Some things are easy on the eye, but we don’t pay much attention to them until it’s too late. Such is the case with shortages. Particularly food shortages. Since the dawn of time, when a nation has had a long-term shortage of a raw material or a product essential to its life, it does everything, even war, to obtain it; and if it fails to do so, it disappears. It’s the same for a family, which dies out when it can’t obtain what it needs to survive. The same goes for a company.
Shortages can manifest themselves in absolute lack, temporary unavailability or, more simply, in unaffordable prices. They can be caused by ecological or climatic catastrophes (a drought that deprives a country of water or crops), reckless waste (burning all your forests for heating), wars, embargoes or broken alliances (which cut off sources of supply).
Humans were quick to come up with a number of answers to these problems: first, to build up reserves, hence the establishment of depots often located in the most protected places, in the cellars of castles, in the vaults of temples, or in heavily guarded enclosures. Then, build alliances with those who can provide the missing resources; and produce essential goods for others, so that when the time comes, you can demand what you need from them. And finally, we need to equip ourselves with the means of deterrence: if we are held by someone, do we also hold them?
Thus, anticipating and preventing the risk of shortages are essential elements in the exercise of power. Particularly when we depend on a single supplier for a vital element.
And yet, despite millennia of ups and downs, declines and falls, from which lessons could be learned, many of today’s human beings remain carefree. While some, particularly in the poorest countries, have little means of guarding against shortages, others with the means to do so have not bothered, while a few with great foresight have prepared for them. And are still preparing for it, at full speed. And those who have the means to blackmail others are not above it. Today, the most advanced democracies have no more than a few weeks, or at best a few months, of vital reserves. Even when, in an extreme form of recklessness, they are dependent on a single supplier; which, in a global economy that remains, whatever one may say, extremely intricate, is much more frequent than one might think.
Recent weeks have shown the extent of these threats: the United States, which did not hesitate to use these blackmail tactics to impose its commercial dictates on the Europeans, was unable to do so on the Chinese, who in turn had the means to stifle the American economy.
And this is only the beginning:
The USA and Europe depend almost entirely on China to supply magnesium, graphite, lithium, refined rare earths, batteries, solar panels, magnets, countless components for industrial machinery, active ingredients for pharmaceutical products, vital parts for the manufacture of telephones, computers and electric cars. One decision from China and the Western economy grinds to a halt. The Chinese, who still depend almost entirely on the United States and Taiwan to supply them with cutting-edge chips, the machines to manufacture them, neon (for lasers), certain advanced software and soya (essential for animal feed), are working at breakneck speed to reduce these dependencies, in particular through the economic or military reconquest of Taiwan and the switch to sustainable energies. Unlike the Chinese, who have their own messaging, payment and social networking systems, the Europeans depend almost entirely on the Americans to supply them with certain semiconductors, rare earths, liquid natural gas, Internet and credit card access, messaging systems, and countless items of equipment and components for military use. And they depend on the Chinese for the same products as the Americans. Without having any weapons to counter this: what products could the Europeans credibly threaten the Americans or the Chinese with depriving them of? None at all. Europeans are paying for decades of carelessness.
All in all, while the Chinese are preparing to bow to no blackmail, and the United States is busier making political capital out of other people’s dependencies than reducing its own, Europeans are doing nothing to prepare to defend themselves against blackmail from either side. European companies and citizens will be the victims of this negligence.
It’s high time we got down to business, built up credible reserves and diversified our alliances and sources of supply. It’s time to rethink our geopolitics. In particular, by giving Africa and its enormous potential the place it deserves in this new world.
Companies must therefore not rely solely on diplomats and the military to guarantee their sources of supply. They need their own strategic thinking. Geopolitics is no longer just a state affair; it has become a vital economic issue for every company.
If you think about it, it’s also an issue for each family, where each can be put in a situation of shortage by the other, if they’re not careful. Hence the ever-renewed importance, at every level, of altruism – not naive, but interested – as a condition for the survival of every human entity.