The Future of Resources - Part 1: Trends and Models
Strategic Resource Partnerships (SRP’s) based on Strategic Resource Modeling (SRM) are becoming increasingly important issues for the theory and practice of International Relations. Roland Benedikter explores how the field remains to be developed.
In the resource-dependent globalized economy threatened by climate change and regional instabilities, power struggles for resources are starting to play an increasingly crucial role behind the curtains, often covered by diplomacy or goodwill rhetoric. But in the years ahead, both the theory and practice of International Relations will be influenced, perhaps more than by other factors, by the impact of Strategic Resource Modeling (SRM) and subsequent Strategic Resource Partnerships (SRP) on existing power relations, economic and financial interactions and alliances. By their nature, SRM and SRP’s can accompany, contextualize, expand, and transcend traditional political, economic, financial and military cooperation. Thus they have the potential to serve as more variable (and in some cases more viable) contextual and complexity-adequate instruments of macro- and meso-strategy particularly appropriate to the flexible character needed by “intelligent power” in the age of global multi-polarity.
Important recent events such as the 12-month blockade of rare earth exports to Japan by China in 2012-13 or the halt to the construction of the South Stream Pipeline for the import of Russian gas to Europe in 2015 by the EU used resources as a means for - and expression of - geopolitical power politics. But rather than their immediate - and as such rather short-sighted - political intentions, they achieved a much broader and probably more enduring goal: they made both nations and the international community fully aware of the need for strategic long-term resource planning.
While the “G-2” U.S. and China have long been alert to the importance of their future needs in the overall framework of their wealth-power projection, other strongly resource-dependent nations like European global high-tech export champion Germany according to their own market and economy leaders haven’t invested enough to implement long-term plans to secure their productivity. Something similar seems to be true for Asian industrial leaders such as Japan or South Korea and for various developing countries of the Global South. Their international standing ultimately depends on their ability to secure, administer and distribute resources in cycle-independent ways as much as possible.
As a consequence of this insight, many governments both of democratic and authoritarian character have founded resource modeling strategic task forces in recent years. In almost all cases, their threefold goal is;
1) to identify future needs and critical fields of action with regard to national and international economic development, technological innovation and safeguard of strategic resilience,
2) to make resource consumption more efficient and sustainable for the sake of competitiveness and stability,
3) to anticipate international and global competition and conflict by forging strategic resource alliances in a mid- to long-term perspective.
In sum, in almost all cases SRM points in one or another way toward the creation of SRPs as integral part of global policy.
Among the projects carried out in Europe with the aim to address international and global issues of sustainability, participation and strategic cooperation are 1) the WORLD model of Lund University, 2) the GINFORS model of the think tank GWS and 3) the SimRess model connected with the German government. All three approaches are dedicated to positioning national resource consumption in the framework of the broader socio-political global context, and to developing practical policy recommendations with effects on geopolitical strategy.
1) The WORLD model - currently in its phases WORLD3 and WORLD5 as presented by Harald Sverdrup of Lund University and Jorgen Randers of BI Norwegian Business School at the Club of Rome meeting in Winterthur, Switzerland, on 28 April 2015 - is a systemic approach dedicated to modeling resource use and its connections to global prosperity in comparative ways. A particular focus is on peak metals, energy, wealth, food and their interrelation with population development.
2) In contrast, the GINFORS model is, as the name suggests, a Global INterindustry FORecasting System consisting of an economy-energy-environment model based on strict econometric considerations:
“A world trade model, [GINFORS] links national models for 25 commodity groups and services. All EU-25 countries, all OECD countries and their major trade partners are explicitly modeled. The model is based on time series of international statistics data from 1980 to 2002. Behavioural parameters are derived from econometric estimations assuming bounded rationality of agents with myopic foresight.” (here)
3) The SimRess project tries to integrate both the systemic and econometric dimensions. It
“analyzes the potential effectiveness of policy measures and mixes in the field of resource policy. Considering a time horizon through 2050, the project will interpret model simulation results from both a system dynamics model and an econometrics model. The modeling process will inform policy recommendations, and might therefore contribute to further developing the [German] national resource efficiency program ProgRess.“ (here)
Other contributions to identify and develop strategic potentials for cooperative resource policies and alliances with the goal of integrative sustainability come from such diverse angles as the Institute for World Ideas in Moscow, the World Resources Forum of the Club of Rome and the two OECD forecasts “Policy Challenges for the next 50 years” and “The Economics and Politics of Natural Resources and Pro-Poor Growth”. While the former integrates a variety of parameters into a multidisciplinary overall picture, the latter
“highlights the potential for natural resource management and environmental stewardship to contribute to poverty reduction and economic development of developing countries. It shows how effective policy making and investments aimed at natural resource management can support economic development, poverty reduction, job creation and long-term sustainability of natural resource-based activities.“
All these approaches suggest
1) that strategic resource partnerships based on long-term resource modeling are considered increasingly crucial components of multidimensional strategy;
2) that the respective global policies, including SRP’s, are at their beginnings and sometimes still undervalued by international players;
3) that their more detailed development and communication will be instrumental to avoid conflicts in a shrinking and increasingly overpopulated global environment.
What is the outlook? And what can be the respective grand questions and policy recommendations?
(to be continued tomorrow..........)
Roland Benedikter, Dott. Dr. Dr. Dr., is Research Professor of Multidisciplinary Political Analysis at the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies of the University of Wroclaw/Breslau, Senior Research Fellow of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs Washington D.C., Trustee of the Toynbee Prize Foundation Boston and Full member of the Club of Rome. Previously, he was a Research Affiliate 2009-13 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, a Research Scholar 2008-2015 at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies of the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Full Academic Fellow of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Washington D.C. 2008-12. He is member of many political bodies in Europe and co-author of two Pentagon and U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff White Papers on the Ethics of Neurowarfare (February 2013 and April 2014) and of Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker’s Report to the Club of Rome 2003: Limits to Privatization, as well as of more than a dozen books on international and global strategic issues (China, Europe, USA, Chile). He has published more than 200 publications in specialized journals such as Foreign Affairs, Harvard International Review (where he is on the Advisory board), The National Interest, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, European Foreign Affairs Review, New Global Studies, Global Policy, Welttrends Berlin and Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs. He is a frequent commentator for the newspapers Die Welt Berlin, Wiener Zeitung. Amtsblatt der Republik Österreich Vienna the Italian national broadcast RAI – Radiotelevisione Italiana. E-mail: rolandbenedikter@yahoo.de.
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