Energy, a geopolitical weapon

Access to energy and geopolitical power are closely linked. “In the era of “all digital” and the Internet, the materiality of energies brings us back to the importance of geography and territories »underlines the professor of geopolitics Cédric Tellenne in his Geopolitics of energy (The Discovery, 2021).

The First World War marked the beginning of a new era, that of oil. Winston Churchill, former British Minister of War and future Prime Minister, stated in 1919: “There is no doubt that the Allies could only sail to victory on the uninterrupted flow of oil.” As early as 1911, as First Lord of the Admiralty, he had decided to replace coal-fired propulsion with oil-fired propulsion on Royal Navy ships, making smoke less visible and the fleet faster than its German rival.

The Second World War confirmed this. The Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base on December 7, 1941, was partly dictated by energy issues: it followed the oil embargo decreed by American President Franklin Roosevelt. Another example, one of Germany’s offensive axes targeted Baku (former USSR) and its oil fields. It would earn it a major setback: the Battle of Stalingrad (July 1942-February 1943). More generally, it was their material advantage over black gold that led the Allies to victory – the United States was then the leading oil power. And it was another energy, nuclear, that ended the Pacific War, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, on August 6 and 9, 1945.

“Oil decolonization”

After the war, energy took the lion’s share of global geopolitics. Energy consumption accelerated, with the economic and social transformations of developed countries (advent of the consumer society) and the increasing industrialization of developing countries. Post-1945, oil definitively replaced coal, the main energy source since the beginning of the industrial revolution, whose resources were quite abundant and fairly distributed, which was not the case for oil. A dissociation exists between consumption zones (mainly located in developed countries) and production zones (mainly in developing countries, particularly in the Middle East). As a result, an international market was established.

“Energy thus asserts itself as an essential lever in Cold War relations, both East/West and North/South”explains Cédric Tellenne. In 1960, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was created in Baghdad by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela; it now has twelve members. Its objective: to influence the price of oil and the distribution of profits, which had until then been imposed by the major Western oil companies. As a result, in the early 1970s, there was a wave of oil nationalizations, also called “oil decolonization”, in Algeria, Iraq and Libya…

“But it was from the 1970s that oil fully became a geopolitical weapon. Tensions between producing and consuming countries culminated in the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, after OPEC’s unilateral decisions to raise prices. [pendant la guerre du Kippour en 1973, puis au lendemain de la signature d’un traité de paix entre Israël et l’Egypte en 1978]. Before, tensions were much more erratic”develops Anna Creti, professor of economics at the University of Paris Dauphine-PSL, scientific director of the chair of natural gas economics and the chair of climate economics. In 1974, Algerian President Houari Boumediene spoke of a “new international economic order”.

However, the weapon can be turned against producing countries. The oil counter-shock of 1985-1986 marked the failure of OPEC, with Saudi Arabia refusing to limit its production. This is also evidenced by the sanctions applied to certain producing countries: the United States against Iran in 1995 and against Venezuela in 2019; the United States, Europeans and others against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.

China’s advance

As a sign of its importance, oil has been at the heart of many conflicts: the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the Gulf War (1990-1991), the Iraq War (2003-2011), the conflict in the Niger Delta (since 2004), etc. So much so that the slogan “oil” has been read on several banners of peaceful demonstrators around the world. « No war for oil » (“no oil war”).

Despite its predominance, oil is no longer alone. The share of liquefied natural gas on international markets has been growing since the 1970s. It is also at the heart of international power relations: European dependence on Russian gas is a lever, albeit relative, for Vladimir Putin. For its part, civil nuclear power benefits developed countries, because its technology is expensive and complex. Military nuclear power, once a factor of peace, could become devastating if its proliferation increases.

The picture is still far from complete. “Two major developments are reshuffling the cards: the shale oil revolution and the energy transition”analyses Anna Creti. The first has already profoundly changed global geopolitics: the United States has once again become the world’s leading oil producer. The second is underway, and its pace will have serious consequences.

The critical materials (copper, nickel, lithium, etc.) necessary for the transition also draw “a new geopolitics of energy”according to Julien Bueb, PhD in environmental economics, who teaches a course on environmental geopolitics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS). Resources and the advanced technologies needed to refine them are unevenly distributed. “China has taken a big lead in securing supplies and refining capacity.notes the teacher. For their part, agrofuels can generate various tensions: soil degradation, speculation, land consumption, etc. They especially risk destabilizing international food markets because the demand for cereals is very sensitive to changes in supply. Energy has not finished structuring global geopolitics.