The electrostate rises
For over a century, the word petrostate explained much of the world's political dysfunction. Oil-rich countries exercised power in an extremely disproportionate manner to their size or institutional capacity. Neither virtue nor military ingenuity placed Saudi Arabia, Russia and the Gulf states in the high seat of international affairs; it was geology. Fossil fuels determined the lines of alliances, supported authoritarian regimes, and put whole economies at the mercy of prices set in Riyadh or Vienna. That era is not over. However, a new one is taking shape and the idea that most describes it is "electrostate". An electrostate is a country whose international influence is not based on oil fields and gas pipelines, but on dominating the infrastructure of the clean energy transition: critical mineral processing, solar manufacturing, battery chains and electric vehicles. Where petrostates drew advantage out of what was under the ground, electrostates draw advantage out of wh...