A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #468 - The Energy Wars (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

We will never give credit to a mad despot like Donald Trump. But at 
least, in his transparent lust for power, he has spared us the 
hypocrisies of his predecessors at the helm of US governments. Thus, the 
plastic Yankee has no qualms about admitting what is known: beyond the 
vaunted principles, every war is dictated by the eagerness to grab 
so-called natural resources. Every state, in short, deploys its military 
apparatus to conquer, plunder, and annex. And in this sense, the most 
coveted resources today are still energy. After having marked the wars 
of the twentieth century, oil and gas are now protagonists of new conflicts.

2026, you may recall, began with the capture of Venezuelan President 
Nicolas Maduro. Just a few months later, following the installation of 
Delcy Rodríguez's puppet government, the South American country has 
already become the US's oil reserve. The United States' incredible own 
goal in Iran is depriving it of one of the world's most crucial energy 
hubs (we'll come back to this). This is why Venezuela delivers up to 
80,000 barrels of oil to the US every day. It does so in part thanks to 
the despicable division of the spoils that Trump himself arranged with 
global oil companies-Eni was among them-last January 10, when the US 
president adopted the mafia tone and manner of Don Vito Corleone to 
declare that "now we can get back to business." These deals allow Trump 
to dispose of Venezuelan oil as he sees fit, for example, to settle old 
and new scores. For the past 25 years, Venezuela had been the main 
supplier of fuel and crude oil to Cuba. Since January, however, supplies 
have ceased, except for a partial reversal in February, which, however, 
has not resolved (how could it?) the tragedy of a country under embargo 
for more than 60 years. It should be added that Venezuelan oil is 
"heavy," meaning it has a high sulfur content. The Venezuelan regime has 
never managed to achieve independence in its processing, and so in 
recent years it has increasingly relied on China. This is a setback that 
US power could not accept.

On the other hand, Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the 
world: approximately 303 billion barrels, equal to almost 17-20% of 
global reserves. This is three times greater than that of the United 
States. In any case, it has been clear for some time that the 
geopolitical game of the future would be played out on energy. So much 
so that in previous years, the United States, especially under the two 
Democratic presidents Obama and Biden, had brought about a true paradigm 
shift: from an energy importer-primarily oil and gas, but also nuclear 
and renewables-to an exporter. This occurred primarily through the 
massive use of fracking, an environmentally devastating industrial 
technique. Already known in the early twentieth century, the technique 
of fracking (or hydraulic fracturing) is used to extract gas and oil 
from shale rocks, the most easily flaked subsurface rock. It's no 
coincidence that fracking is practically exclusively practiced in the 
United States: its harmful effects are so evident that no state has 
dared to use it. Yet this technique has allowed US governments, at least 
for the last 15 years, to continue to dominate the world and its 
population to live beyond their means-according to data from the Global 
Footprint Network, if the entire world consumed as much as the United 
States, five planets would be needed. Now, however, fracking is already 
headed toward its inexorable end. There is almost nothing left to 
extract, and nothing left to devastate. The Trump administration is 
aware of this, and having exhausted "its" own energy resources, it is 
waging war on the entire world.

Thus, the Venezuelan success has emboldened Trump, who is confident he 
can replicate Maduro's operation in Iran. Here too, the starting point 
was energy. Iran holds not only 11% of the world's oil reserves (third 
only to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia) but also 16% of the world's gas 
reserves (second only to Russia): it is, in short, the country with the 
greatest energy potential globally. It also plays an important role 
within OPEC and the BRICS. This is without considering its strategic 
location, as emblematic of the Strait of Hormuz demonstrates, a stretch 
of sea just 30 kilometers wide yet crucial for transportation: the 
strait divides the Arabian Peninsula from the coast of Iran and is the 
only passage connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the 
Arabian Sea. Every year, approximately one-fifth of all the oil sold in 
the world passes through it.

In his delirium of omnipotence, the Yankee president went so far as to 
refer to the Strait of Hormuz as the "Trump Strait," as he and the 
entire administration had already done with the Gulf of Mexico. If you 
watch the video of the alleged gaffe, it's clear that this isn't a slip 
of the tongue but a precise political message. Controlling the Strait of 
Hormuz would mean for the United States securing energy supplies for 
decades, given its good relations with some Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, 
the Emirates, and Qatar, foremost among them).

It's a plan for domination so obvious that not even the most ardent US 
supporters can deny it. But it's a desire for power that relies 
exclusively on the current energy system: fossil fuel-based, 
centralized, and authoritarian. It's the system that has sustained 
capitalism for the last two centuries. Coal, oil, and gas have an 
undeniable advantage: their combustion allows for the release of 
remarkable energy intensity. But their disadvantages have become 
increasingly evident, starting with the fact that they are finite 
resources and, indeed, are beginning to run out. The desperate and 
ridiculous attempt by the United States to annex Greenland should be 
interpreted in this light: as the realization that, having exhausted its 
own resources, all that remains is to return to the good old wars of 
conquest. If this role is currently primarily assumed by the United 
States, it is to be expected that other countries will sooner or later 
follow in its footsteps. Indeed, as the case of Italy with the infamous 
Mattei Plan demonstrates, more or less subdued attempts by the United 
States are already underway elsewhere. The genocide in Palestine and 
Israel's continued attacks on neighboring countries, for example, can 
also be interpreted through this lens. Faced with the complexity of a 
vanishing world, and therefore willing to commit any horror to survive, 
it is necessary to assume greater awareness. The wars of today and 
tomorrow place and will increasingly place the energy issue at the 
center of everything. From the war in Ukraine to the war in Iran, the 
consequences on prices have hit Europe hardest, even though the old 
continent is (in theory) only partially involved. In the name of these 
wars, our lives have been turned upside down. Intersectionality is not 
just that of struggles but also that of power, which is why we can no 
longer settle for quick analyses and childish slogans. Forget the 
"renewables equal peace" slogan, as NGOs and easy activists parrot. This 
is no longer about replacing one energy source with another, but about 
freeing energy from the systems of profit and control that make it an 
instrument of oppression. More than renewable energy, we need renewed 
energy: decentralized, grassroots, widespread, free of state constraints 
and bureaucratic procedures. Against energy wars, for free energy.

Andrea Turco

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