Oil and international security: old and new issues

This paper questions the effectiveness of the link between international oil and (inter)national security. First, it explains an acknowledge the rise and decline of the traditional case of this link: the threat that so called ''oil dependence'' inflicts upon the national economy, hence the problem it raises for government. The reason for that decline is looked for in the emergence of multiple forms of competition in oil and energy markets, making the ''oil weapon'' less credible and its use less desirable and less possible. In oil like in any other commodity, the normal situation is the competition between suppliers for access to markets. For all basic economics tells us and experience has confirmed, analyses and policies (at least in France) are still strongly influenced by the ''oil security'' thinking shaped in the eve of the 1970 crises. Yet, those fallacies may be the strongest obstacle to the acknowledgment of the real oil security issues we face. The main one is the possible political destabilization of the Middle East due to oil competition between its members in an increasingly competitive world market. The consequences on regional antagonisms of the come back of Iraqi oil to the market on one hand, the internal stability of Iran and Saudi Arabia in a situation of lasting low oil revenues on the other hand, are reviewed as the main possible factors of regional destabilization in a context of strong competition in the world oil market. A large scale political burst with major oil producers concerned would certainly hurt developed and developing economy. That leads us to this paradoxical situation: the very cause of the decline of the traditional oil dependence issue is, due to Middle East situation, the main cause of possible destabilization of world oil market today. (author)