Kurt Campbell on China’s Approach to Energy Security and Statecraft
Release Date: 03/24/2026
Iran Conflict Brief: Why the UAE Is Leaving OPEC Now
Columbia Energy Exchange
It has been a tumultuous 24 hours for the global energy landscape. Yesterday, the United Arab Emirates sent shockwaves through the oil industry by announcing its withdrawal from OPEC, marking a historic break with Saudi Arabia in the midst of the ongoing regional crisis. This move comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains almost entirely shut, with the US intensifying its naval blockade and threatening to cut off major Chinese banks from the US financial system to halt the processing of Iranian oil. Despite a diplomatic impasse, the physical realities of the market are reaching a breaking point....
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The Iran Oil Shock: Will it Force the World to Re-think the Future of Energy?
Columbia Energy Exchange
In this special episode Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, sits down with Robin Pomeroy, host of the World Economic Forum podcast, Radio Davos, to talk about the global and likely lasting impacts of the current energy shock. This episode is a crosspost originally published by . During the first weeks of the war in Iran, most analysis focused on the immediate energy shock it triggered. To explore the longer-term implications of the conflict, Jason and Meghan O’Sullivan, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s...
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Ian Bremmer on Navigating a Fragmenting World
Columbia Energy Exchange
The global order that shaped the past several decades is giving way to a more fragmented and uncertain world. Long-standing alliances are under strain, economic integration is giving way to competition, and geopolitical risk is once again a central driver of markets and policy. These shifts are not abstract. They are reshaping trade flows, disrupting supply chains, and contributing to volatility in energy markets and the broader economy—affecting everything from fuel prices to the cost of goods. So, how might great power competition, geopolitical fragmentation, artificial intelligence,...
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Amos Hochstein on the Strait of Hormuz Opening and Where the War is Headed
Columbia Energy Exchange
It’s been a head-spinning day in the Iran war. Earlier today, following a temporary truce between Lebanon and Israel, Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be “completely open” to commercial shipping during this ceasefire. Initial reactions from President Donald Trump were optimistic, but that gave way to some confusion about what “open” actually means in practice. The president later clarified that the existing U.S. blockade on Iranian vessels would remain in place. Despite the confusion, markets responded quickly. Brent crude dropped below $90 a barrel for the first time...
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Iran Conflict Brief: Will the Ceasefire Hold? Analyzing Tehran’s High-Stakes Diplomacy
Columbia Energy Exchange
With an April 21 deadline looming, the Middle East remains suspended in a volatile state of war and peace. Regional mediators are scrambling to broker a second round of US-Iran talks before the current two-week ceasefire expires, hoping to narrow gaps over nuclear ambitions and the Strait of Hormuz to buy critical time for a lasting truce. In this episode of Iran Conflict Brief, Daniel Sternoff is joined by Mohammad Ali Shabani to analyze the shifts in Tehran’s decision-making and the precarious future of the current diplomatic reprieve. Shabani, editor of Amwaj.media and a veteran analyst...
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Rajiv Shah on Advancing Universal Abundant Energy Access
Columbia Energy Exchange
Energy abundance means different things in today’s global context than it did even a decade ago. It is about expanding electricity access while meeting rising energy demand. It is about navigating geopolitical fragmentation, limited government support, shifting development priorities, and leveraging new technologies to deliver reliable power at scale. But the challenge is not just technological. It is institutional and financial. Many low- and middle-income countries face high capital costs, limited access to financing, and policy frameworks that struggle to keep pace with growing...
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Dan Steingart on Battery Innovation and the Future of Energy Storage
Columbia Energy Exchange
The conflict in Iran is a reminder of how quickly global energy markets can be disrupted. It also underscores why advances in things like battery technology — from electric transportation to grid-scale storage — are becoming central to energy resilience and security. It has been about 50 years since British chemist Stanley Whittingham laid the foundation for the first lithium-ion battery at an Exxon research lab in New Jersey. In 2019, he and two other scientists, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino, earned a Nobel Prize for the breakthrough. By then, lithium-ion batteries had transformed...
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Iran Conflict Brief: Ali Ansari on What’s Going on Inside Iran
Columbia Energy Exchange
On the eve of President Trump’s deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the global energy landscape faces a moment of unprecedented risk. With dated Brent crude already surging past $140 a barrel, the threat of tit-for-tat infrastructure strikes looms over the region. In this episode, Daniel Sternoff speaks with Ali Ansari about what's happening in Iran, how decisions are getting made, and how the regional energy landscape is being permanently reshaped. The conversation delves into the fractured state of Iranian decision-making following the death of Khamenei and the rise of the...
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Iran Conflict Brief: The War’s Lasting Impact on Gulf States
Columbia Energy Exchange
While US and Israeli forces have significantly degraded Iran’s military and nuclear capability, the global energy landscape remains in a precarious position. For weeks, the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut to tanker traffic, causing physical markets to tighten and rationing to spread across Asia. With the US considering an "off-ramp" to declare victory, the world faces a critical dilemma: can the global economy survive a peace that leaves Iran in control of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoint? In this episode of the Iran Conflict Brief, host Daniel Sternoff speaks with...
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Daleep Singh on the Need for a US Industrial Policy Playbook
Columbia Energy Exchange
During President Trump’s second term, the administration has taken unprecedented action in the US private sector. The federal government’s investments in critical mineral mining and chip manufacturing are two examples. The Trump administration has also embraced tariffs, framing them as tools for economic security and a domestic industrial revival. This shift toward state intervention into private markets, done in the name of national security and economic security, has some bipartisan support. It also has major implications for energy security and the clean energy transition. So how can...
info_outlineThe month-long Iran conflict has rapidly expanded, drawing in actors across the Middle East and raising concerns about broader regional escalation. As a result, we’re seeing impacts on energy markets around the world, including across the Indo-Pacific.
Roughly 80% of the oil and gas flowing through the Gulf is destined for Asia, and disruptions are already being felt in major importing economies like Japan and South Korea, which remain heavily dependent on Middle Eastern supplies.
But the consequences go beyond energy. The crisis is also adding a new layer of complexity to the U.S.-China relationship—reshaping how Beijing thinks about risk, security, and its role in an increasingly unstable global system.
So how is China interpreting these developments? What do they mean for the Indo-Pacific—both in the near term and over a longer horizon? And how might China’s approach to energy security, supply chains, and statecraft position it in a more volatile world?
Today on the show, Jason Bordoff speaks with Kurt Campbell about what the current instability in the Gulf could mean for the Indo-Pacific. They also discuss an essay Kurt co-authored with Rush Doshi in Foreign Affairs, arguing for reorienting US diplomacy with China.
Kurt is the chairman of The Asia Group, which he co-founded in 2013. During the Biden Administration, he was deputy secretary of the United States Department of State. Before assuming his role at the State Department, Kurt served as the inaugural Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council and deputy assistant to the President at the White House.
Credits: Hosted by Jason Bordoff and Bill Loveless. Produced by Mary Catherine O’Connor, Caroline Pitman, Alice Manos, and Kyu Lee. Engineering by Gregory Vilfranc.