POLITICS OF ENERGY RESOURCES AND MICHAEL KLARE

Transcription

1 POLITICS OF ENERGY RESOURCES AND MICHAEL KLARE Burak Kürkçü * * Currently working as Deputy Head of HR Department at Ministry of Economy (Turkey) and PhD. Candidate in International Relations Department at Middle East Technical University (METU) / MPA at London School of Economics (LSE) 1

2 POLITICS OF ENERGY RESOURCES AND MICHAEL KLARE PART 1 NEW GEOGRAPHY OF CONFLICT What kind of policies does a state pursue in order to satisfy its energy demand and secure energy sources? What is the role of military and big companies in accessing and securing the energy resources which have been crucial for countries especially after the industrialization? Michael T. Klare, one of the most leading professors at government policies on natural resource related issues, shatters the conventional conspiracy theories about the energy security and puts forward a historical and academic understanding on the policies of states for guaranteeing and securing their energy needs which generally results in wars and insurgents. In order to develop a better understanding on Michael Klare s theoretical and historical explanations on the role of energy resources in global politics, we evaluate his ideas and insights embedded in his books and articles. This paper is developed as a series in 5 separate parts in which 5 of Klare s articles or book chapters are deeply analyzed. In this first part of the paper series, his theoretical orientation and main arguments on energy related national policies of countries are evaluated. Then, in each article, a brief summary of the article is presented and then that summary is evaluated with critical discussion about his ideas and limitations of the article. By giving official quotes from different policy makers and interpretations related to the topic, a comprehensive examination is the main focus point of this paper. Among his fourteen books and several articles published, The New Geography of Conflict is first selected which is published in Journal of Foreign Affairs. After giving a broad understanding with this article on his main ideas about the conflicting nature of non-renewable energy resources, the book chapter Shaping the Course of History in his book The Race for What s Left: The Global Scramble for the World s Last Resources is examined. This chapter is selected in order to serve the purpose for comprehending the inevitable catastrophic end that the world will face unless greedy competition for non-renewable energy resources is abandoned and renewable resources are not benefitted. Then, The Global Assault on Africa s Vital Resources and An Energy Juggernaut, two chapters of his book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: How Scarce Energy is Creating a New World Order are reviewed in details. These two chapters give us a broader understanding about the types and sources of competition and conflict among great powers and big energy companies operating in specific energy rich areas. 2

3 Finally, his one of the latest articles From Scarcity to Abundance: The Changing Dynamics of Energy Conflict is further analyzed as the last piece of this paper in order to grasp his insights about the today and the future of the world in a continuous fight for accessing to vital resources. A BROAD REVIEW ON KLARE AND HIS ARGUMENTS Klare received his Bachelor Degree in 1963 and Master s Degree in 1968 from Columbia University and earned a PhD. Degree from Graduate School of Union Institute in Together with his fourteen books on natural resources and ramifications of resource related policies on world politics, he has been working as the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies and as the director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts 1. He has several articles related to consequences of competition over carbon based energy resources and vital minerals which are published in Foreign Affairs, Le Monde Diplomatique, Current History, The New York Times, Scientific American, Technology Review and Newsweek. Besides, his most well-known books, Resource Wars (2001), Blood and Oil (2004), Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet (2008) and The Race for What s Left (2012), are all seen as provocative books that claims world is going into an endless war due to greedy conflicts arising from accessing to energy resources and this war will end the planet unless alternative renewable energy sources are benefitted in more peaceful way. As he is called a top expert on politics of energy and resources by Paul Ehrlich 2, his examination on the race for securing energy resources by powerful actors of the world politics has reached to peak after Cold War which created a new world energy order. His focus on US defense policy, the arms trade, security affairs related to oil and gas conflicts together with other vital resources gives him a realist understanding in terms of analyzing and evaluating the relations between states and non-state actors in international politics. For example, while many people raised the question on why George W. Bush administration declared war against Iraq in 2003, Klare answered this question by claiming that the decreasing popularity of Bush in domestic politics could be fixed with an enemy outside the country and attacking to Iraq had increased his popularity by 10 %. 3 Serving on the board of directors of the Arms Control 1 His biography is available at Last Accessed 24/05/ Michael T Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: How Scarce Energy is Creating a New World Order, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, Michael T. Klare, Wag the Dog: Crisis Scenarios for Deflecting Attention from the President's Woes, November 16, 2005, Available at Last Accessed 25/05/2016 3

4 Association, he has developed a better eye on connecting the relationship between accessing to vital resources and insurgent conflicts together with other violent wars. His ideas and insights are mainly shaped with realist theory of International Relations. When he defines the actions of states in pursuing their interest in energy resources, it is seen clear in his studies that he uses domestic analogy between evil nature of human beings and nature of state which is mentioned in realist theory. In realism, because the human beings have evil nature, conflict is more possible than cooperation in terms of state relations. In line with Morgenthau s (1948) argument that states try to maximize power for their self-interest 4 and his assumption that maximizing power can be achieved by increasing military power with material capabilities, Klare s assumptions and historical records also follows the same realist pattern. For instance, although the role of oil and energy resources in US military operations in oversea lands has been seen as a conspiracy theory, Klare aimed to prove it with academic resources by benefitting from historical facts of 20 th century. As it will be seen in the following parts of this paper, military capacity and military presence of US plays the key role in securing and accessing to vital energy resources. Material capacity and maximizing interest with the help of military capacity is deeply analyzed and connected with the dangerous competition over vital energy resources. Realist rationality assumes that two actors (states) with same material capacity and material interest acts in the same way. Looking at Klare s papers, it is seen that he generally focuses on the thing that great powers acts more or less in the same way when it is to exploit or compete over resources which are not within their territories. His book, Blood and Oil, was produced as a movie by Media Education Foundation in which Klare was the narrator 5. In this book and his other books, he emphasizes the danger of fighting for finite non-renewable resources which ends in war and blood. For example, if one asks why oil prices are rising, Klare gives away that the fierce competition for accessing more oil resources together with rapid industrialization escalated the conflicts in oil rich areas which in return caused the cheap oil come to end. He continuously puts forward to focusing on renewable alternative energy sources in order to sustain a peaceful world. Within this path, he develops several concepts for energy order and energy politics. Extreme energy is an original concept introduced by Klare and it refers to unconventional drilling techniques for extraction the oil in which environment is 4 Hans, Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Newyork, Alfred A. Knopf,

5 damaged severely. Shale oil, deep water drilling, hydraulic fracturing, natural gas hydrates and mountaintop removal mining are mentioned by Daniel Gross 6 and concluded that Klare s era of extreme energy is reached. When he examines the consequences of states behavior in international relations he looks from the perspective of power dynamics, sustainable development and environmental focus. In sum, as it will be seen in the following part, Klare and his realist evaluation of the power politics arising from the energy resources issues gives to the audience a better and broader understanding on the underlying reason for the 20 th century s conflicts and wars. ARTICLE REVIEWS Author: Michael T. Klare Title: The New Geography of Conflict, Foreign Affairs, Vol 80, No 3 (May-June 2001), Council on Foreign Relations, pp SUMMARY In this paper, Michael T. Klare tries to find an answer to his research questions on how the conflicts of post-cold War period is shaped and why these conflicts are different than Cold War period. He mainly argues that accessing to vital natural resources constitutes the key national security issue in global politics where political and ideological disputes of Cold War period lost their importance due to economic, ecological, technological and social developments of post-cold War time. The paper starts with a key point that the US Department of Defense, in October 1999, gave the control of Central Asian American Forces to Central Command which normally controls the US forces in Persian Gulf Region and its vast oil resources. This change of taking Pacific Command s authority to Central Command, which has experience in controlling oil rich areas, gives the intuition that oil and gas resources of Central Asia and Caspian Sea Basin are the new interest areas of the US in post-cold War era. By recalling Alfred Thayer Mahan s 1890s strategy for the US to access and control global resources through a strong naval force as a global trading power, Klare mentions that end of Cold War and its ideology based competition fades out and leaves its place to economy and natural resource based competition over the oil rich territories. US National Security Council, in order to secure the transportation 6 Daniel Gross, Newspaper Article on "Fracking, Oil Sands, and Deep-Water Drilling: The dangerous new era of extreme energy (June 6, 2010) Available at g.html Last Accessed at 26/05/2016 5

6 of Central Asian energy supply to world markets, notes in White House s 1999 Security Policy Report that (t)he United States will continue to have a vital interest in ensuring access to foreign oil supplies. We must continue to be mindful of the need for regional stability and security in key producing areas to ensure our access and the free flow of, these resources. 7 The author, in order to clarify the resource based competition in the Asia, points out the foreign policy strategies of Russia, China and Japan as the main Asian powers and their emphasis and military existence on energy supply areas such as Caucasus, Caspian Sea Basin and Xinjiang region. Although his focus is mainly on the competition over oil and natural gas resources, he additionally notes the water supply, mineral supply and diamond as other sources of conflict and rivalry in other parts of the earth. He sees rapid industrialization and economic development of countries and their increasing need in more energy resources together with global warming and its negative externalities as the source of major competition which he quotes as (T)hese zones of potential trouble include the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea basin, and the South China Sea, along with Algeria, Angola, Chad, Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Venezuela-areas and states that together house about four-fifths of the world s known petroleum reserves. 8 In order to detect the major fault lines and contested areas of resources like oil, gas, water, mineral and diamond, he proposes to draw a map of world s tectonic lines which will show the possible earthquake zones and potential unsettled resource deposits which will likely come to light after an earthquake. In terms of global power dynamics of post-cold War time, new problems and conflicts differ from Cold War s ideological, ethnical and political conflicts in terms of their trans-border structure. New resource based conflicts mainly arises from either pipeline zones passing through different ethnic and national territories or major water systems flowing from one country to another country which all in return create cross-border problems and violence in those territories. Klare gives Caspian Sea pipeline route passing through Caucasus, large river systems such as the Nile, the Jordan, the Amu Derya, the Indus, the Euphrates and Tigris, and the diamond and gold rich areas of Africa (Angola, Democratic Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone), Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Brunei) and Latin America (Colombia, 7 Michael T. Klare, The New Geography of Conflict, Foreign Affairs, Vol 80, No 3 (May-June 2001), Council on Foreign Relations, p50 8 Ibid, p53 6

7 Brazil, Cambodia, Mexico) as the examples for his map of major fault tines that are more likely to generate conflicts and armed combats between states (Figure 1). Figure 1: Klare s Map of Conflicts on Oil & Gas, Water Systems and Minerals In Premonitory Tremors part of the paper, Klare focuses on increasing demands of the people due to industrialization and increasing number in terms of world population as the main points in potential conflicts over natural resources which are comparatively more scarce than previous times. Although some resources such as water supply are renewable and some resources are more extractable due to new technologies, these new technologies themselves are also resource consuming. The demand for oil and gas is increasing due to increasing population and industrialization and new technologies enable human beings to extract new oil and gas resources that are scarce and limited in their nature. Yet, those technologies also generate new scarcities where Silicon Valley as digital technology center and its mass electricity consumption is given as an example here to show the negative externality of new technological developments. Water supplies, even though they are renewable, are quite limited at a given year due to their time bounded renewable process. According to the author, rapid urbanization and increase in world population could likely double the number of countries that were suffering from water shortage in 2001(areas of Middle East and Asia) over the next ten years 9 and water demand could likely reach to 100% of available water supply by In addition to increasing demand for water supply he also mentions that the global warming as the new environmental problem 9 The paper was published in 2001 and it is written that (a)nd the number of countries experiencing such conditions is expected to double over the next 25 years as the world population rises and more people settle in urban areas. 7

8 will likely unbalance the global demand and supply due to changing climate conditions and their negative effects on farmlands and rainfall of inland territories and coastal territories where new technologies to curb those negative effects would not be afforded by all countries. The problem of sharing vital resources is seen as the major problem and this problem seems to ascent due to the economic, ecological and social problems mentioned above. Disagreements on offshore ownership of potential oil and gas resources, domestic political and social disputes and civil unrest against the authoritarian or monarchial regimes of oil rich countries that are open to civil wars or terrorist attacks and finally the allocation problem of water supplies of large rivers that are flowing through the territories of more than one country are seen as the major sources of conflicts over vital resources. Klare mentions the domestic tensions in Iran, Iraq, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela due to oil problems and Egypt and Sudan over the Nile River, Syria, Iraq and Turkey over the Euphrates River and Israel and Syria over the Jordan River as the cases and examples for disputes and conflicts over those vital resources. Finally, the author interprets the acts and speeches of the political leaders in order to indicate how accessing to and securing the vital resources would be the main agenda of national security. Jimmy Carter in 1980 declared that Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. 10 Similarly, Moshe Sharrett, the second Prime Minister of Israel, announced that (W)ater for Israel is not luxury. It is not just a desirable and helpful addition to our national resources. Water is life itself. 11 and Boutros Boutros- Ghali, when he was Egypt minister of foreign affairs in 1988, mentioned that (T)he next war in our region will be over the waters of the Nile, not politics. 12 These quotes of political leaders are illustrated by Klare in order to show the importance of vital resources in shaping the national security agendas of states which are ready for contest in those resources. Last but not least, the author points out that resource conflicts are main sources of economic and environmental problems, ethnic wars, political competitions and transnational crimes although those resource conflicts alone occupy a small part of the political agenda. That 10 Jimmy Carter Speech State of the Union Adress (January 23, 1980), Available at Last Accessed at 27/05/ Moshe Sharrett Speech Israel s Water Rights (November 30, 1953) Available at last accessed 28/05/ Klare, The New Geography of Conflict, p 59 8

9 is why a policymaker should be careful enough to focus on global resource trends and to promote private sector incentives on alternative energy sources. In sum, multilateral cooperation and strong international regimes and institutions are needed in order to prevent the future conflicts. CRITIQUE When looking at Klare s paper, it is clearly seen that he divides Post-Second World War period into two timelines in which the first part is shaped with ideological confrontations of the Cold War and second part is more shaped with accessing to vital energy sources. It is right to mention the domination of the ideological competition between two blocks that are headed by the USA and Soviet Union however reducing Cold War politics only to ideological confrontation is underestimating the underlying role of energy resources in Cold War time too. That is to say, even though the conflicts between two blocks were seen as ideological problems, there were still fingerprints of accessing to energy resources at that time. Considering the rapid industrialization of Soviet Union and its regime export as an alternative to capitalist system on the one hand and continuous efforts of two blocks for increasing their military capacity on the other, it is obvious that energy and other vital resources were dominant hot topics in Cold War time with only one difference: In the Cold War period, super powers of two blocks refrained from direct confrontation in order not to cause a World War and tested each other in different areas with the hand of small states instead. Suez Canal Crisis, for instance, was seen as a conflict stemmed from Nasser s attempt for nationalization the Canal however Soviet Union, Britain and United States tested each other in that crisis because it was critical for the secure energy transit. Likewise, although containment policy of George Kennan or creating Greenbelt Islamist countries that surrounds Soviet territory seemed to contain communist ideology, it was also a policy to push Soviet Union away from energy resources of Asia and Caspian Sea basin. Supporting Iran and Afghanistan or conflicts in Iraq, similarly, contained a mean for either destabilizing the Soviet access to energy resources or securing the Western Energy demand. That is to say, in short, although ideological confrontation was a dominant concern, the US or Soviet Union did not refrain from energy based policies like they did after Cold War. Klare defines and explains very well that the reason behind most of the insurgents and wars is most likely resource related issues which can be oil, gas, other elements or water. Considering that most of the 20 th century conflicts and wars occurred in oil rich areas or over 9

10 the river basins, a forecast or insight that potential conflicts are likely to occur in tectonically active areas seems plausible. Because these areas are housing the new oil and gas deposits, industrialized countries or great powers and their big energy companies see those areas as their new targets as it happened in Africa. Another point to be mentioned here is the year this article was published. It was 3 months before 9/11 attacks and global war on terrorism had not started yet. One may easily argue that the war on terror was actually a fight for securing energy resources in Caspian Sea Basin and Middle East however Klare could not make any comments in this paper because zeitgeist was not shaped by the motivation about the global fight against terrorism. A different point about the timing should be mentioned in terms of the technologies to be used for oil and gas extraction. Because this paper was published in 2001, Shale gas technologies and unconventional drilling techniques were used in oil and gas production. That is to say, US was more dependent to imported oil at that time compared to today where US started to export its oil from own resources thanks to new technologies. Moreover, Europe focused more on renewable green energy projects especially after 2000s thanks to the EU level regulations and national legislations. It should be given Klare s credit for his priceless studies which turned many conspiracy theories to academic realities. While many of the energy related policy orientations of great powers were treated as nonsense by many scholars, Klare used historical analysis in order to prove the link between bloody conflicts and accessing to vital resources. It is important to note Klare s insight about focusing on global energy trend and developing an international cooperation in order to find a more peaceful way for sharing the resources. About the post-cold War period, Klare touches upon important point on how great power games and power politics were shaped with energy related issues and tensions rose in the areas that are rich in natural resources. US military presence and reorganization in order to secure Caspian Sea basin and energy routes, China s, Japan s and Russia s military and economic activities in order to get rid of US from their potential influence zone, Klare truly mentions current and potential conflicts between great powers due to competition for energy resources. In sum, this article includes comprehensive historical analysis and productive policy recommendations in order to attain a sustainable and more peaceful energy order which will create a win-win solution for all parties. Considering the environmental concerns of late 2000s 10

11 and technological innovations, Klare s recommendations seem more applicable even though they take some time to implement totally. 11