The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar on:
Natural Resources and the Return of Geopolitics?
Wednesday, 30 September 2009, 09.30-12.30
Danish Institute for International Studies
Main Auditorium
Strandgade 71, ground floor, 1401 Copenhagen K
Background
Increased demand for natural resources over the past twenty years caused by population growth, depletion of known reserves, massive economic growth in India and China, Western consumerism and, not least, climate change has once again put geopolitical issues at the top of the list of security concerns. Oil, energy and water have all been singled out as potential sites of conflict in the 21st century. As states rival for access to oil, energy and other resources, new patterns of conflict and cooperation emerge on the international level. Regionally, access to natural resources is an increasingly important factor in shaping relations between countries with stakes in disputed territories. On the global level, the struggle for resources has given birth to new constellations of power that affect relations between developed states and developing states as well as between states that possess natural resources and states that need to import them. Understanding how these emerging regional and global security complexes can be peacefully managed is one of the most daunting security challenges in our age. By which means do states seek to secure access to natural resources? How does this affect the relationship between the Great Powers (US, China, India, Russia, EU)? And what are the implications for regional security? Is it possible to design realistic common, perhaps even global, solutions to the problem of natural resources and energy? Focusing on two of the most salient areas for the geopolitics of energy – the Caspian Sea and the Arctic – this seminar explores how the quest for natural resources will determine the shape of international politics to come.
This is the third seminar in a series of four on Security Challenges for the 21st Century – Responding to New Threats. The final seminar in the series will address pandemics, radicalization and cyber threats.
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