Gas Prices or Human Lives?

There are moments when a single sentence says more about international politics than a library of diplomatic communiqués. One such moment came recently when US Vice President JD Vance, explaining Washington’s objectives in its conflict with Iran, said that ensuring oil and gas continued to flow and keeping energy prices low for Americans was “goal number one”. Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, he said, was “goal number two”. 

The remark was striking not because energy security is irrelevant to a state, but because it exposed, with unusual bluntness, the domestic calculation that can sit beneath a foreign-policy decision. The price paid by an American motorist, the security concerns of a superpower and the fate of people living thousands of miles away can become part of the same strategic equation.

Vance’s statement does not, by itself, explain the entire rationale for the war. But it offers a revealing glimpse of how national interests are prioritised when great powers decide where and how to use force.

That should concern everyone. The history of recent decades offers a sobering lesson: when powerful states allow strategic advantage, domestic political calculations, resource security, alliance commitments or geopolitical competition to overwhelm diplomacy and restraint, the consequences rarely remain confined to the battlefield. The people who make such decisions are usually protected by distance and power. Those who bear the consequences are often civilians who had no role in making them.

Iraq remains one of the clearest examples. The US-led invasion in 2003 was justified primarily on the grounds of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime and the need to enforce international security. The central WMD claims subsequently proved profoundly flawed. Yet the strategic and economic interests surrounding the intervention cannot simply be excluded from the wider analysis. A Chatham House assessment noted that the war was not “all about oil”, while acknowledging the strategic importance of Iraq’s enormous reserves and oil-market stability.

Whatever combination of motives drove the invasion, its human consequences were immense. Brown University’s Costs of War project estimates that hundreds of thousands of civilians have died directly or indirectly as a consequence of the Iraq war, while millions were displaced or otherwise affected by the destruction of the country’s social and economic infrastructure.

Afghanistan offers another warning. The original American intervention after September 11 had a clear counter-terrorism rationale: destroying al-Qaeda’s operational base and preventing Afghanistan from being used as a sanctuary for international terrorism. But the mission gradually expanded into a vast project of state-building and military intervention. Five years after the US withdrawal, the Taliban remain in power, while the war has cost enormous amounts of blood and treasure and displaced millions.

Libya provides a different lesson. The 2011 NATO intervention was presented as an effort to protect civilians amid Muammar Gaddafi’s assault on opposition-held areas. Yet the subsequent collapse of central state authority produced a prolonged political and security vacuum, with rival armed groups and competing authorities leaving instability that spread across North Africa and the Sahel.

Venezuela offers a more recent and dramatic example of great-power pressure. For years, Washington used sanctions and other economic measures to pressure Nicolás Maduro's government over democracy and political accountability. But in January this year, the confrontation escalated dramatically when US forces captured Maduro in Caracas and brought him to the United States, where he remains in custody while facing federal criminal charges. Whatever the merits of the allegations against him, the episode raises a larger question about the limits of great-power intervention: when does the pursuit of national security, political change or strategic interests cross the line into the exercise of power beyond the bounds of an internationally accepted order?

And then there is Ukraine, where responsibility for the full-scale invasion lies unmistakably with Russia. Analysts have attributed Moscow’s decision to a mixture of perceived security concerns, strategic ambition, historical claims and opposition to Ukraine’s Western orientation. None of these explanations, however, can erase the consequences for Ukrainian civilians.

These cases are different. Their causes are different. Their legal and political circumstances cannot simply be placed in one basket. Yet a common pattern can still be discerned: great powers frequently view international crises through the prism of their own security, prestige, economic interests and strategic position, while the human beings living inside those crises become secondary considerations.

This is the deeper problem. International-relations scholars have spent decades explaining why powerful states behave this way. John Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism argues that in an anarchic international system, major powers seek to maximise their relative power because they cannot be certain of one another’s intentions. Competition therefore becomes structural rather than merely personal.

American political scientist Chalmers Johnson offered a different but complementary warning. His concept of “blowback” described the unintended consequences of covert operations and military interventions. His broader critique was that excessive reliance on military instruments could create precisely the insecurity such interventions were intended to prevent.

British political economist Susan Strange’s idea of structural power adds another dimension. Power is exercised not only through armies, but also through finance, production, technology, markets and energy. A disruption to a strategically important supply route can therefore become a matter of national security rather than merely an economic inconvenience.

That helps explain the extraordinary importance of the Strait of Hormuz in the present Iran crisis. 

The waterway is central to global energy flows, and its disruption has already affected economies far beyond the Middle East. At the time of writing this piece, shipping through the strait remained severely curtailed amid stalled US-Iran diplomacy and renewed tensions, turning the conflict into a military confrontation, an energy crisis and a test of global economic resilience.

Diplomatic efforts have repeatedly opened brief windows for de-escalation, but each has proved fragile, underscoring how quickly strategic mistrust can overwhelm negotiation.

There is a dangerous irony here. A war pursued partly to protect energy security can itself destabilise energy supplies. A military strategy intended to reduce economic pressure can drive up the very prices it is meant to contain.

This is where strategic calculation can become self-defeating. The future of warfare is already taking shape. The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated the growing importance of drones, electronic warfare, information operations, resilient logistics and sophisticated air defence. The next generation of conflict is likely to combine these capabilities with artificial intelligence, cyber operations, satellite disruption, disinformation, economic coercion and attacks on critical infrastructure.

The boundary between war and peace may consequently become increasingly blurred.

That makes international law more important, not less. There is also a moral dimension that strategic theories cannot adequately capture. Across religious and philosophical traditions, thinkers have repeatedly warned that unchecked power, greed and the belief in one’s own exceptionalism can destroy societies.

That warning is especially relevant today.

The answer cannot be naïve pacifism. States have legitimate security interests and governments have a duty to protect their citizens. Aggression cannot always be met with negotiation alone. But legitimate national interests do not give powerful states an unlimited moral licence.

National security should not become a permanent justification for disregarding the security of everyone else.

Nor should prosperity in one country be purchased through the destruction of lives, homes and futures elsewhere.

What is needed, therefore, is not merely another diplomatic initiative. The world needs an awakening of conscience.

Human rights cannot be defended selectively. International law cannot be invoked when convenient and ignored when inconvenient. The life of a civilian does not become less valuable because that person happens to live in a country with which a powerful state is at odds.

Self-respect among nations should not be measured by how many missiles they possess, how many countries they can pressure or how effectively they can impose their will on weaker states. True national honour lies in exercising power with restraint, respecting the dignity of others and recognising that security is ultimately shared.

For Bangladesh, this turbulent international environment carries immediate practical implications.

Dhaka should maintain strategic autonomy without confusing neutrality with silence in the face of injustice. Its long-standing principle of “Friendship to all, malice towards none” remains highly relevant in an increasingly divided world. Bangladesh should strengthen its voice in the United Nations and regional forums in support of international law, peaceful dispute settlement and civilian protection, while avoiding unnecessary entanglement in great-power rivalry.

Energy security must become a national priority. Bangladesh is highly exposed to international energy prices and disruptions to maritime trade. Accelerating renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, building adequate fuel-storage capacity, expanding domestic energy production where economically and environmentally justified, and deepening regional electricity cooperation can reduce vulnerability to external shocks.

Economic resilience is equally important. Bangladesh needs broader export markets, stronger domestic food production, diversified supply chains and adequate strategic reserves of essential commodities. The less vulnerable the economy is to a single geopolitical chokepoint or market, the greater the country’s diplomatic freedom.

Dhaka should also deepen practical regional cooperation through BIMSTEC and other platforms. Maritime security, food security, energy connectivity, disaster management and regional trade are areas where cooperation can produce tangible benefits without forcing smaller countries to choose sides in major-power confrontations.

Most importantly, Bangladesh should preserve its strategic patience. In a world increasingly divided between rival camps, a middle-sized country gains more from credibility, consistency and diplomatic flexibility than from becoming an appendage of any great power.

Yet Bangladesh’s choices are ultimately part of a much larger question – one that extends beyond any single country or war.

What kind of international order do we want to leave to the next generation?

One in which the strongest states define justice according to their immediate interests? One in which energy prices, electoral calculations, strategic corridors and geopolitical prestige routinely outweigh the lives of people who have no seat at the table?

Or one in which power is restrained by law, national interest is tempered by conscience and the security of one nation does not require the permanent insecurity of another?

History will not remember only the arguments governments made before wars. It will remember the people who died, the families who were displaced, the children whose futures disappeared and the societies that took decades to recover.

Great powers may calculate in terms of territory, energy, deterrence, markets and strategic advantage. Humanity must calculate in another currency: the value of a life.

That is why the most urgent task before the international community is not simply to win wars, but to prevent unnecessary wars; not merely to protect national interests, but to protect human beings; not merely to demand respect for one’s own rights, but to honour the rights of others.

A world governed only by power will eventually make everyone less secure.

A world guided by conscience may yet give humanity a chance to survive its own ambitions.