Last updated Nov 29, 2025
politicsconflict
By October–November 2022, energy supply and pricing issues will again be the central focus of geopolitical and national security debates, at a level of complexity comparable to earlier in 2022 (e.g., around the onset of the Ukraine war).
if you play all of that out, you start to see an issue where by, you know, October, November of this year, we're back into the same complexity, where energy is the tip of the spear around which everybody starts to debate all of the national security issues that we have to deal with, the Ukraine war, etcetera, etcetera.View on YouTube
Explanation

Evidence from October–November 2022 shows that energy supply and pricing were indeed at the center of geopolitical and national security debates, closely tied to the Ukraine war, as Chamath predicted.

  • In October 2022 Russia launched a large missile and drone campaign specifically targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, knocking out around half of the country’s power grid by mid‑November. This created mass blackouts and was widely framed as a deliberate strategy in the war, putting energy systems squarely at the heart of security discussions. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • The same period saw knock‑on crises in neighboring states: Moldova suffered its worst energy crisis since independence in late 2022 after Gazprom cut gas supplies and Ukraine halted electricity exports due to Russian attacks on its grid, a situation described as a major national emergency directly linked to the war. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • In the United States, President Biden used October 18–19, 2022 speeches and fact sheets to announce additional releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve explicitly framed as actions to strengthen U.S. energy security and respond to "Putin’s price hike" in fuel costs—showing energy prices and supply as central domestic and security issues on the eve of the midterms. (bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov)
  • Throughout November 2022, G7 and EU governments were intensely negotiating the design and level of a price cap on Russian seaborne oil, explicitly intended to reduce Moscow’s ability to finance the invasion of Ukraine while avoiding global oil price spikes. This made energy policy the main lever in sanctions strategy and a core topic in high‑level security deliberations. (euronews.com)
  • In October 2022 OPEC+ announced a large oil production cut, widely interpreted as aiding Russia. President Biden vowed “consequences” and said the U.S. would re‑evaluate its relationship with Saudi Arabia, highlighting how oil production decisions were being treated as matters of foreign policy alignment and national security, not just economics. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • More broadly, analyses of the 2021–2023 global energy crisis document that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine turned an existing supply crunch into a full‑blown energy emergency, with record gas and power prices, EU emergency measures, and widespread European protests over energy‑driven inflation in October 2022—indicating that energy affordability and security were central to political conflict across the continent. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, these developments show that by October–November 2022, energy supply and pricing were again (and arguably still) the main focus and "tip of the spear" in debates about the Ukraine war, sanctions, and broader national security concerns, aligning well with Chamath’s forecast.