Why Venezuela exposes the true cost of energy dependence

The early hours of January 3, 2026, marked not just another military intervention, but a stark reminder of a uncomfortable truth: as long as the world runs on oil, military might will shadow energy security.

The US invasion of Venezuela, the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and President Trump’s blunt declaration that American companies will now control Venezuelan oil production, strips away any pretense. This isn’t about democracy or drug trafficking. This is about power, pure and simple. And the currency of that power remains, stubbornly, fossil fuels.

Let me be clear: Maduro has been an authoritarian, repressive leader whose governance has brought immense suffering to Venezuelans. His regime’s human rights abuses and democratic backsliding deserve condemnation. But the timing and nature of this intervention reveal a different calculus at work. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, more than 300 billion barrels. In Trump’s own words, the US will “rebuild the oil infrastructure” and “get the oil flowing the way it should be,” with American companies footing and profiting from the bill. When a president points to his defense secretary, secretary of state, and top general and says, “We’re going to be running it,” the message is unmistakable: oil is being treated as a tool of statecraft, not just a commodity.

The fossil fuel conflict trap

This is not an isolated incident. It’s a pattern, a feature of our fossil fuel-dependent global system. Oil and gas reserves cluster in politically volatile regions, transforming them into perpetual flashpoints.

Russia’s war on Ukraine was fundamentally about energy dominance. Europe’s heavy dependence on Russian gas, built over decades, became a vulnerability Putin weaponized. Now, the US is reasserting its role as gatekeeper of global energy flows, just when much of the world is trying, however imperfectly, to break free from fossil fuel dominance.

As Julian Popov, former Environment Minister of Bulgaria, observes, “The direct declaration that the effective takeover of Venezuela is specifically targeting the world’s largest proven oil reserves is yet another warning sign of how politically explosive and toxic oil interests can be.”

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Europe imports 95% of its crude oil and 86% of its natural gas. This isn’t energy security. It’s energy dependence, leaving the continent exposed to the geopolitical games of authoritarians and would-be authoritarians from Moscow to Washington. Dr. Pauline Heinrichs of King’s College London puts it bluntly: Europe’s “massive reliance on imported oil and gas has left it powerless to the geopolitical games” of others.

Every barrel of oil we continue to depend on is a thread connecting us to instability thousands of kilometers away. Conflict becomes not an aberration but a systemic feature. Military power inevitably follows energy power when that energy comes from concentrated, geographically remote reserves controlled by a handful of actors.

The strategic case for clean energy

Here’s where the narrative must shift. The transition to clean energy isn’t just about cutting emissions or meeting climate targets, though those remain urgent. It’s about strategic autonomy. It’s about sovereignty. It’s about refusing to let your economy, your security, your people’s wellbeing be held hostage by events you cannot control, in places you cannot reach, by leaders you did not choose.

Renewables, the sun, the wind, the power of water and earth, are distributed resources. They don’t require invasion to access. They don’t create the same zero-sum competition that has turned the Middle East, the Caspian region, and now Venezuela into chessboards for great power rivalry. Investing in solar panels, wind farms, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency isn’t just climate policy. It’s defense policy. It’s economic policy. It’s a declaration of independence from the boom-bust cycles and blood-soaked geopolitics of the oil age.

As Sascha Müller-Kraenner of Deutsche Umwelthilfe reminds us, “Trump is not concerned with democracy in Venezuela, but with oil.” The sooner we understand this, the clearer our path forward becomes.

The moment of choice

In November 2025, over 80 countries agreed to develop national plans to phase down fossil fuel use. That commitment, made before the invasion of Venezuela, now reads differently. It’s not just an environmental imperative. It’s a security imperative. Events in Venezuela, and potentially in Iran or other oil-rich nations, underline why it’s in every country’s strategic interest to unhook from these volatile sources of energy.

This doesn’t mean the transition will be easy or immediate. Heavy industries, long-distance transport, and certain chemical processes still rely on oil. Refineries need heavy crude from countries like Venezuela, Canada, or Colombia to blend with lighter domestic oil.

But every step toward electrification, every percentage point increase in renewable capacity, every policy that accelerates the shift away from fossil dependence, is a step toward a more stable world order.

Elizabeth Bast of Oil Change International captures the historical pattern: “The Trump administration justifies hostility toward Venezuela with accusations of drug running and authoritarianism, but this escalation follows a historic playbook: undermine leftist governments, create instability, and clear the path for extractive companies to profit.” We’ve seen this film before. It doesn’t end well for the people caught in the middle, nor for a world that desperately needs to move beyond these cycles of extraction and aggression.

A choice between systems

The invasion of Venezuela forces a reckoning. Do we want to live in a world where energy security depends on military dominance? Where the country with the biggest reserves or the most powerful navy dictates terms? Where every shift in oil prices or political alignment in a producer country sends shockwaves through global markets and potentially triggers conflict?

Or do we want a world where energy comes from sources within our own borders or those of stable partners, where technological innovation matters more than military might, where the transition to clean energy isn’t just about saving the planet but about building a fundamentally more peaceful, stable international order?

Reducing dependency on fossil fuels, as Popov notes, will “reduce the dictatorial, corruption and military conflict risks around the world.” That’s not idealism. That’s pragmatism. That’s recognizing that as long as oil is the lifeblood of the global economy, violence and instability will continue to be part of the price we pay.

The choice is ours. We can remain trapped in a system where energy security is built on military interventions and the exploitation of distant reserves. Or we can invest in a future where energy sovereignty is built at home, where clean technologies free us from geopolitical blackmail, and where the sunrise brings power, not just metaphorically, but literally.

Venezuela’s tragedy is a mirror. It reflects back at us the world we’ve built, one where oil and blood have been too often mixed. The question is whether we have the courage to build something different. The technology exists. The economic case is increasingly clear. What we need now is the political will to recognize that energy independence through renewables isn’t just climate action. It’s the most powerful peace strategy we have.

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