*Ahmad Dzakirin
The High Noon of Energy Crisis, World’s Oil Addicts and the likelihood of conflicts
There is no precise estimate of the energy availability, i.e. oil or gas. Oil predictably runs out in 40 years of the recent reserves or around 2030 up to2032. Although there is more skeptical insight performed by the research of Uppsala team from Swedish University that contended the peak of oil availability will happen in 2010. The depletion is indicated by the facts that 70 percent of the world’s oil supply stemmed from the extraction fields that are 30 years aged –declining around 4 percents or higher per annum- and the whole rich oil fields in the world are mostly verified. The only unwarranted hypothesis that contrasts with the most likely depletion trend is the possible huge deposit of oil that is still undetectably stored in extreme deep sea and Polar Regions. But similarly in the case of North Sea and Canada which have a substantial oil reserve but uneconomically extracted.
With the current data, the prediction of its peak availability can be calculated. Oil occupies 39 percent (156 quads) of world energy consumption from 1017 billion barrel proven reserve meanwhile gas represents 24 percent with proven reserve of 5450 trillion cubic feet from the total annual energy consumption around 400 quads. If calculated with no increase assumption, the oil will be depleted after 38 years and gas 59 years. But with the annual trend of 2 percent increase of oil and 5 percent of gas, so the oil will deplete 28 years and gas 26 years later. Whichever predictions and research are used, but the message is clear that the energy scarcity is eminent and threatening. "The decline of oil and gas will affect the world population more than climate change."
The question rises why the energy depletion will not seriously affect the pursuit of energy alternatives. There are at least two important reasons. First, it is supposed to be oil addict as said by George Bush. For American itself has consumed more than one-third of the world’s oil supply - 20 million barrels of oil a day- and change to be the world’s largest oil importer to meet a more half increasing domestic need. (See Figure 2). The production has been declining for 30 years. Subsequently, China in 2005 with the surge up of the economy growth as much as 10 percent per year will bring into the world’s second largest importer. Many states are highly dependent with the use of oil and gas but the world has yet to develop an effective and efficient alternative source of energy. The Reagan Administration in 1986 fiscal year denied seeking energy alternatives due to the burdensome cost and instead preferred to obtain oil albeit the option of price hikes “Achieving a low level of oil imports at any cost is not a major criterion for the nation’s energy security and economic health. Even at its current high price, imported oil is substantially less expensive than available alternatives” and secondly, the nuclear energy as an efficient alternative tend to be politicized, hence it is often not an alternative. For examples, the nuclear proliferation of the supposedly “rough states” like Iran and North Korea has brought the US and West into large oppositions. The avoidance of possible competition and supremacy seem to be behind the reasons of non-proliferation. As Jervis said, there is always security dilemma in allowing the technology capability that indirectly implicated the possible upgrading of military capability because “Any state that has interest throughout the world can not avoid possessing the power to menace others.”
Max Valencia assessed the future dynamic of inter-state conflicts seems volatile due to the past cycling pattern of enmity and amity as well as the shadowy threat of energy scarcity. The progress in trade liberalization of the oil market in recent years have appeased to a certain degree the energy supply situation but the view that the true solution to prevent the likelihood of conflicts through accelerating trend toward market-based energy strategy is one-sided and can not be entirely accepted. In Asia Pacific for instance, from 1990-1996 periods, the energy demand has increased 5.3 per year before in 1965-1989 only 4.4 percent per annum, a bit slowdown in the financial crisis but doubled later after the crisis. The problems are some oil producers in Asia like Indonesia and China have been underway the depletion of energy production and turn to be oil importers. Indonesia will not cease to claim the oil rich Ambalat against Malaysia after losing Sipadan and Ligitan.
To secure the domestic supply, the Super Power, like the US and some major states tended to competing considerable access of energy reserves. At worst, it will lead to the strain of diplomatic relations among others. In other side, the foreign policy of some industrialized countries and rising countries in the foreseeable future will be determined by the pragmatic approach in term of obtaining the safe oil supply. “France and Germany, and with them much of the European Union (share relatively foreign policy responsibility with the US), are more reluctant to confront difficult issues with Russia and Iran because of their dependence on imported oil and gas as well as the desire to pursue business opportunities in those countries.” In turn, these new inevitable realignments have significantly decreased the U.S. leverage and influence, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia and another part of world.
How we see then China that its policy is not in line with the US? To support the fast growing industrialization has drastically surged since 2002 and the steadily increasing trend of 10 percent a year (compared with the average world oil increase as much as 2 percent) that unfortunately can be no longer sustained by its own domestic production (See Figure 1) China anticipated the likelihood of dry-up oil supply by expanding the much generous cooperation with the oil producing states in Africa, South-East Asia and Central Asia. To meet the IEA standard of its 90 days oil strategic stockpiles, China provided soft loans of 3 billion dollars in the African Summit and promised to double the aid over the next three years without any political conditions –non intervention policy that was on the contrary with the Western and the US stereotype-interference approaches. Sudan most enjoyed the China approach in term of diplomatic protection over Darfur issue as well as the infrastructure aids projects. As result, China got 7 percent of the oil supply from its total import. The oil diplomacy has been also successfully aligned China with Central Asia (Kazakhstan), Middle East (Iran and Arab Saudi as the US loyal partner) (Figure 3).
China maneuver in Jervis perspective will be colliding with or can not be achieved without seriously comprising the US interests. For the United States, with 4.6 percent of the world’s population that significantly consumed 25 percent of the world’s oil and more a half imported, the dependence of secure oil supply is always vulnerable and disruptive. An effort to decrease the US oil dependence has been taken into action, but admittedly until next two decade, “it is unlikely that the United States will be able to make a sharp reduction in its dependence on imports, which currently stand at 60 percent of consumption.” The possible policy is to manage the consequences of dependence on oil; neither to eliminate the dependence nor jeopardize the whole US interests. Therefore, Chinese oil diplomacy threatens the US foreign policy and gives a signal for unavoidable strategic competition due to several reasons; first, the deals in some cases involve some concessions either in economical terms or to supply arms and military technology transfer with some supposedly ‘rough states’ or unfriendly states, second, as an impact of ‘Chinese lock-up deals strategy’, “the rising number of these deals has coincided with higher prices for oil in the world market. Chinese activity in world energy markets is so potentially disruptive to the underlying political relationships between major resource holder countries and industrialized countries,” But, China is not the only player because the similar strategy will be likely implemented by some rising or established powers in term of securing their domestic energy security by any necessary means. Although the likelihood of conflicts will be determined by the extent of the conflict, but at worse, the decline of the US hegemony is always a worry for the US itself. “The United States does not tolerate peer competition…it can be expected to go to great lengths to contain China”. Iraq war is a recurring history of the lateral pressure within the threat of energy depletion.
Iraq War: A Recurring History of Oil Pursuit and Hegemony
The Allied Force led by the US unilaterally invaded Iraq in 19 March 2003 on allegedly hiding WMD and terrorist safe haven after Saddam failed to meet the deadline. But the alleged pretext to justify the war was eventually baseless when WMD was not found and no sufficiently proven- link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. The policy behind the deployment of war machine was not explicitly revealed, the desperate pursuit of oil, but the public increasingly believed the bottom line of the policy, the vulnerability of America's oil supplies in accordance with the energy security. The second report, “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century”, from the US task force that was co-sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relation posed the possibility of a military option, “The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments.”
The Bush Administration indeed realized the key importance of the Middle East generally to sustain the supply but in fact, the world’s second largest proved oil reserves were controlled by Saddam Hussein, ‘the villain’. Dick Cheney acknowledged the hindrance of Saddam in power before the invasion, "He could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East [and] take control of a great proportion of the world's energy supplies...” It nearly succeeded in making progress to push hard the Saddam regime with the military action under the UN resolution 1441 but at worse, unpredictably political turnover happened that threatened the US energy security. In December, Venezuelan oil workers went on strike and oil prices surged – reaching $ 35 a barrel. Beside that, the Bush Administration was very annoyed with the reluctance of some multi national corporations from Germany, France, Russia and Malaysia to make any oil extraction contracts with the villain regime which was under the international embargo. Iraqi opposition itself warned unless those countries supported the U.S. policy in the Security Council, their oil companies would be blacklisted. “We will examine all the contracts that Saddam Hussein has made, and we will cancel all those that are not in the interest of the Iraqi people and will reopen bidding on them.”
The Endnote: Oil as Still main Source of Power
It perhaps raised a question what the benefits laid so a risky political business was pursued in term of Iraq war. Peter Dale Scott indicated the oil issue was the most crucial reasons (without the UN approval) for the desperate US to wage the war. The sustainability and dominance of the oil supply will not merely affect domestically but the consequences of the world hegemon as whole in terms of politics and economy. The decision to wage the war was described to restore the receding hegemony. For example, the US economy decline has withered the Dollar as an international currency. Many states changed or planned to change their international currency into stable and profitable Euro. The other economic issues also worried the US economy such as: the campaign of alternative Islamic gold Dinar and the overpriced dollar in Japan's unresolved deflationary crisis. In term of international politics, The US needs to reshape the Middle East map. Bush overviewed Iraq and Iran as the last strong defense of the rough states in Middle East.
To sum up, hegemony and competition to regain it among the established and the rising powers will be inevitably colliding in term of lateral pressure. But whether the new rising power or the already established superpower will victoriously come up will be determined by many factors. The ultimate factors that will lead to the hegemony will be determined by the availability of oil as main source of power. Unfortunately, the upcoming period of energy scarcity will likely propel the likelihood of the harsher conflict. The likelihood of diversity and disputes for desperate major powers will tend to being always defined by military force as prevailed before and less likely being enhanced by multilateral cooperation anymore.
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