A New Era of Adversarial Geopolitics Is Beginning on the Indo-Pacific & Arctic Oceans
My background is in International Relations but I’m also a Legal Analyst. That’s why I believe it is plausible to view all recent trends in energy and commodities from the perspective of what is going to happen in the international maritime domain — and thus how maritime areas connect with geopolitical trends — which is vital to understand the the political, economic and strategic significance of the Indo-Pacific and Arctic Ocean areas.
This is not only a question of the global economy and geopolitical trends but also of the future of international maritime law. With so much global activity occuring in maritime areas — just look at what’s happened on the Black and Caspian Seas during the Russia-Ukraine Conflict — there’s going to be significantly more problems related to the maritime dimensions of International Relations (IR) and conflict studies.
About me and my purpose…
I’m introducing this writing here to share with everyone how I feel about the trajectory of geopolitical trends going forward: the importance of the maritime domain for the future of international conflict and dispute resolutions, as well as the economic importance of sustainability initiatives and climate change action for industrial policies in the future, will tell the story of how this new era of Adversarial Geopolitics will play out in the Indo-Pacific and Arctic Oceans: areas of divergent sovereignty narratives between governments inevitably turning into military conflicts over ownership of natural resources and energy security.
I’ve written extensively about the issues facing core areas and critical producers from the perspective of industrial policies and geopolitical trends on the publication Areas & Producers.
Energy Transition on the Oceans
Water is at the heart of the globe, from both a geographical vantage point and global economic perspective. While from the perspective of the Energy Transition, it’s the lifeline to save industrial production and mitigate the grave effects to humanity derived from Climate Change.
No wonder some of the world’s largest corporations and entities are betting big on their investments in Energy Transition and E-mobility, such as hydrogen, ammonia and carbon-capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, among others, while formulating industrial policies that are conducive to Electric Vehicle (EV) charging networks and supply chains for battery metals.
According to British Petroleum (BP) CEO Bernard Looney, capital spending on hydrogen development forms part of the company’s strategy to invest only in “low carbon energy” projects while taking the once-oil producing major and transforming it into an “integrated energy company.”
Those collaborations are particularly prevalent in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania areas, which is now collectively referred to as the Indo-Pacific (along with the India sub-continent and its surrounding maritime neibours and areas). In other words, from both a geographical and industrial point of view, the future of the world is being transformed to meet the needs of both corporations and humanity; hence the importance of Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) frameworks.
The potential success of outcomes in the Energy Transition and ESG frameworks hold the key to humanity’s race to cut down on carbon emissions through the Net Zero 2050 Strategy, which has been called for by climate scientists, industrial advocates and environmental activists from all around the world.
To illustrate, in a significant step toward Scope 1 Emissions, the world’s first decarbonized commercial CO2 transport and storage service was launched in conjunction with the mutual interests of Europe’s supermajor oil and gas producers — Shell, TotalEnergies (NA) — as well as Yara International.
Major Investments in Oil and Coal Production
Oil is also on the radar as of late. Warren Buffet has won regulatory approval to buy up to 50% of shares in the Houston-based oil and gas production company Occidental Petroleum. Analysts have reported on this story with fervor, but this prospect has been in the works since 2019.
There’s been a major comeback for the unsung heroes of the commodity markets: thermal coal and crude oil.
ExxonMobil’s offshore oil discovery in Guyana began exporting crude oil to European markets — around 49% — in 2022 — up from 16% in 2021.
Glencore’s thermal coal production has witnessed massive profits to the tune of $8.9billion in H1 2022.
Of course, this is all occuring under the backdrop of the Russian-Ukraine war which has put oil and gas supply and demand at the crux of sanctions on Russia and the geopolitics of global energy, fertilizers and metals.
Moreover, oil prices are likely to resume at higher levels due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.
In the event that OPEC+ comes to an agreement over production and supply targets, it may be too late to make a difference on prices overall, as Americans and Europeans will continue paying for higher prices.
This is a lesson that many people tend to ignore.
On the news of Russia taking over the Sakhalin-2 Project, the effects on LNG production will have an impact on global supplies; therefore, Russia has once again disrupted energy supplies in a big way — Russia already disrupted oil supplies from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in Kazakhstan.
When OPEC+ decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day (bpd) the politicization of oil, coal and natural gas should’ve been obvious to everyone. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, energy security remains one of the top concerns of industrial policies going forward. That’s why the geopolitical trends matter.
Enter Nord Stream 2 and South China Sea
The Nord Stream 2 and South China Sea are two examples that explain how energy, commodities and maritime areas will form a synthetic issue-area in determining dispute resolutions within the framework of international conflicts in the future.
Moreover, both of these disputes will continue to face dynamic maritime threats from non-state actors, such as extremists and pirates, who have been given very little attention to maritime law issues due to the significant interstate tensions in international politics.
In fact, these tensions have become so outstanding that two grand strategies have been developed and publicized as a vision for the future of World Order: the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) (part of the Belt and Road Initiative), of which the maritime dimension is the focal point of these strategies.
Like the Nord Stream 2 and South China Sea dispute, both the IPS and the MSRI serve as indicators that the world has entered into a new era of Adversarial Geopolitics. (Ignore the “new/next Cold War” jargon).
For instance, these competing visions for the future of World Order encompass a wide array of areas and actors — like the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and South China Sea — so it’s worthwhile to analyze how these maritime strategies are driving the future of the global economic activity too.
The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) is definitely a way for Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to flaunt the foreign policy goals and bring together a coalition of countries that submit to Russia’s power.
Many people will probably judge this forum as irrelevant due to the actors that are present, but in fact, both Myanmar’s military junta leader and China’s foreign policy minister were in attendance.
However, since Russia’s industrial policies now favor deeper collaboration with China and the Asia-Pacific region, this forum is very important in understanding how Russia’s strategy to combat the sanctions from United States and European Union. Because it is the region with the fastest growing industrial base economies in the world, this means more raw materials are needed for economic development of those countries. Energy security is paramount to these countries’ global domestic product (GDP) growth.
To illustrate further, I have compiled some of the most significant analyses about the results of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in 2022:
- The growing mutual interests in trade between China and Russia’s Far Eastern region
- China and Russia want to disrupt oil markets by axing the US Dollar
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals divergences within Central Asia
- President Xi’s decision to not assist Russia’s war effort
- The dilemma or China’s gas supplies via Power of Sibera 2 pipeline
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a regional initiative that promotes military and security cooperation as well as economic development, among other things of a multilateral nature.
Commodities are global in nature. The only attention being truly paid to regional development is about large investments in infrastructure — these investments do not seek to enhance regional connectivity, but give an advantage to a producing country so that it can more efficiently transport raw materials to markets far away from the original source.
This is the essence of the Arctic Strategy, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Indo-Pacific Strategy: all of them revolve around the maritime domain while also seeking defense mechanisms through military cooperation.
In my view, this is the future trends for which the world is headed. Whereas countries are rethinking industrial policies, while also emphasizing the need for new security measures to industrial assets as a result of nascent, unpredictable cyber threats from adversaries. An adversary, or group of adversaries, can target an industrial asset because it has immediate results, and which the perpetrator can determine the trajectory of action on the cyberattack. Governments, corporations or even individuals could be consumed in a cyberattack that effectively shuts down an industrial asset or network which it is operating on.
It’s very important to undertand this phenomenon in the context of sanctions on Russia and China. Under the backdrop of a resurgence in global commodities, the legal aspects of Russia’s sanctions include industrial asset seizures and targeted oil and gas mergers with Russia’s national companies. Both of these aspects have a cybersecurity dimension
What this means at a political level is that Russia intends to transform its industrial policies in a way that favors the “anti-West” rhetoric; from a geographical point of view, raw materials are located in vulnerable areas where supply chains are being disrupted by sanctions. This is why Russia must expand its “sovereignty” over global commodities.
Simply put, this is Russia’s geopolitical objective within the context of global commodities, hence the critical nature of the China-Russia relationship. China basically has the same geopolitical objective within the context of global commodities, which is why the two countries could seek to dominate raw materials in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas.
The question of whether China and Russia will align industrial policies shall be determined by the outcomes of the Arctic Strategy and BRI — not the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — and how the defense and security interests of the United States converge with other actors in the Indo-Pacific. This is the long game of geopolitics for decades to come.
Plausible Concepts and Conclusions
- This new era of Adversarial Geopolitics is being driven by similiar concepts — to build more and invest more — across a broad range of areas, boundaries and peoples and cultures. Therefore, non-state actors should be given more attention to the outcomes of energy, commodities and maritime areas.
- One of the key themes is to improve on how countries share information, known as “information-sharing” capabilities, so that dispute resolution mechanisms between countries can be more transparent and equitable. This is ultimately going to be one of the only solutions to avoid war in the Indo-Pacific.
- Scenarios of international maritime law outcomes and dispute resolutions should explain how the future is being driven by energy development (economy), commodities supplies (politics) and maritime strategies (military/security). The big-picture questions include whether or not these outcomes meet the criteria of those competing visions for World Order.
- I believe there’s going to be a lot of partnerships coming for the energy and metals industries. It’s mainly because the metals needed to produce the installations are concentrated in fewer areas. Like for the installations off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the metals will need to be transported from areas through the straits into the Pacific Ocean. This is another angle of the South China Sea; that’s why the Freedom of Navigation (FON) exercises are so crucial to the Indo-Pacific strategy.
- In any event, it’s the maritime domain, including international maritime law and cooperation, that deserves attention for future scenarios encompassing international law and dispute resolutions.
I’m an analyst and consultant for legal and international affairs. I’m not for war — as I stand for peace. But as a student and professional of international conflict I understand that every war has a backstory that is relevant to all parties to any conflict. Thus, every side of the story has its own backstory, and understanding the backstory to a conflict is one way to strive for world peace. Please follow my work on the publication Areas & Producers. Click on the link below.
