GNS T1L5

Strategic Resources

What are **“critical resources**”?

Resources required to realize central political goals or to ensure a country’s economic, military or demographic survival (→vital interests)

What are the types of critical resources?

* Energy production (e.g. crude oil, natural gas,
* Defense industry (e.g. chromium, vanadium,
* Electronics industry (e.g. rare earths, selenium, platinum
* Agricultural production (potassium, ammonia, phosphate
* Infrastructure (e.g. copper, iron ore, oil

What do **strategic** and **critical** **resources** have in common?

Limitation of alternative sourcing

What is the effect of the “**limitations of alternative sourcing**”?

Supply chain vulnerability

What are “**strategic resources**”?

Critical for national defense . Their supply is particularly vulnerable in war times because their domestic availability is often insufficient and their import or production can be disrupted by hostile foreign powers.

Examples of histroical strategic resources

* The Royal Navy and Timer
* The Imperial Coal Monopoly
* The World War II Rubber Shortage

What are the OPEC countries?

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a group of countries that are major producers of oil and collaborate to regulate oil production and stabilize oil prices in the global market. As of 2021, the current member countries of OPEC are:


1. Algeria
2. Angola
3. Congo
4. Ecuador
5. Equatorial Guinea
6. Gabon
7. Iran
8. Iraq
9. Kuwait
10. Libya
11. Nigeria
12. Saudi Arabia
13. United Arab Emirates
14. Venezuela

The geopolitics of natural gas trade - 3 main pipelines leading from Russia to continental Europe

* Ukraine
* Belarus


* Baltic region

What Marxist theory is applicable to the geopolitics of resources

The World-Systems Theory & Means of Production vs Relations of Production

A Post-Colonialist perspective on critical resources

* Economic relationships often still reflect **former ties** between colonies and the imperial center
* Possession illustrate the **agency** of weaker and developing countries
* North-South resource relationships also illustrate the concept of **neo-colonialism**

The future: “water wars”

* Increased climate change
* Water security is threatened in about 80% of the world
* Water is unequally distributed
* Potential water wars are also agriculture wars
* “Water warfare” already exist