The National Security Cost of Flip-Flopping on Energy Sanctions
US energy policy is sending mixed signals, weakening sanctions, emboldening adversaries, and undermining the credibility needed to sustain long-term national security pressure campaigns.
The late Senator John McCain had an apt description for Russia. He called it “A gas station masquerading as a country.” The obvious implication is that Russia’s oil sales are the economic vehicle powering its militaristic ambitions—an observation as true in McCain’s time as it is now. But Russia is not unique in this regard. Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro used his nation’s vast oil resources to support his dictatorship (including trading oil for military aid from Cuba). In Iran, oil sales made the regime’s nuclear weapons program possible. Though it is obvious that buying oil from our enemies makes us less safe, politicians often prefer that national security priorities be sacrificed on the altar of energy affordability.
The tension between energy costs and security has become more apparent amid the Iran War and rising gasoline prices. To reduce costs, the Trump administration has recently lifted sanctions on oil purchased from Russia—but these sanctions were a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s selling more oil will inevitably increase its hard currency reserves and improve its ability to purchase weapons and other materiel to wage war. The result, of course, will be that Russia is further emboldened to use war as a means of expansionism along the borders of democracies and America’s allies.
Inconsistent Sanctions Undermine US Leverage
But the United States’ flip-flopping on enforcing sanctions and trade restrictions is nothing new. The first Trump administration imposed sanctions on Venezuelan oil to put pressure on Maduro’s dictatorship. The Biden administration lifted these sanctions amid higher oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration also demanded restraint from Ukraine on the targeting of Russia’s petroleum infrastructure. And to penalize China’s use of forced labor to produce solar panels, Congress passed a law setting trade restrictions on the imports of such products. But the Biden administration turned a blind eye to China’s circumvention of the law via re-exporting through other countries, and even imposed a moratorium on anti-dumping tariffs for those solar panel imports.
While policymakers have a long history of recognizing that trade restrictions and sanctions are an essential part of pressure campaigns against our adversaries, they seem to only be enforced when it is convenient. The obvious impact of this is that the effectiveness of these policies is diminished by their temporary nature. Worse is the signal it sends to our adversaries: America will cave to demands if energy prices increase.
It is no surprise, then, that Iran’s entire military strategy revolves around raising energy prices. It is also not surprising that our allies are keen to negotiate a separate peace with Iran to alleviate their own energy price increases, making it easy for our adversaries to divide us from our allies. From a strategic perspective, this wishy-washy attitude towards energy issues has prolonged conflicts. It is not a coincidence that Russia is only showing cracks in its ability to continue the war after Ukraine has started targeting its energy production infrastructure.
Energy Policy Cannot Be Separated from National Security
Don’t misunderstand me—I am not in favor of war, and I always note that peace is the preferable economic status and that hawks underestimate the costs of war. But peace is not simply the absence of conflict; it is also the safety of people to act upon their own determinations. Energy trade restrictions on adversaries are policies intended to maintain peace. In this sense, policymakers must acknowledge that their energy policies ought to be in harmony with their national security objectives.
Credibility Depends on Policy Consistency
It makes little sense to argue that war must be waged or supported to secure the safety of America and its allies, while simultaneously enriching our adversaries. It makes little sense that the Biden administration had a $15 million bounty for the capture of Maduro (and later raised it to $25 million) while simultaneously making it easier for Maduro to stay in power by easing sanctions.
To keep us safe, policymakers need to be disciplined with their national security policies as they relate to energy and trade. If Maduro is a dictator who must be stopped, that is also true when Russia invades Ukraine. If Russia is an enemy of NATO that invades nations on its periphery, that is still true when the Strait of Hormuz is blockaded. The idea that war is acceptable if it is “over there” and is economically cheap to Americans should not be so attractive to policymakers. This is not merely a matter of morality, but of national security.
A world in which the United States’ application of sanctions, military support, or even intervention is contingent upon pump prices is a world that is less—not more—secure. If the safety of Americans is an issue, policymakers should be able to articulate those claims in a way that is credible, regardless of gas prices. Failing to do so signals to our adversaries that the path to victory lies simply in making our leaders unpopular enough to be unelectable, thus emboldening them to be aggressors.
Something has always gone wrong when war supplants peace, but something is especially wrong when policymakers feel that our national security policy relies on oil prices being within their preferred range. Part of preventing war is ensuring that our adversaries take us seriously when we draw red lines and articulate what we cannot tolerate. But when these positions become conditional on factors that our adversaries can influence—such as energy prices—we are instead communicating how our adversaries can best threaten us.
The national security lesson, as ever, is that protecting Americans relies upon achieving a set of conditions that minimize threats. To the extent that energy costs are in tension with those conditions, the prioritization of security should be paramount. When those priorities are instead inverted, we end up less secure as a result.