Probably not, but I will say the timing is suspicious. There is currently an ongoing shortage on fuel tanker drivers[1] as the pandemic depressed gas demand, s

Probably not, but I will say the timing is suspicious. There is currently an ongoing shortage on fuel tanker drivers[1] as the pandemic depressed gas demand, so the drivers went elsewhere. You need special certs to haul thousands of gallons of boom down the highway and when those drivers leave, they can only be replaced my themselves. Add the geopolitical situations in a number of hostile countries that I need not list and you theoretically have a pretty good opening for keeping the US at arms length long enough to play games. All that said, I don't think the impact is great enough to actually be effective in this sense. The US has a decent strategic reserve for this kind of event. If the intent was to put the US in a poor starting position to prevent intervention in a foreign conflict it has not likely been sufficiently effective. If this interests you, Red Storm Rising is a rather solid work of fiction about a similar event. [1] https://kstp.com/business/experts-shortage-of-tanker-drivers-could-lead-to-shortage-of-fuel/6091263/ https://kstp.com/business/experts-shortage-of-tanker-drivers...