DANIEL SILVERBERG and BENJAMIN L. SCHMITT
While the era of thinking the Defense Department has no need to worry about the environment has thankfully ended, too many in Washington still think of climate change, energy markets, and national security as, at best, tangentially linked, and at worst opposites that cannot peacefully coexist.
It’s a view unfortunately shared on each side — climate activists often view defense spending as wasteful and polluting, while defense experts return fire that climate activists are downplaying national security. But with the Biden administration making climate change a priority across the board, the idea that either side can succeed without the other needs to be squashed immediately.
It takes only a quick survey of the state of the world to see why: Moscow’s weaponization of natural gas and Iran’s exploitation of gasoline-starved Beirut are two examples today of how energy and security go hand in hand. And there are less obvious cases to point to as well.
Start by looking at the situation occurring with the price of gasoline. The epicenter of President Joe Biden’s approach has been unfolding in Vienna, where OPEC for weeks rebuffed the Biden Administration’s pleas to substantially increase production given rising gasoline prices. This price surge is crushing economies struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden made the request to OPEC on behalf of oil-consuming nations like India, Japan, Korea, and Britain.
America’s crude-importing global partners are in a near panic. Global oil prices have hit their highest levels since 2014; Britain has suffered crippling gas lines; India cut fuel taxes to reduce cost and boost consumer sentiment; and Japan is experiencing its highest gas prices in seven years, dampening domestic spending just as Tokyo emerges from its latest state of emergency. In other words, those countries whose cooperation we need most to meet the carbon-reducing objectives set forth last month in Glasgow are facing energy crunches that threaten implementation of future climate agreements; those same three nations represent key strategic national security partners that the US needs to operate around the globe. Assisting them with energy pricing serves both goals.
Rising gas prices are undoubtedly alarming from an economic perspective — if left unchecked, soaring prices will sharply raise concerns about the onset of a global recession. The Administration took note and successfully dispatched senior officials to cajole Saudi leaders into sticking with a planned production increase, notwithstanding a potential Omicron-variant-fueled demand downturn. The Biden Administration also coordinated the SPR release last month to somewhat allay these concerns, signaling a sharp pivot in energy policy by announcing to the world that the US government is unafraid of serving as an agent in global commodity markets — a pivot with a more lasting message and effect than the immediate price reactions.
High oil prices also pose a national security threat. They impose greater costs on the US and its partners military budgets, while simultaneously emboldening countries like Russia and Iran to pursue foreign policies inimical to US and European interests.
Just a few weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly linked rapid German regulatory approval of the Kremlin-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline to a much needed increase in Russian gas exports to EU gas storages. Putin’s strongarm energy tactics have taken place before a backdrop of Moscow’s increased military personnel and equipment deployments near the Ukrainian border, its reckless launch of an anti-satellite weapon creating debris endangering spacecraft in low earth orbit, and a weaponization of migrants by Russia’s client state, Belarus. These moves, along with Moscow’s politically-motivated energy blackmail of Moldova and Belarussian President Lukashenko’s vocal threats to cut off gas supplies to the EU, have led experts and diplomats to call Putin’s gambits the very definition of energy weaponization and, combined with these other military and migrant contingencies, hybrid warfare.
Meanwhile, Iran is taking a page from Russia’s playbook and trying to exploit energy as a weapon of political influence in Lebanon. Lebanon is a Hezbollah-dominated fiscal basket case whose power grid shut down because it lacked the oil needed to run it — a development exacerbating Lebanon’s devastating financial and political dilemmas. Iran sent convoys of oil to get the system back running and, concomitantly, buy influence.
In response, the Biden Administration initiated several high-stakes natural gas and electricity deals in the region. Through US mediation, Egypt will likely supply Lebanon with gas via Jordan and Syria. Jordan, in turn, might interconnect its electricity grid with Lebanon via Syria. Meanwhile, the US is mediating a longstanding border dispute between Israel and Lebanon, which, if successful, could open Lebanon’s offshore gas fields to exploration and investment.
The impact of these efforts cannot be overstated. Lebanon could commence its path out of one of the world’s worst energy crises and stabilize its economy, while the Israelis could achieve a historic border agreement and mitigate Iranian influence. Both sides are relying on the US — and one diplomat in particular, Amos Hochstein — to succeed. Bringing gas and oil to Lebanon might seem antithetical to the administration’s laudable climate aspirations, but these steps are needed in the short term for real strategic gains.
And make no mistake: those climate aspirations are unlikely to happen if the Biden administration does not stabilize both the energy markets and security situation around the globe. Foreign oil-consuming countries need to move in lockstep for real progress to occur in climate change mitigation. If the US does not simultaneously address immediate energy crises, which continue to project national security and economic instability across the globe, public support for needed energy transition measures will diminish in exactly those countries where we need to make progress on climate objectives.
For the sake of immediate global security and future climate stability, a balanced approach — taking into account economic and geopolitical realities — toward the energy transition will continue to be necessary.
No comments:
Post a Comment