Amid dozens of news stories a day, since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, petroleum is by far the most prominent topic. It became unsustainable to follow each update of the topic, and practically impossible to understand this issue in a linear way due to the uninterrupted flow of information. Still, knowing the role of petroleum in this war is just essencial, as this commodity is currently one of Russia’s main weapons, and also the element that has the power to change everything.
Sanctions
Since the beginning of the conflict, the most powerful NATO countries have introduced economic sanctions on the export of the commodity from Russia. Sanctions are basically blocks that prevent the product from being freely marketed, with restrictions on purchases in several countries. The problem is that we have become dependent on this product and, even worse, on this supplier, which implies an increase in the cost of living in several countries in Europe and the world.
The international crisis generated by the sanctions is considered Russia’s greatest weapon, which threatens to completely cut off the supply of oil and gas to the rest of the continent, leaving it without energy. Another point that worries US President Joe Biden, author of the measures, is the end of global support for a very extensive war, as inflation and the price of gasoline around the world have already started to skyrocket. In this scenario, something unprecedented happened when representatives of the United States visited countries that they had previously tried to isolate, such as Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran, to supply the world demand for the fuel.
Petroleum society
We live in a society based over petroleum extractor trusses. Almost everything we have and learn throughout life about contemporary geopolitics, have some roots in the history of this oil. Hands dirty with petroleum are partly responsible for refugee crises around the globe, military interference by great powers in specific countries and part of climate change. Therefore, knowing the role of this theme today is essential, and not even the Eastern European conflict escapes it.
The modern oil industry was born in the time of the Tsars and, since then, the empire, followed by the Soviet Union, and today “democratic” Russia continues to be one of the main holders of this production. The country has already waged wars for this raw material, which it currently uses as its main gamble against the West and NATO members. In its confrontation with Ukraine, under numerous economic sanctions, there is the real threat of cutting off the supply of fuel to the rest of Europe. Why is this a threat? Because of our dependence on automobiles created by the occidental auto industry.
Basically, all the world depends on this energy source. Because the “petroleum society” in which we live, has chosen to invest in the source that favors it economically, to the detriment of clean and renewable energies. On this stage, economic interest is almost always what weighs most in the history balance.
Alternatives
Despite the lower energy cost offered by Russia, the toxic relationship of dependence between the largest country in the world and the rest of the European continent has been frowned upon for a long time. The invasion of Ukraine only triggered a process that had already been studied by authorities in countries allied to the United States; break the connection with the fuels of the former Soviet Union and start to feed the renewable energy industry, in a gradual course that would be established with the help of North American gas.
In the long term, one can talk about a global tendency to detach from oil with the systemic modernization of the automotive industry, which would break the binding relations between the oil giants and governments around the world. This, after being a somewhat optimistic view, is a hope for the positive effect that sanctions on Russian oil can generate. This reform in the structure of society, added to the diplomacy born from negotiations between the far west and oil powers “enemies” of Uncle Sam, may represent the beginning of a new design in geopolitics.
Like everything else in human history, only the next chapters will be able to tell and measure the impacts of the conflict. The war that goes on every day in the news is much more complex and less manichean than “Order of the Phoenix versus the Death Eaters”, it is, in fact, one of the greatest powers today against the world, whose stage for the armed conflict is the Ukrainian territory. This has happened before, and it has had effects that reverberate to this day in unpredictable ways and places. Now, it’s just a matter of paying attention until the role of petroleum is brought under the spotlight of time.
The article above was written by Letícia Cassiano and edited by Camila Nascimento
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