Revista OEconomica

Tudor Constantin BĂLAN - Cycles of Freedom: Are Our Rights Today Permanently Secured, or Are We in a Transitional Phase? The Cases of Great Britain, the United States, and Russia

Marius-Cristian PANĂ, Adela BĂLAN - Economic Freedom and Prosperity: A Comparative Analysis of Welfare Determinants at the International Level

Ana Octavia ALBU - When Accurate Forecasts Still Produce Waste: Demand Shocks and Over-Forecasting Risk in Food Retail

Adrian-Ioan DAMOC - The Persian Pivot and the Reconfiguration of Geopolitical Realism: Iran and Venezuela in Strategic Competition among the United States, China, and Russia

Emmanuel Olusegun STOBER - Coercive Diplomacy in the Gulf and the Limits of the Strike-Forward Strategy: Toward a Middle-Power Coalition for Regional Stability

Sorin-Nicolae CURCĂ - On the Informational Entropy of Economic Shock

Florin DĂNESCU - The Banking Sector as Critical Infrastructure in the Logic of Hybrid Conflict: Post-2014 Legislative Convergence in Central and Eastern Europe and the Case of Romania

Mihai LĂCĂTUŞ - GDP as a Means, Not an End: Inequality as the Missing Variable in Fiscal Policy Design – A 60-Country Analysis of Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being

Articles on Issue Theme

Adrian-Ioan DAMOC

Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti

The accelerating transition from a predominantly unipolar international order toward an increasingly fragmented and competitive multipolar system has revived the logic of geopolitical realism and positional power politics. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific, and renewed instability in the Middle East, recent American military actions targeting Iran and Venezuela reveal a broader attempt by the United States to redefine its global strategic role. The analysis interprets these developments not as isolated interventions, but as interconnected manifestations of a wider struggle over strategic corridors, energy resources, geopolitical credibility, and the architecture of global influence. Particular attention is devoted to the strategic significance of Iran and Venezuela as geopolitical pivots situated within the broader rivalry among the United States, China, and Russia. The article examines the interaction among military projection, energy security, economic pressure, alliance management, and diplomatic signalling, while also exploring the implications for NATO cohesion, European strategic calculations, and the evolving balance of power. Drawing on realist and neorealist perspectives in international relations, the study argues that contemporary great-power competition increasingly combines traditional military instruments with geoeconomic leverage, energy diplomacy, and informational influence. The paper further highlights the contradictions embedded in the evolving American strategic doctrine, which oscillates between selective non-interventionism and assertive power projection. Ultimately, the research suggests that the conflicts surrounding Iran and Venezuela represent not merely regional crises, but strategic laboratories for the redefinition of the twenty-first-century geopolitical order and the limits of American primacy in an era of systemic rivalry.

ŒCONOMICA no. 1-2/2026

Keywords: geopolitical realism, great-power competition, geoeconomics, strategic rivalry, energy security, Iran, Venezuela, United States, China, Russia, NATO, multipolarity, Indo-Pacific, Middle East, strategic credibility

JEL: F51, F52, F59, H56, P16, Q34

The Persian Pivot and the Reconfiguration of Geopolitical Realism: Iran and Venezuela in Strategic Competition among the United States, China, and Russia

Select Issue: