The Geoeconomics of Energy Statecraft

The utilization of energy as a weapon rests on four components: interdependence, energy security, neoliberal economics, and sovereignty (LaBelle 2023). This article addresses the role of neoliberal economics and builds a broad conceptual framework on the geoeconomics of energy as a weapon. Literature on using energy as a weapon largely draws on geopolitics and international relations to find footing to explain historical examples (Sovacool, Baum, and Low 2023). These case studies focus on restricting energy supplies to pressure other countries to conform to the demands of a single country or group of countries (LaBelle 2023). Energy statecraft emerges as a primary descriptor to explain the diplomatic efforts to seek new supplies and reinforce supply networks in both energy resources and critical materials used to build carbon-free infrastructure (Scholten et al. 2020; Vakulchuk, Overland, and Scholten 2020; Sovacool, Baum, and Low 2023; Van de Graaf and Colgan 2017). This article develops a nuanced understanding from a critical geopolitical perspective (O Tuathail and Agnew 1992; Toal and Agnew 2002; O Tuathail 1996) that the international economic system – geoeconomics (Sparke 2007) utilizes economic statecraft (Kapstein and Baldwin 2020) to prevent – or assist – the use of energy as a weapon. Since the economic and trade impact caused by shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is a realignment of energy trade and manufacturing in the global economy. The EU’s RePower plan and the US Inflation Reduction Act use trade restrictions on zero-carbon technologies and resources. This paper will assess these policy packages to understand the current shift in the geoeconomic system. The article contributes to the growing literature on the intricacies of energy as a weapon.