POWER, WEALTH AND THE NEW COLONIALISM

The interplay of resource wealth, state coercion, and shadow economics is hardly new, but the 21st century’s strategic minerals, energy transitions, and multipolar alliances have renewed the stakes. If the United States or any great power resorts to unilateral military threats or economic coercion as a primary tool for securing resources, it risks repeating the worst patterns of a bygone imperial age — with added volatility produced by modern global markets and transnational crime.