Energy is a surprisingly weak political weapon.

Of all the loan words that the Russians have taken from English, hooligan is one of the most popular. Its origin seems to be a slur based on the Irish last name Houlihan, but the Russians have always taken to the word with gusto, using it far more often than native speakers and even turning it into a verb. For Russians, hooliganism is a term for a wide range of mischief-making.

Like every Russian dictator in history, Vladimir Putin is credited by his supporters (and sometimes by Western observers) for his ability to bring order, but one of the things that makes him a successful autocrat is a talent for hooliganry. He is always willing to start a rumble with the general idea that when the chaos is over he'll be left standing, maybe with someone else's Rolex in his hand.

Yesterday's sudden cutoff of natural-gas supplies to Europe is a prime example of Putin's hooliganry in action. Two weeks ago the issue in the dispute between Ukraine and Gazprom, Russia's chief energy company and proxy for the Kremlin, was the hundreds of millions in fines that the state of Ukraine supposedly owed for late payments. A week ago it was the future price of gas. Three days ago it was the alleged theft by Ukraine of natural gas going to Europe through its pipelines. And today it is ... well, we're not really sure. Not very much has changed in the last few days except that Putin seems to have sensed an advantageous time to show Ukraine and its European allies that he could turn off the flow of gas more or less with the flick of a switch.

The sudden shutting off of a key source of energy to most of Europe in the middle of winter immediately brings to mind the age-old worry about the power of oil and gas as strategic weapons. What more powerful political tool can Putin have, the thinking goes, than the power to shut off heat to Europe in a moment? Control over energy is the ultimate way of waging war by other means.

Or not. For 35 years, since the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, a fear has reigned that the countries controlling energy resources would turn that control to political ends. But in fact, oil and gas actually make an excellent blunt club for the hooligan—and a terrible long-term political weapon. That 1973 embargo is an ideal case in point. We have all seen the footage (or remember the fact) of endless lines at gas stations. But the strong visual memory hides the reality that in terms of its political ends, the embargo was stupendously, even catastrophically, ineffective. The immediate goal of the embargo, which lasted for five months, was to punish the United States (and the Netherlands, where oil shipments were also halted) for its support of Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. To the extent that the hope of the war was to force the United States to break off its de facto alliance with Israel, it is hard to imagine a failure that is more comprehensive and long lasting.

What made the embargo seem so effective is that it coincided with the beginning of a period of greatly increased ability on the part of the OPEC member states to control the world price of oil, a period that lasted into the 1980s. The embargo was unsuccessful in achieving its political ends, but it highlighted OPEC's ability to achieve its financial ones. It showed that by acting in concert in an environment of a world shortage of available energy resources, OPEC could get much better prices for its oil. That had an enduring effect: the world price of oil kept rising long after the embargo, reaching a peak in 1981.