Geopolitics and International Relations of Resources

Abstract

Geopolitics and international relations have always been integral to the drive to secure access to vital global resources. The histories of oil, gas and minerals, as set out in the previous chapters, provide many examples of how the struggle to secure these resources has both excited and driven international politics. The European imperial expansion, such as the late-nineteenth century ‘scramble for Africa’ was closely linked to the need to obtain the raw materials required for the industrialization and great power ambitions of the European states. The two world wars had important resource dimensions, such as gaining control over the iron reserves in Lorraine and the oil fields in the Caucasus. The Cold War had its resource-linked conflicts over access to the oil reserves in the Persian Gulf and to key strategic minerals, such as chromium, whose reserves were located in the Soviet Union and South Africa. The post-Second World War process of decolonization was frequently linked to international conflict over control of the natural resources found in these countries. From the 1970s onwards, the concept of ‘energy security’ has been increasingly used in defining the international politics of energy and ensuring that energy concerns have been increasingly seen as an integral part of ‘high politics’.