David C. Hendrickson
An extraordinary feature of the Ukraine crisis is the way it has imperiled three other “global goods”: efforts to address climate change, energy security, and poverty. Under the impetus of the total economic and financial war against Russia, as the French foreign minister described it, the West is now committing to a set of measures that threaten these other objectives, making them secondary or tertiary before the all-commanding need to do harm to the Russian economy. The global food crisis was precipitated by Russia’s war against Ukraine, as it has disrupted food and fertilizer shipments from the Black Sea, but the total economic war against Russia (TEWAR) looks set to deepen these multiple crises, converting temporary disruptions into near-permanent handicaps.
Energy security and climate change pose a set of quandaries that are very different from traditional geopolitics, and yet for which traditional geopolitics have been of vital importance. Vast interdependencies populate the subject. Energy production is thirsty, often intensely reliant on scarce freshwater. Climate change will make some areas far more susceptible to drought or harsh storms, imperiling food supplies. Then, too, the price of oil and natural gas is closely linked with food prices. Historically, crisis in the one domain has meant crisis in the other.
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