The MissOil Strike: The World Pays for One Man’s Expansionist Follies

THERE IS NO PRECEDENT IN MODERN HISTORY FOR what the world is witnessing today. A single leader—at the helm of the very superpower that designed and sustained the post-World War II international order—is now dismantling it with startling speed while mocking international law.

Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has cast aside longstanding norms of international law, authorised mili­tary strikes across multiple sovereign states, and weaponised economic interdependence against both allies and adversaries. His administration’s actions—from the slow strangulation of Cuba through blockade-induced deprivation to a war on Iran that triggered worldwide turmoil—have pushed the interna­tional system into uncharted territory.

 Like his military intervention in Venezuela eight weeks earlier, Trump launched his war of aggression against Iran in the language of American power and strategic dominance. But the consequences of that war unfolded globally in the language of scarcity—of fuel, of food, and even of survival.

What started on February 28 as a joint US-Israeli military assault on Iran swiftly metastasised into the most consequential energy shock in modern history. Unlike the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, which were driven largely by political embargoes, the 2026 upheaval arose from the physical destruction of energy infra­structure and the breakdown of critical supply routes.

Because energy is the foundation of the modern global econo­my, the shock could not be contained within oil and gas markets. It cascaded outward, destabilising food systems, straining finan­cial structures, and hitting vulnerable populations the hardest.

What began as a regional conflict with global implications turned into a world-spanning crisis driven by a regional war. This is the enduring lesson of the Iran war.

More fundamentally, Trump has barely disguised his neo-im­perial yearning, which may explain his growing expansionist itch.

From renewed pressure for US control over Greenland and the Panama Canal to open-ended military intervention in Venezuela and talk of redrawing borders or relocating populations, he has revived a logic more familiar to the age of empires than to the post-1945 international order.

Since his return to the White House, Trump’s actions have sug­gested a reversion to 19th-century imperial precedents. The old Monroe Doctrine has been globalised into a claim that American power itself is legal authority.

Today, from high fuel and food prices in Africa to fiscal stress in Asia and Latin America, the burden of Trump’s ambitions is being borne far from the corridors of power where they were conceived.

Arsonist of the World Order

The question is no longer whether Trump is disrupting the global order. It is whether there is any historical parallel for such sys­tematic disruption. There isn’t—at least not in the post-1945 world.

The US was the principal architect of the current international system. The rules governing trade, sovereignty and collective se­curity were largely American designs, forged in the aftermath of World War II to prevent precisely the kind of instability and volatility that has now unfolded.

What makes the present moment unique is not simply that these rules are being broken, but that they are being dismantled by an American president.

History offers multiple examples of wayward or ruthless leaders—including Mao Zedong in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Idi Amin in Uganda, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. But these figures operated either on the margins of the international system or in opposition to it.

Trump, by contrast, is tearing down the house from within.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his weaponisation of global interdependence. Trade, once treated as a stabilising force largely insulated from geopolitical rivalry, has been recast as an instrument of coercion. Tariffs are no longer economic tools; they are strategic weapons.

By linking military protection to trade concessions and tribute payment, Trump has effectively transformed alliances into trans­actional arrangements—security for sale. The post-World War II idea of collective defence has been replaced with something closer to protection racketeering.

This shift signals a profound reordering of international relationships, where commitments are perpetually open to revised terms.

Equally consequential is the erosion of sovereignty. US military strikes have extended across the Middle East, Africa, and even into the Caribbean, targeting states without clear legal justification under the UN Charter.

Earlier eras did see US expansionist doctrines—from Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” diplomacy to William McKinley’s imperial ventures. But those belonged to a pre-1945 world, before the pres­ent international legal framework was established. Today’s ex­pansionist actions carry a different weight because they explicitly defy the legal and normative structure the US itself helped create.

Launching war on Iran marked a particularly dangerous escalation. By targeting the energy infrastructure of a major oil-producing state and inviting Iranian retaliatory strikes on US-aligned Gulf Arab states, Washington triggered what the Interna­tional Energy Agency (IEA) called “the largest supply disruption in history,” surpassing even the shocks of the 1970s. But there is a critical difference: those earlier crises were driven by producer decisions, including Saudi King Faisal’s use of oil as a weapon. Trump is the first leader to trigger a global energy crisis through direct, unprovoked military action initiated by him.

At the same time, Trump’s expansionism is hollowing out multilateralism—the connective tissue of the current interna­tional order. Just weeks before launching war on Iran, the US withdrew from 66 international organisations in one stroke, in­cluding the World Health Organization (WHO), while imposing sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials.

Other leaders have defied international institutions and norms, but typically from the outside. Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin challenged the international system as adversaries.

Trump’s approach is more destabilising precisely because it represents an ‘insider’ threat. By walking away from agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, while openly entertaining territorial ambitions from Greenland to the Panama Canal, his administration has signalled that it no longer considers itself bound by the rules the US once championed.

The cumulative effect is not just disorder but disorientation. If the international system’s guarantor no longer believes in the system, what remains of it?

To find even a loose historical analogy, one must look back at bygone eras. Napoleon Bonaparte reshaped Europe through force, rewriting borders and legal codes. Otto von Bismarck discarded alliances in pursuit of strategic advantage. Yet even these com­parisons fall short: neither operated within a global order they themselves had constructed and sustained for decades.

What we are witnessing now is something unique: Trump, the arsonist of the US-designed international order, causing worldwide upheaval by pursuing an unabashedly expansionist agenda. Conse­quently, the “leader of the free world”, as the US long described itself, has voluntarily abdicated that role to become its primary disruptor.

The present turmoil and the fragmentation of alliances point to a world moving beyond the era of Pax Americana. But this is not a managed transition to a new order but a descent into uncertainty.

Put simply, the greatest threat to international peace and security today is not a rising challenger or an external adversary. It is the transformation of the international system’s central pillar—the US—into its main disruptor.

A Structural Rupture

At the centre of the global crisis lies a strategic gamble that went catastrophically wrong.

Any serious assessment of a war against Iran—strategically overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint—would have anticipated severe disruptions to global energy flows. About 20 per cent of the world’s oil and more than a fifth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) transit this narrow waterway. It is the single-most important artery of the global energy system.

Yet the Trump administration appeared to have assumed that military escalation could be managed without triggering systemic consequences. That assumption was swiftly shattered once Trump launched the attack on Iran.

Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, combined with tit-for-tat strikes on energy infrastructure in Iran and the Gulf Arab states, choked off supply at its source while simultaneously degrading production capacity. Facilities such as Iran’s South Pars gas field and Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex—pillars of the global energy system—were damaged or rendered partially inoperable.

This resulted in a dramatic surge in international energy prices and, more importantly, a fundamental shift in risk. Oil prices climbed steeply, while global gas markets were thrown into disarray.

Even more significant is the structural repricing of energy risk. The Middle East is no longer seen as a reliable supplier but as a persistent source of volatility.

This was not an unavoidable outcome. It was the predictable consequence of initiating an unprovoked war in the epicentre of the global energy zone.

The world has experienced energy shocks before. But the pres­ent turmoil is not limited to oil. The simultaneous disruption of LNG—now central to electricity generation across Europe and Asia—has amplified its impact. In an era where power grids de­pend heavily on gas, the loss of LNG supply is as destabilising as any oil embargo.

While the oil shocks of the 1970s resulted from policy-driven embargoes that were reversible, the current turmoil involves the destruction or damage of energy infrastructure, which cannot be quickly repaired. The damage will likely linger long. Qatar has said that it may take up to five years to repair damage to the Ras Laffan site.

The global economy is more interconnected, and growth more fragile, than in previous decades. Supply chains operate on ‘just-in-time’ principles, leaving little buffer against disruption. When a critical node such as the Persian Gulf is destabilised, the effects ripple rapidly across sectors and regions.

For all these reasons, the shock from Trump’s Iran war was not merely another cycle of volatility; it represented a structural rupture.

The most consequential, and least understood, dimension of the energy crisis lies in its transmission to the global food system.

Modern agriculture is fundamentally energy-intensive. Natural gas is the key input for nitrogen fertilisers, which underpin global crop yields. Oil powers tractors, irrigation systems and transport networks. Food, in effect, is energy transformed into calories. When energy systems are disrupted, food systems inevitably follow.

The Persian Gulf region plays a central role in the global fertiliser supply chain, producing large shares of urea, ammonia and sul­phur. With exports curtailed by conflict and maritime disruption, fertiliser prices surged dramatically, as demand outstripped supply.

The timing could not have been worse. The war coincided with the spring planting season across the Northern Hemi­sphere—from Asia to Europe and North America—meaning that reduced fertiliser application is already ‘locked in’ for the 2026 harvest. Farmers across South Asia, Africa, and even parts of North America have had to cut usage, switching in some cases to less input intensive crops.

The consequences will not be immediate, but they are inevitable.

The first stage of this global crisis was the input shock: rising costs and declining availability of fertiliser and fuel. The second stage is set to be the production shock: lower yields as under-fer­tilised crops produce less. The third stage will be the consumption shock: rising food prices and declining access, particularly for low-income populations.

By next year, agricultural analysts expect significant increases in the prices of grains, vegetable oils, and meat. Corn, the back­bone of global feed systems, is particularly vulnerable. As its price rises, the effects cascade into meat and dairy markets, producing what can only be described as a “protein shock”.

Exacerbating this dynamic is a policy-driven feedback loop that further tightens food supply. As oil prices rise, biofuels become more economically attractive. Governments have responded by ex­panding mandates for ethanol and biodiesel in an effort to stabilise domestic energy costs. But this carries an international cost: crops that could be used for food are instead diverted into fuel production.

In the US, record biofuel mandates are channelling corn and soybean oil into energy markets. Brazil is diverting increasing volumes of sugarcane towards ethanol production. Indonesia is accelerating its palm oil biodiesel programme.

This ‘food versus fuel’ trade-off is particularly damaging in the context of Trump’s global expansionism. At a time when agricul­tural output is already under pressure due to high input costs, the diversion of crops further reduces global food availability.

The result is a self reinforcing cycle: higher energy prices drive biofuel production, which tightens food supply, which raises food prices, which in turn exacerbates the humanitarian impact of Trump’s adventurism.

Trump’s reckless war triggered a chain reaction that is un­dermining the economic and energy security of the world at large, while also delivering a political shock through a flagrant disregard of international law.

To make matters worse, the war unleashed a sharply unequal burden. While the energy and food shocks are global, their im­pacts are profoundly unequal.

In the West, the turmoil manifested primarily as inflation and industrial strain. Households faced higher energy and food bills, while industries grappled with rising input costs. Central banks were forced into difficult trade-offs, delaying interest rate cuts and prolonging economic uncertainty. Yet these developed economies possess buffers—financial resources, institutional capacity and diversified supply chains—that allow them to absorb the shock.

The Global South, by contrast, is faced with a far more severe situation.

Many developing countries are heavily dependent on imported energy, particularly from the Persian Gulf. The surge in prices and disruption of supply routes pushed them into crisis mode. Governments began implementing fuel rationing, cutting subsidies, and scrambling to secure alternative supplies.

At the same time, the fertiliser shock started undermining domestic agriculture. Countries that rely on imported inputs faced shortages that will directly translate into lower production. In some cases, fertiliser became simply unavailable at any price, raising the spectre of ‘planting voids’.

More broadly, the convergence of pressures produced what can only be described as a ‘triple crisis’ of fuel, food, and finance. The financial dimension intensifies each of the others.

In the face of rising global uncertainty, investors have flocked to perceived safe havens, particularly US assets. This strengthens the dollar and drains capital from emerging markets like India. For countries with dollar-denominated debt, repayment is be­coming more expensive even as access to new financing tightens.

At the same time, high energy prices have inflated import bills, widening current account deficits and putting pressure on curren­cies. Depreciation of the Indian rupee, for example, makes imports even more expensive. Given that, unlike Asia’s export oriented economies, India’s overall imports are far larger than its exports, this trend will likely fuel inflation at home and erode purchasing power.

Many other Global South states face a similar vicious cycle: high­er costs, weaker currencies, and mounting fiscal stress. For some vulnerable countries, the risks have become existential, given the spectre of balance of payments crises and sovereign defaults.

Perhaps the most underappreciated dimension of the global crisis has been the sharp downturn in remittances from over­seas. For many countries in the Global South, remittances are not merely supplementary income. They are a critical source of foreign exchange and a key stabiliser of national economies.

Millions of workers from developing countries, from the Phil­ippines and India to Egypt and Lebanon, are employed in Persian Gulf economies. The war disrupted these economies, leading to job losses, delayed payments, and a dramatic decline in remit­tance flows. The implications are profound.

At the household level, families are losing remittances just when food and energy costs are rising. At the national level, gov­ernments are losing a crucial source of foreign exchange, weaken­ing their ability to finance imports and stabilise their currencies. This dual shock—rising costs and falling incomes—has intensi­fied the crisis across all dimensions.

The geographic contours of the crisis are already clear.

In South Asia, high fuel costs are limiting irrigation and trans­port, while fertiliser shortages are becoming severe. Bangladesh, the world’s eighth most populous country, has been forced to shut five of its six urea plants due to interruption of LNG supplies from the Gulf, specifically Qatar. In East Africa, import dependent economies are facing sharp increases in food prices. In the Middle East and North Africa, supply disruptions are straining already fragile food systems.

These regions are being thrust towards what might be called “humanitarian red zones”. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that tens of millions of additional people could be pushed into acute food insecurity as a result of the upheaval.

As history has repeatedly shown, food crises do not remain contained. They destabilise societies, fuel political unrest, and redefine international relations.

Against this backdrop, what makes the present moment par­ticularly dangerous is the simultaneous disruption of multiple global systems. Energy supply chains are fractured. Agricultural input systems are under stress. Financial flows are being redi­rected. Trade routes are costlier and more uncertain.

This convergence of disruptions has created a systemic cri­sis—one in which shocks in one domain rapidly propagate to others. The era of cheap energy and seamless globalisation is giv­ing way to a more fragmented and volatile order.

Ultimately, the defining feature of this Trump created turmoil is its asymmetry. The war was initiated by the world’s most pow­erful country; its consequences are being borne disproportion­ately by the Global South.

America First, World Last

Trump’s governance style centralises power, often ignoring traditional checks and balances. The phrase “one-man wrecking machine” has been used by political opponents at home, such as New York Governor Kathy Hochul, to describe his approach. In foreign policy, Trump has been more of a ‘demolition man’ of established global alliances and agreements, as well as longstand­ing international norms.

Trump may be “erratic, unpredictable, inconsistent, irrespon­sible, reckless and incompetent,” as one American commentator described him in his first term. Yet there now appears to be a strate­gic logic driving his aggressive expansionism in the second term.

The common factor behind Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela and his war on Iran is oil. Venezuela and Iran together hold nearly one third of the world’s proven oil resources.

By kidnapping Venezuela’s sitting president and forcing re­gime change in Caracas, the US has gained de facto control over the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Asked in a Fox News in­terview how taking out President Nicolás Maduro would help the average American, Vice President JD Vance said candidly, “It means we are going to be able to control the incredible natural resources of Venezuela.”

A similar outcome in Iran—by installing a pliable regime— would dramatically expand American sway over global energy flows, especially given that the US is already the world’s largest oil producer, churning out more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined, and the world’s largest LNG exporter.

In seeking to bring Iran within America’s strategic orbit and fundamentally reshape the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East, Trump made two grave errors. He profoundly underesti­mated Iran’s retaliatory capabilities; and he conceitedly overes­timated US capacity to control the war’s trajectory without trig­gering global economic consequences.

The war revealed that power, when exercised without regard for global interdependence or realities on the ground, can produce outcomes that are not only unintended but deeply destabilising for the entire world.

Trump’s expansionist agenda is not just breaking internation­al norms; it is also exposing the longstanding hypocrisy of US for­eign policy in consistently invoking a “rules based international order” when, in reality, the rules were always flexible and adjusted whenever American interests required it. His renewed threats to annex Greenland and his proposal to incorporate Canada as America’s 51st state have further unravelled the US rationale for waging proxy war against Russia—that the Russian invasion of Ukraine violated a core international principle that borders can­not be changed by force.

After returning to the White House, Trump quickly shifted from a non interventionist international posture to a highly in­terventionist one, authorising serial military operations overseas.

At home, Trump’s bid to wield untrammelled presidential power has been checked by US courts, which have struck down several major actions—from overturning sweeping global tariffs and quashing subpoenas targeting the Fed chair to now halting construction on the president’s White House ball­room plan.

Abroad, however, his use of American power faces few constraints. The United Nations has been sidelined, with the Security Council paralysed. Other important Western leaders—such as Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz, and Emmanuel Macron—have proved too politically weak to counsel restraint or defend longstanding international norms.

The global silence on Trump’s expansionist ac­tions underscores a vacuum of moral leadership across both the West and the Global South.

Against this backdrop, Trump framed his war on Iran as a demonstration of America’s unrivalled military might. Instead, the war unleashed forces that no single country could control.

In terms of global impact, the Ukraine conflict pales in com­parison to the US-Israeli war of aggression, which has dimmed the economic-growth prospects of many countries, including India which was the world’s fastest-growing major economy until Trump decided to attack Iran.

The Iran war’s legacy will be defined not by victory or defeat, but by the scale of the global crisis it set in motion.

The irony is stark: the bill from a war intend­ed to assert US supremacy is being footed by the global population.

In the post World War II period, few world leaders have caused as much global upheaval as Trump in such a compressed timeframe—about 14 months. In terms of the erosion of international norms, the cascade of globe-spanning consequenc­es unleashed and the volatility of world markets, he is playing the central role in fuelling global insta­bility and undermining international peace and security. And he still has nearly 34 months left in his current term.