Venezuela and Greenland: 'Smash-and-grab' diplomacy in the age of scarcity

The United States is now engaged in what I am calling "smash-and-grab" diplomacy in Venezuela, and it will perhaps soon do the same in Greenland, a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. In case you have never heard the term, smash-and-grab refers to robberies undertaken by smashing store windows and/or display cases and taking what is readily available without concern about alarms going off or people on the street or in the store seeing what the robbers are doing. The phrase seems more descriptive than the older one of "gunboat diplomacy" in which, not infrequently, the mere display of force was used rather than actual attacks to obtain concessions from a weaker nation.

The current practitioners of the U.S. form of smash-and-grab diplomacy leave little to the imagination, prefering big displays of violence and simply taking what they want with no pretext that the target country is accepting terms through negotiation. Witness the brazen taking of all exported oil from Venezuela, the proceeds from which are supposedly going to be used "for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people" (whatever that means), according to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Readers certainly know that in the past there have been other more subtle ways that major powers have taken the resources they need for their industries and militaries. For instance, what followed the era of gunboat diplomacy—which more or less ran from the late 19th century through early 20th century—was a era of less direct bullying of weaker countries by major powers. As empires crumbled, newly independent countries were strongly encouraged to install leadership friendly to American and European foreign policy and economic interests—or else! One of the "or else's" was detailed in a book called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, written by one of the unofficial emissaries from the United States who carried a message of consequences if the target countries' leaders did not acquiesce. The author began the book with this:

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

As weaker countries across the world grew their economies and became more confident in their power, this form of intimidation ceased to be as effective. The rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia are two examples.

In an age of rising prosperity and the free flow of resources around the world, the waning power of American and European institutions to impose their will did not seem as problematic as it might otherwise have been. But with the return of scarcity of key metals (think: China's restriction on strategically important metals), energy (think: natural gas in Europe), food (think: China's purchases of farmland around the world), and water (think: well, all over the globe), expect more countries to engage in some form of smash-and-grab diplomacy as shortages lead to military operations designed to alleviate those shortages and/or prevent future ones.

What the current U.S. administration is doing, though probably unwittingly, is saying the quiet part out loud. As the natural resources that the modern world depends on become more and more scarce, countries will more and more resort to openly violent methods to secure access to those resources.

Smash-and-grab robberies result in losses to the merchants affected and inconvenience and upset for the public. But as such robberies become an instrument of foreign policy over the decades ahead, they will only mean more chaos for everyone.

Of course, world society could arrive at a global "kumbaya" moment and decide to cooperate on dramatically reducing worldwide consumption, first by eliminating waste and then by prioritizing consumption that is essential for a healthy, functioning society. We can wish for this. But nothing in the crumbling international order suggests that it will happen.

Kurt Cobb is a freelance writer and communications consultant who writes frequently about energy and environment. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Resilience, Common Dreams, Naked Capitalism, Le Monde Diplomatique, Oilprice.com, OilVoice, TalkMarkets, Investing.com, Business Insider and many other places. He is the author of an oil-themed novel entitled Prelude and has a widely followed blog called Resource Insights. He can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.