Russia spins global energy spider's
web By W Joseph Stroupe
The vast bulk of the world's oil, gas and
strategic minerals resources either is coming
under or is already under the control of
authoritarian, or less-than-democratic, or
leftist, or otherwise radical regimes either with
a decidedly anti-Western political stance and
ideology or pointedly decreased sensitivities to
strategic US interests.
It is difficult to
name more than a handful of resource-rich states
that
are liberal democracies and that are still
significantly aligned with the West. Only Canada
and Mexico come immediately to mind, and even
Canada is increasingly embracing China and the
East in the sphere of strategic energy deals and
agreements.
Even those resource-rich
regimes that are considered to be the
most
moderate of the globe's producing states are far
less closely aligned geopolitically with the US
than they were previously.
Saudi Arabia,
for example, continues its "Look East" policy of
diversifying its markets away from the US. It has
concluded a range of important deals in the energy
sector with China and India and is steadily moving
into closer geopolitical alignment with the rising
East.
A number of other key Middle Eastern
regimes are following suit. By and large Latin
America is doing the same, as are Africa and
Central Asia. Almost none of the world's oil and
gas producers wants to be inordinately dependent
on the US market any longer. Additionally, the
steady rise of the powerful economies of Asia
beckons oil and gas producers toward such
lucrative markets that are politically cost-free,
meaning they do not attach political demands and
seek to interfere in the domestic affairs of the
producing regimes, as does the US.
In
virtually all cases, the interests of the West and
of its multinational oil companies and big Western
financial institutions are being minimized and/or
pushed out as the global trend of nationalization,
by one means or another, of the oil-and-gas sector
picks up speed.
That is occurring in
Russia, which has now surpassed Saudi Arabia as
the world's largest exporter of oil, in Central
Asia, the Middle East and in Latin America. Within
virtually all such regimes the lines of separation
between the top levels of political leadership and
the directorship of key corporations and
industries are not only blurred but are being
obliterated. The multinational oil companies of
the West are being marginalized as a direct
result.
That is the case in Russia, where
in many key areas of industry corporate directors
are intimately tied to President Vladimir Putin,
having formed a close association with him long
before he became president, and many even hold key
positions as upper-level Kremlin officials, or as
government ministers. Not merely coincidentally,
the key corporations the directors of which are so
closely allied with Putin are often
resources-based and are also those that are
state-controlled businesses, with the Russian
state holding controlling (51% or more) interests.
To varying yet alarming degrees, the
resource-rich regimes around the globe are copying
the Russian model. Resources-based corporate
states with a profound political affinity for one
another and a simultaneous collective disdain and
even a hatred for US-led unipolar dominance are
proliferating around the globe.
Resource-rich Russia's mounting global
leverage with the world's other producing states
and with the powerhouse economies of the East, and
its profound political affinity with such
producers and key consumer states, far outweighs
the influence of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC).
How so? Russia
is crossing the membership boundaries of OPEC to
court its most powerful members and to conclude
with them joint-venture agreements of huge
consequence and importance for the future of
global oil and gas exploration and production. The
West is rapidly being pushed out of such ventures,
or is being forced to take radical reductions in
the size of its stakes, and is being left out
entirely in many new ventures.
Instead,
the world's producing regimes are increasingly
entering key joint ventures between themselves and
in very close cooperation with the powerhouse
economies of the rising East, such as China. We
are witnessing not merely the formation of some
new oil-and-gas cartel with Russia at its center,
but rather the formation of something that
includes both producers and the key consumer
states of the East in an ever more cohesive de
facto confederation. This is dedicated to the
achievement of strategic energy security for those
within its clearly defined circle. In the
process, OPEC itself, as an entity, is being
undermined and marginalized. Simultaneously, the
West is being forcibly cast from the proverbial
frying pan into the fire as something far more
powerful, compelling and all-encompassing than
OPEC is coalescing.
The ominous rise
around the globe of the resources-based corporate
state is accelerating. The implications for the
West are enormous, yet such implications are only
beginning to be understood. As noted above, such
states are concluding rapidly increased numbers of
strategic agreements among themselves for the
joint exploration and production of oil and gas,
and with the rapidly rising powerhouse economies
of the East, such as China and India, for the
private long-term supply of oil and gas.
The creation of such private pools of oil
and gas for the consumption only by specific
economic powers in the East and select economies
of the West is also a new development that carries
with it profound implications for the West.
In essence, the circle defining
international energy security is now being drawn.
Inside the circle are those producer and consumer
states whose political and geopolitical affinity
for each other is the result of no mere chance
occurrence and whose energy-security interests are
being strategically served and addressed on both
sides of the producer/consumer equation.
Some of the economies of the West, such as
Germany, are being included within the developing
circle. Outside the circle are those economies of
the West that are to be left out of the growing
international energy-security arrangements
currently being constructed, as alluded to above.
Interestingly, and as a profound new development,
it isn't the United States that defines the path
and scope of the circle. Instead, it is Russia and
its strategic partners who are defining it.
Because Russia's leaders adroitly
positioned the Russian Federation to capitalize
massively on global energy developments, it is the
state that inherited the unique ability to shape
global developments as they unfold. Russia is
shaping important developments among the world's
key producing and consuming powers. They are being
shaped contrary to the strategic interests of the
United States, as noted above. The US is also
shaping developments, foolishly handing Russia and
the East ever more global leverage. By incessant
strategic blunders, the US has isolated itself
internationally and fanned the fires of global
anti-Americanism, which increasingly engulf the
very regions where its own resources-based
strategic interests lie.
An entire array
of fundamental global developments as respect
strategic resources is quite literally changing
the landscape of the traditional global energy
order. With regard to energy and energy security,
a new global order is emerging. The US-backed
liberal, open global oil market order is beset by
an accelerating proliferation of private,
state-to-state long-term agreements and contracts
concluded within the circle Russia and its
partners are defining.
This is creating
increasing numbers of private pools of oil and gas
dedicated only to serving the energy-security
interests of the circle of private participants.
Along the way, Russia's export monopoly of the oil
and gas that still flows outside the circle to the
West continues to grow, further ensuring its
mounting global leverage.
Rather than
being merely unrelated and random events, global
developments in the energy and geopolitical
spheres over the past seven years form a distinct
pattern that bespeaks the execution of a
developing strategy of a Russian reacquisition of
global power, but in concert with its strategic
partners, at the incalculable expense of the West
in general and of the US in particular.
Contrary to the assumptions of
conventional wisdom, the US hasn't any longer the
global leverage to shape unfolding developments in
its favor. Russia is rapidly acquiring such
leverage, and it is expertly plying that leverage
against US vulnerabilities in the energy sphere.
W Joseph Stroupe is editor of
Global Events Magazine online at
www.GeoStrategyMap.com. He has authored a new book
on the implications of ongoing energy geopolitics
titled Russian Rubicon - Impending Checkmate
of the West.
most
moderate of the globe's producing states are far
less closely aligned geopolitically with the US
than they were previously. 
