Energy geopolitics: quandaries intensify
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97 Energy geopolitics: quandaries intensify by William Sweet WILLIAM SWEET blogs about energy and climate for IEEE Spectrum magazine and about nuclear arms control and weap- ons of mass destruction for the Foreign Policy Association. 8 T RADITIONALLY GEOPOLITICS evokes classic Realpolitik or what goes by the name of raison d’état or Machia- vellianism—the notion that in a world of sovereign states, each has no choice but to maximize its own interests and security, construed in a rather narrow geographic and military sense. But what is thought of as energy geopolitics today has come to encompass much more than physical con- trol over resources to advance state interests. It also refers to the ability to influence or even set world prices for fuels and technologies, and to leverage energy power to achieve a larger political end or ward off interference from other states and nongovernmental bodies. Energy geopolitics can still mean expanding one state’s power and security at the expense of another’s in a zero-sum game, but it also can involve human rights or humanitarian intervention. Since energy geopolitics can encompass so much, discus- sion of energy policy often suffers from what the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein might have called a confu- sion of discourse. When the discussion is about energy inde- pendence, which has been a major recurrent theme in U.S. politics since 1973, is it about the danger of an organization like the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) using its oil power to tempt the U.S. into betraying a friend like Israel—or, conversely, into overex- tending its military reach in an attempt to better control world oil reserves? Or is it really the influence that world oil prices Sept. 4, 2010: An employee of the company PPS Pipeline Systems prepares to lay an 800-meter-long section of pipe and connect it to the southern OPAL pipeline. OPAL is part of the Nord Stream Pipeline project, which runs from Lubmin on the north German coast to Olbernhau near the German-Czech border, where it connects with other transmission pipelines. (CHRISTOPH GOEDAN/LAIF/REDUX)
Transcript of Energy geopolitics: quandaries intensify
97
Energy geopolitics: quandaries intensify
by William Sweet
WILLIAM SWEET blogs about energy and climate for IEEE Spectrum magazine and about nuclear arms control and weap-ons of mass destruction for the Foreign Policy Association.
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Traditionally geopolitics evokes classic Realpolitik or what goes by the name of raison d’état or Machia-vellianism—the notion that in a world of sovereign
states, each has no choice but to maximize its own interests and security, construed in a rather narrow geographic and military sense. But what is thought of as energy geopolitics today has come to encompass much more than physical con-trol over resources to advance state interests. It also refers to the ability to influence or even set world prices for fuels and technologies, and to leverage energy power to achieve a larger political end or ward off interference from other states and nongovernmental bodies. Energy geopolitics can still mean expanding one state’s power and security at the expense of another’s in a zero-sum game, but it also can involve human rights or humanitarian intervention.
Since energy geopolitics can encompass so much, discus-sion of energy policy often suffers from what the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein might have called a confu-sion of discourse. When the discussion is about energy inde-pendence, which has been a major recurrent theme in U.S. politics since 1973, is it about the danger of an organization like the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) using its oil power to tempt the U.S. into betraying a friend like Israel—or, conversely, into overex-tending its military reach in an attempt to better control world oil reserves? Or is it really the influence that world oil prices
Sept. 4, 2010: An employee of the company PPS Pipeline Systems prepares to lay an 800-meter-long section of pipe and connect it to the southern OPAL pipeline. OPAL is part of the Nord Stream Pipeline project, which runs from Lubmin on the north German coast to Olbernhau near the German-Czech border, where it connects with other transmission pipelines. (CHRISTOPH GOEDAN/LAIF/REDUX)
