For the Middle East, the war in Iran has been another tough lesson in how divisions and competition can yield brutal conflict. But for most of the world, the war has been a lesson in something else: the political pitfalls of energy dependence. When the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed in early March, choking off roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas, countries everywhere began to face spiking oil and gas prices. On March 24, the Philippines became the first state in the world to declare a national energy emergency. Zambia has suspended fuel levies for three months, costing its already debt-laden government $100 million. Slovenia is rationing fuel. Other governments have taken similar measures. Some have negotiated directly with Tehran for safe passage of their tankers.

This chaos has prompted a political awakening. Countries dependent on imported fossil fuels have discovered that foreign governments can easily deprive them of an essential need—undermining their sovereignty. Dependent states, for example, have found themselves paralyzed when it comes to responding to the conflict in Iran. They all want it to end. But they are unable to say much to Tehran, which controls the strait, or do anything more than mildly criticize Washington, which is now blockading the waterway. Countries that have built strong domestic energy industries, by contrast, have been comfortable speaking out about the attacks and pressuring its belligerents to stop. The world has discovered that energy independence is a form of political independence and that energy systems enable and foreclose geopolitical action. It is a realization that is already prompting governments to shift away from importing fuel and toward building up capacity at home.

Unless they have large stores of oil and gas, the best way for countries to become energy independent is to invest more in renewables, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy. And the state that dominates the supply chain for these technologies is China. Beijing has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in building up large clean energy firms, and these companies are now exporting their wares across the world. The United States, by contrast, recently abandoned investment in clean tech and redoubled its spending on fossil fuels that few countries want. Beijing, then, may emerge from the war in Iran as its winner—and Washington as its ultimate loser.

To see how the energy crisis is shaping state behavior, consider Southeast Asia, the region most dependent on the oil and gas that transits the strait (over half of the region’s oil comes from the Persian Gulf), and thus the place most affected by its closure. Laos has had to shutter hundreds of gas stations and cut the school week to four days in order to avoid running out of power. In Vietnam, diesel prices rose 40 percent. In Indonesia, the deficit is soaring while the currency plunges. As a result, the region has been astonishingly quiet about the conflict, lest it run afoul of Tehran or Washington and jeopardize its ability to get whatever oil imports it still can. Indonesia has negotiated directly with Iran to secure passage through the strait for tankers destined for Persian Gulf ports.

Other Asian countries have also run into trouble. India, for instance, styles itself as a leader of the so-called global South, and it has regularly rebuked Washington in recent months over high U.S. tariffs. But two of every three barrels of India’s oil imports transit the Strait of Hormuz, and so it now faces an........

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