Energy security has been a topic debated since the last four decades ago. The reason was mainly because of protectionist policy from OPEC member states. The world, particularly the U.S., cannot freely determine the oil price anymore. The newly created organization called OPEC collectively decide among its member states how much to produce to keep the price as high profitable as possible. The West did not happy with such behavior like this and they tried to find other possible ways to keep the price stable and as cheap as possible. However, the new century has come many emerging countries are hunger for energy the same thing like the West. From this time on, they are competing for energy, especially gas and oil, for their fast growing industry. This competition is not always peaceful but rather very violent. Each major industrial state has tried to bring resource-rich countries under their own influence by supporting both civilian and military assistance. However, increasing this friendship and cooperation rather makes those oil-rich states corrupt, abusive, aggressive and violent. Nigeria is a striking example to prove this case. Assistance either from the West or Chinese government rather pushes these countries into deep crisis, abusive among citizen and rebel groups.
Violent conflicts between proponents and opponents of government arose ever since. The international community can’t do anything to help improve the situation in those oil-rich countries but they rather intervene to increase division local groups. After all there are endless wars and conflicts between different groups, races, faith, identify and status etc. This has created further insecurity and instability in those energy producers’ countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region. From this complicated problem, energy issues was politicized or militarized and became a major concern of every state especially major powers in the world.
After all oil-price inflation, insufficient oil supply, fast demand of energy from major industrial states, instability and risks that usually interrupt the smooth flow of global oil from country to country have constituted a wider concern among states. From now on, many questions pose to thinkers, academic scholars and states on whether how to manage and transport it safely and peacefully? How to sustain it or should there alternative ways to oil?
Various answers are provided for these issues by different theorists. From realist point of view, it is a matter of power and hegemony. States may do whatever to achieve this end. And that energy is one source of in increasing greater state’s power. That’s why states are fighting for it even requiring to use war in some extent. It’s true as argued in the text, mostly states possessing veto power in the UNSC are competing with one another for energy resources. They often block one another when those initiatives or policies involving oil-rich countries such as Syria’s civil war or Iran’s nuclear crisis. Some state even uses energy as weapon to bargain for better price or solution. Russia, for example, has used repeatedly this tactic towards the European Union in order show its superior power in the region and to threaten its former Soviet states from staying out of its influence. China, another example, has drawn 9 dash map in the South China Sea to grasp all of those areas so that it could extract those national resources which will help its growing industry move forwards steadily. But this outlaw behavior created contentious conflicts among countries in the region. However, realists would say energy issue is one of the states’ survival and that states will deadly fight for it. From this very reason, one can say energy security deserves an agenda in high politics.
On the other hand, some would say energy issue is part of political economy. Energy is a powerful tool for enhancing political power of a state. Abusing it will destroy one’s own economy; managing it well will bring prosperity to that state. Confronting with the shortage of energy, states and thinkers are in big trouble to find an alternative, sufficient energy supply. But, of course, in this contemporary world no other energy source is more efficient than oil. Consequently, states are competing for it regardless of hard means. This has constituted even more essential study of energy security. Energy issue is more and more relevant to healthy of a state and the world as a whole. No one can ignore it anymore.
Few concerns have been raised in the following paragraph:
Energy (petroleum) is, of course, an inelastic product. Everybody, especially the energy hungers or advanced industrialized countries often fight for it. They may not fall into war directly but they may use third states to fight for. As one can see in the text illustrated by the author, China and the US diplomatically armed the oil-rich nations which finally create separatist groups, coups, insurgents, transnational crime, and civil war inside the host country. Is energy a driven factor for arms race or kind of the energy-cold-war?
Yet, not all influences or engagement of major powers in those states is because of energy but few other reasons may also involve – extended their ideological camp, increase trades or promoting human rights/humanitarian intervention since they may perceive it as a threat to international peace. And that crisis happening in those oil-rich nations broke out not always by energy aggregation but probably poor governance, unworking institution or highly corrupted society etc. It would mean the availability of energy may be tremendous, to some extent, and energy is not that big concern but rather building those states to be peaceful and stable maybe is. Energy supply might be enough for every user but because of wrong notion of energy such as energy shortage, it may wrongly encourage states maximize its energy reservoir and that it has led other to do the same thing. Isn’t it kind of energy-security dilemma?
As mentioned in the text, there are growing researches on how to find the alternative ways of producing and supplying energy in an efficient manner. If they would have found it, wouldn’t there be no more energy security?
