The role of transnational corporations of the world leading countries in the struggle for energy resources

Abstract

In the creation of the international order the leading role has always been played by states and their alliances, while the contemporary globalization process has, under the important influence of economic factors on human minds and way of life, revealed and unveiled the transnational corporations as dominant leverage of the most powerful world countries in exercising their power. In addition, transnational corporations tend to instrumentalize the remaining factors in the system of international relations and subordinate them primarily to achieving the profit interests of their majority shareholders. In such a way the global power elite is established, which is represented by a symbiosis of the leading political and economic entities, personified in the holders of top knowledge and big capital. The integrated joint appearance of their economic, intelligence and military assets, which are intertwined, complemented and supported through mutual activities, is a powerful tool in the creation and maintenance of such a constellation of power and relations that hold subordinate the remaining entities of the international order. In a dynamic and turbulent environment of the struggle for dominance, the contest for territory and resources, especially energy, which even the contemporary globalization process does not relieve of the geopolitical and geo-economic interests, makes a constant of the historical development. However, the decline of the US supremacy has resulted in the diffusion of power, which re-distributes the accumulated capital and knowledge to a smaller number of increasingly stronger entities, and suggests possible emergence of a new alliance led by Russia, which would be a match for the western civilization, while the rest of the world continues to face the challenges of the new colonialism.