.

Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia may find it intolerable to pay tolls to Iran for shipping access and accept Iranian domination over strait supply with funds going to the IRGC, likely making this a key unresolved issue in any settlement.

Petrostates like Russia and Saudi Arabia will enjoy temporary geopolitical leverage that peaks during the energy transition, with dependence on dominant fossil fuel suppliers most likely rising before it falls, creating a 'feast before famine' dynamic where these producers gain greater influence before eventual long-term decline.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine returned energy security to the center of geopolitical and economic strategy after it had disappeared as a theme during COVID when prices and demand fell.

India, heavily dependent on Middle East LNG cylinders for cooking, has been particularly hard hit by the Iran conflict, prompting Prime Minister Modi's recent calls for frugality and return to natural resources.

China's environmental weakness and the West's energy strength explains much of the tensions currently being observed, and this also explains Trump's rhetoric about Greenland and Canada.

The term 'Putinization of uranium' comes from Maren Katusa's 2015 book 'The Cold War', which predicted Putin would use uranium and energy as a weapon, and this thesis is being validated: 42% of global uranium comes from Kazakhstan (Russia-aligned), Canada produces 12%, Namibia is China-controlled, Niger is under coup and Russia-aligned, and Uzbekistan is a Russian apparatus.

Russia controls enrichment and conversion capacity—the critical bottleneck in the nuclear fuel cycle—with over 60% global share; conversion and enrichment prices have risen 500% since the Ukraine invasion while uranium oxide prices doubled, revealing that the conversion/enrichment constraint, not raw uranium supply, is now the binding constraint on global nuclear capacity.

Europe is funding the Russian war machine by purchasing Russian gas because it stopped developing its own gas resources, shut down nuclear plants, and refused to implement nuclear expansion, putting itself in a strategic chokehold.

Russia has undersea pipeline infrastructure to Europe that cannot be disrupted (no insurance or shipper requirements like surface exports), and these pipelines will be the last to go offline; Russia will use this to directly pressure Berlin and Ankara with the threat of cutting lights while everyone else is 'screwed,' leveraging this as political coercion to make NATO non-functional.

Whoever sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines (Russians, Americans, Ukrainians) accomplished a 'burning the boats' moment for Europe, cutting off any pathway back to Russian energy and forcing Europe to compete with Japan and other nations for LNG on global markets, drastically worsening Europe's position.

As the Russia-Ukraine war disrupts energy supply and Russian pipelines to Germany are redirected, Germany will face a choice between having energy/electricity/industry by partnering with Russia or de-industrializing, and this choice will cascade to other resource-dependent countries.

Because of the Ukraine war, China will get less from Russia because most Chinese imports from Russia come from Eastern Siberia and Russian technology cannot operate those fields, with all foreign technology having left, causing shutdowns.