The wars of the 2020s, from Russia to Iran, have revealed a fundamental principle of modern warfare: Energy infrastructure is the first target. Russia systematically destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s thermal power capacity. Ukraine retaliated by disabling an estimated 17% of Russia’s refining capacity. When Iran threatened the Strait of Hormuz, insurance premiums spiked globally, refiners scrambled, and governments with no stake in the conflict felt it in their energy costs overnight. Now every major power knows that, in war, energy infrastructure gets hit first, and when it does, everyone loses.

That lesson applies with special force to the United States and China.

America holds real energy advantages. U.S. crude production hit a record 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025, and America is now the world’s largest LNG exporter, with exports forecast to exceed 18 billion cubic feet per day by 2027. In oil and gas, America sets the terms.

But the Iran war has demonstrated that energy dominance does not insulate us from energy warfare. American markets felt the Hormuz disruption, too. Oil is a global commodity, and when a chokepoint closes, the price shock does not discriminate by nationality. More importantly, on the energy technologies that will define the next 50 years — solar, wind, batteries, and critical mineral supply chains — China is not the follower. It is the leader.

The numbers are stark. China controls roughly 85% of global solar supply chain capacity and 80% of lithium-ion battery supply chain capacity. It dominates refining for 19 of the 20 strategic minerals, with an average market share of around 70%. America mines some of these minerals domestically, but not nearly enough — a problem compounded by permitting red tape that makes developing new domestic sources a decade-long undertaking even when the geology is favorable. For the artificial intelligence boom, the electric vehicle transition, and the next-generation grid, America is structurally dependent on Chinese supply chains in ways that no amount of oil and gas dominance can offset.

This does not mean China is sitting comfortably. Even with its massive gains in renewables, it imports roughly half its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Estimates showed that a sustained Hormuz disruption could leave China with a deficit of 4 to 5 million barrels per day of Gulf-origin crude, a gap its strategic reserves can cushion but not eliminate. And China’s own energy infrastructure faces the same vulnerability that Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated so vividly. Power grids, refineries, and data centers are high-value, vulnerable targets.

The result? America can threaten China’s oil supply. China can threaten America’s access to the minerals and manufacturing capacity needed to power the AI economy. Both sides are building energy infrastructure — data centers, power plants, transmission lines — that the other could destroy. And both sides have now watched what happens when that destruction begins.

This points to only two realistic conclusions.

The first is debilitating war. If the U.S. and China come to open conflict, both sides will target energy infrastructure, because that is what modern warfare demands. The AI race, the naval buildups, the geopolitical maneuvering and economic competition, all of it becomes irrelevant the moment the grid goes dark and the supply chains seize. Both countries get knocked back decades, and neither wins the future they were competing for.

The second conclusion is managed rivalry built on what I call MADE — Mutually Assured Destruction of Energy. The U.S. and China don’t need to be friends. We don’t need to ignore its trade cheating, intellectual property theft, or human rights abuses. We don’t even need to trust it. But both sides must recognize that open conflict carries a cost that neither side can afford: the destruction of the very energy and technological infrastructure that defines economic power in the 21st century.

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The silver lining of the current energy crisis is that it made this logic undeniable.

And that’s the paradox. We don’t know when our latest war in the Middle East will end. Regardless, if American and Chinese leaders learn the right lessons, the battle over Hormuz might save us from a far bigger war to come.

Chet Love is the managing partner of Cornerstone Group International. He also served as director of policy and legal counsel for SolarCity, now Tesla.