Perils of Plenty

Why do some states project military force to seek control of resources, while others do not? Conventional wisdom asserts that resource-scarce states have the strongest interest in securing control over resources. Counterintuitively, this book finds that, under certain conditions, the opposite is true. Perils of Plenty argues that what states make influences what they want to take. Specifically, the more economically dependent states are on extracting income from resource rents, the stronger their preferences to secure control over resources will be. This theory is tested with a set of case studies analyzing states’ reactions to the 2007 exogenous climate shock that exposed energy resources in the Arctic. This book finds that some states, such as Russia and Norway, responded to the shock by dramatically increasing their Arctic military presence, while others, such as the United States, Canada, and Denmark, did not. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, countries with plentiful natural resources, such as Norway and Russia, were more—not less—willing to back their claims by projecting military force. This book finds that plenty can actually lead to peril when states with plentiful resources become economically dependent on those resources and thus have stronger incentives to secure their control. These findings have implications for understanding both the political effects of climate change in the Arctic and the prospects for resource competition in other regions, such as the Middle East and the South China Sea