Iran war demonstrates the interconnected nature of globalized warfare

Human Rights Research Center
10 minutes ago
6 min read

March 24, 2026

“When you fire that first shot , no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die.” Iran war demonstrates the interconnected nature of globalized warfare

As globalized warfare has erased the distance that once protected civilians and modern conflicts increasingly travel through energy and financial networks, imposing costs on populations far from any battlefield, HRRC calls for upstream diplomatic engagement before fear overrides reason in the Iran-Israel-US conflict. The scales of war have changed; so must our response.

WAR. YOUR MONEY OR YOUR WAY OF LIFE by Bill Day, Courtesy CagleCartoons.com

On the 18th of March, Iranian missiles and drones struck Ras Laffan Industrial City – the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility – in Qatar. This strike was a direct retaliation for an earlier Israeli attack on Iranian gas infrastructure at the South Pars oil field. The economic impact was staggering: an estimated $26 billion to $28 billion in damages, with the strike effectively taking out 17% of Qatar's LNG capacity—approximately 12.8 million metric tonnes annually— for a period of three to five years.

The global cascade from this event was immediate. LNG prices in Europe and Asia skyrocketed, as Brent crude oil breached $115 per barrel. Analysts warned of a "doomsday gas crisis scenario," in which the scale of supply loss exceeded the ability of governments to manage the demand, that would hit the poorest economies in the Global South the hardest.

A second critical event involved Iranian strikes on UAE military and logistical infrastructure, including the Habshan gas complex and Bab oil field. The Iranian intention appeared to be to establish deterrence by imposing heavy early losses on surrounding states, such as the UAE, and undermining regional order. This inadvertently had direct effects in Africa, as the disruption of UAE fuel and munitions flow temporarily degraded the operational capacity of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an armed group supported by the UAE in Sudan that have been accused of "unimaginable horrors" in West Darfur.

Other ripple effects of the Gulf conflict have served to further involved Sudan in the Iran-Israel-US theater. For example, the US recently designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) due to its direct links with Iran, significantly raising the stakes for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which depends on Iranian-supplied drones for battlefield gains. This has intensified the internal fragmentation of Sudan’s military and political elites, who must navigate a narrow path between their dependence on Iranian weaponry and their need for Gulf financial support.

These effects showcase a transition from traditional to globalized warfare, marked by a shift from contained local costs to distributed systemic shocks. Today, warfare is increasingly targeting the "skin" of the global system—energy, finance, and supply chains— in which civilian infrastructure into a primary battleground. Distance provides no insulation, and non-combatant states are increasingly forced to absorb collateral damage in retaliation as “enablers” of an adversarial country.

In the case of Iran, this logic demonstrates the instrumental rationality that can be utilized by combatants facing conventional military inferiority. When an attacker’s economic oxygen supply is located in a "brotherly nation"—such as Qatar, which shares the world’s largest gas field with Iran—a desperate combatant may choose to target that infrastructure regardless of normative constraints.

As the conflict spreads, it risks creating a feedback loop where infrastructure targeting can easily start to become a normalized tactical lever. While the powerful can no longer tolerate distant conflicts without systemic blowback, the desperate can increasingly target the interconnections that make those conflicts relevant to more powerful nations. This dynamic is reinforced by “us vs them” narratives that encourage a fear driven emotional override state of mind, in which fear overrides intellectual thought and dehumanizes and strips victims of their moral protection.

Ultimately, the stability of the global energy, financial, and logistical systems has effectively become the new definition of "national interest" even across state borders. War is no longer an isolated failure of diplomacy between two states but an existential risk to the collective population. The only path forward is to address conflicts at their source before they escalate. As the XII Doctor famously argued, "When you fire that first shot... you have no idea who's going to die".

Glossary

Afungi site Ras Laffan — World's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Qatar; central target of the March 2025 Iranian strikes.
Bab oil field — UAE oil production site also targeted in the Iranian deterrence campaign.
Brent crude — Global benchmark price for oil purchases; referenced in the $115/barrel spike following the strikes.
Collateral damage — unintentional, incidental death, injury, or destruction of property, civilians, or non-combatants during a military operation or aimed action.
Doubling — Psychological mechanism allowing perpetrators to separate their moral identity from their "perpetrator self."
Deterrence — the action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.
Fear based emotional override — Fear-driven cognitive condition where emotional response overrides rational/intellectual thought.
Force majeure — Legal clause allowing contract suspension due to unforeseeable circumstances; invoked when oil contracts were voided after the attack.
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) — US State Department designation; applied to Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood due to Iran links.
Fragmentation — the process or state of breaking or being broken into fragments.
Global South — Term for developing economies; disproportionately harmed by energy price shocks from supply disruptions.
Global South — refers to countries primarily in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania, generally characterized as developing, low-to-middle income, or having a history of colonialism.
Group consciousness — Collective mindset that normalizes extreme or "psychotic" behaviors within a community.
Habshan gas complex — UAE gas processing facility targeted by Iranian strikes.
Instrumental rationality — the practice of selecting the most efficient means to achieve a specific goal.
LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) — Natural gas cooled to liquid form for transport; Qatar is a leading global exporter.
Logistical infrastructure — refers to the network of facilities, systems, and services that support the movement and storage of goods, products, and resources from one place to another. It encompasses a wide range of components, including transportation systems, warehouses, distribution centers, and communication networks.
Masalit community — Ethnic group in West Darfur targeted for genocide by RSF forces.
Medial prefrontal cortex — Brain region associated with social cognition and moral reasoning; shows decreased activity during dehumanization.
Military and political elites — small, privileged groups holding disproportionate power and authority, influencing or deciding key state policies. They consist of top officials in government, political parties, and high-ranking military leaders who often work together to shape national security and political outcomes.
Normative constraints — unwritten rules, social expectations, or shared standards that limit behavior, defining what is acceptable or permissible within a group or society.
Operational capacity — the maximum, sustainable output of goods or services a business can produce in a given period using current resources, staffing, and technology.
Paradigm — model for something that may be copied.
Raising the stakes — increasing the risks, costs, or potential rewards in a situation, making it more intense, serious, or consequential.
Retaliation — the act of harming or taking revenge against someone in response to an actual or perceived injury or action.
RSF (Rapid Support Forces) — Sudanese paramilitary group accused of genocide and "unimaginable horrors"; funded and supplied by UAE.
SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) — Sudan's regular military force; dependent on Iranian-supplied drones for battlefield gains.
South Pars gas field — World's largest natural gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar; site of prior Israeli attack that triggered the Ras Laffan retaliation.
Supply/demand — how the price and availability of goods are determined. It represents the relationship between how much of a product is available (supply) and how much people want to buy it (demand).
Tactical lever — a practical tool or method used to gain an advantage in a conflict or situation.
Upstream prevention — Policy approach emphasizing early diplomatic intervention before conflicts escalate to systemic crises.

Sources

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Iran war demonstrates the interconnected nature of globalized warfare

“When you fire that first shot , no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die.” Iran war demonstrates the interconnected nature of globalized warfare

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