By Alexander Perepechko

Published on January 9, 2026

How do wars persist when armies stall and sanctions bite? The answer lies not on the battlefield, but in energy flows, trade rerouting, and economic endurance. This flagship long-read dissects the U.S. National Security Strategy 2025 against the reality of Russia’s war economy, showing how Eurasian markets—not Western finance—now determine strategic survival. As oil and gas revenues shift from Europe to China and India, the conflict in Ukraine emerges as a continental political-economic war, testing whether American power can shape interdependence rather than simply weaponize it. Recent political and economic changes in Venezuela may soon add an additional layer to these dynamics, particularly regarding energy and commodity flows, potentially affecting U.S. strategic calculations in Eurasia.

Abstract

The U.S. National Security Strategy 2025 (NSS 2025) marks a decisive shift in how American power is conceived and exercised under conditions of prolonged great-power competition and deep economic interdependence (Posen, 2014). Rather than signaling retrenchment or a return to isolationism, the strategy reflects a hybrid recalibration centered on selective engagement, allied burden-sharing, and economic endurance. Drawing on evidence from global energy and commodity trade (CREA, 2025; Trading Economics, 2024a, 2024b), this article argues that Russia’s war against Ukraine—while militarily localized—has become a Eurasian political-economic conflict, sustained by continental market substitution and asymmetric interdependence. The analysis shows how contemporary wars are increasingly decided not by battlefield outcomes alone, but by the ability to shape, exploit, and withstand interdependent economic systems over time (Brooks & Wohlforth, 2016).

Keywords: U.S. National Security Strategy 2025; strategic endurance; weaponized interdependence; political economy of war; energy security; economic warfare; Eurasian markets; great power competition.

1. Introduction: Why Wars No Longer End Quickly

Modern wars no longer end when one side runs out of tanks, missiles, or manpower. They end—or persist—based on something far less visible and far more structural: economic endurance (Drezner, 1999). The war in Ukraine has made this reality unmistakable. Despite unprecedented sanctions, financial isolation, and technological controls, Russia has sustained its war effort year after year (CREA, 2025).

The reason is not military brilliance, nor diplomatic isolation failure. It is structural: Russia remains embedded in a Eurasian economic system capable of absorbing shock, rerouting trade, and monetizing energy at scale (Farrell & Newman, 2019). NSS 2025 is best understood as a response to this condition. It reflects a recognition that the central challenge of contemporary strategy is not achieving decisive victory, but managing long-duration competition in a world where adversaries can adapt economically even when constrained politically (Posen, 2014).

This article advances two core claims. First, NSS 2025 represents a recalibration of U.S. grand strategy, not a retreat from global engagement (Brooks & Wohlforth, 2016). Second, the war in Ukraine reveals the limits of sanctions-centric coercion in an international system that has become economically Eurasianized (CREA, 2025). Together, these dynamics explain why endurance—rather than dominance—has become the decisive variable of power.

2. Energy Flows, War Financing, and the Eurasian Political-Economic Space

The sustainability of Russia’s war effort is shaped less by battlefield dynamics than by the structure of Eurasian energy and commodity markets (CREA, 2025). Western sanctions have dramatically reduced Russia’s access to Euro-Atlantic finance, insurance, and technology. They have not eliminated the revenue base of its war economy. Instead, sanctions have produced revenue displacement rather than revenue denial (Drezner, 1999).

Between 2023 and mid-2025, China and India emerged as the dominant wartime buyers of Russian fossil fuels, dwarfing all other importers (Trading Economics, 2024a; Trading Economics, 2024b) (Figure 56). China alone accounted for over $200 billion in cumulative oil, gas, and coal purchases during this period, while India absorbed nearly $150 billion, largely through discounted crude oil imports. Turkey and selected European states appear as secondary but strategically significant buyers. This shift is not marginal. It represents the reconstitution of Russia’s export economy along Eurasian lines (CREA, 2025; Eurostat, 2025a).

Figure 56. The Biggest Wartime Buyers of Russian Fossil Fuels (2023–2025). Source: CREA Russia Fossil Tracker; Statista.

Europe illustrates both the effectiveness and the limits of sanctions. Direct EU imports of Russian oil and gas have fallen sharply, declining to roughly $25–30 billion annually. Yet when coal, nuclear fuel, and selected critical minerals are included, total European payments still reach an estimated $50–60 billion per year (Eurostat, 2025a, 2025b). These residual flows reflect long-term contracts, limited substitutability—particularly in nuclear fuel—and infrastructure lock-in. Even among politically aligned actors, rapid decoupling proves structurally difficult (Farrell & Newman, 2019).

The continental dimension becomes clearer as Russian oil and gas flows redirect from Euro-Atlantic markets toward Asia. As European demand collapses, Chinese and Indian imports expand almost symmetrically (CREA, 2025) (Figure 57). Discounted pricing preserves Russian export volumes while transferring leverage to buyers, reinforcing asymmetric interdependence rather than isolation.

Figure 57. Redirection of Russian Oil and Gas Flows from Europe to Asia. Source: Visual Capitalist; CREA; national customs data.

The United States stands apart. U.S. imports from Russia totaled approximately $3.3 billion in 2024, with energy imports effectively reduced to zero following statutory bans (Trading Economics, 2024c; UN COMTRADE, 2024). This near-total disengagement demonstrates that decoupling is feasible where domestic supply, alternative sourcing, and political consensus align. Eurasian markets, by contrast, operate under very different structural constraints.

Taken together, these patterns show that the war in Ukraine is geographically localized but economically continental. Its persistence depends on Eurasian trade networks that operate beyond the full coercive reach of the Euro-Atlantic system.

3. Strategic Implications: What NSS 2025 Really Signals

NSS 2025 implicitly accepts the lessons of this reality. The strategy does not assume that sanctions will produce rapid political capitulation, nor that military superiority alone can determine outcomes. Instead, it emphasizes economic resilience, industrial capacity, alliance management, and selective engagement, alongside deterrence (Posen, 2014).

This reflects a shift from strategies built around decisive outcomes toward strategies designed for managed persistence. Economic warfare is no longer treated as a short-term coercive instrument, but as a long-duration condition requiring domestic endurance and allied coordination. Rather than retrenchment, NSS 2025 represents an adaptation to a fragmented global political economy, in which power flows through supply chains, energy markets, and financial infrastructure as much as through military force (Farrell & Newman, 2019).

4. Conclusion: Endurance as the New Center of Gravity

The war in Ukraine demonstrates that contemporary great-power conflict is increasingly a contest of endurance within interdependent economic systems. Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort despite extraordinary sanctions pressure reflects the structural depth of Eurasian markets and the limits of Western economic coercion (CREA, 2025). NSS 2025 signals that U.S. strategy is adapting accordingly.

In this environment, endurance is no longer a secondary attribute of power—it is its central currency.

References

Brooks, S. G., & Wohlforth, W. C. (2016). America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CREA. (2025). Who Is Financing Russia’s War Against Ukraine? Third Year of the Invasion. Revised April 10, 2025.

Drezner, D. W. (1999). The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eurostat. (2025a). EU Imports of Energy Products – Latest Developments.

Eurostat. (2025b). EU Trade with Russia – Latest Developments.

Farrell, H., & Newman, A. L. (2019). Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Posen, B. R. (2014). Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Trading Economics. (2024a). China Imports from Russia: Mineral Fuels, Oils, Distillation Products (2024).

Trading Economics. (2024b). India Imports from Russia (2024).

Trading Economics. (2024c). United States Imports from Russia (2024).

United Nations COMTRADE Database. (2024).

U.S. Government. (2025). National Security Strategy of the United States. The White House.

Disclosure: This article was prepared with limited assistance from OpenAI’s ChatGPT (GPT-5). All analysis and conclusions are the author’s own.