Is Opec’s power finally failing?

Since 1973, much of global politics has been conducted in the long shadow of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) cartel. That was the year Opec first set its stamp on global affairs by engineering an oil crisis in response to Western governments’ support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Prices quadrupled and exports to western Europe, the United States, and Japan were banned altogether. The result was a deep recession and spiralling inflation, the effects of which endured long after the oil embargo was lifted in 1974.

In the years since, the steady flow of petrodollars has propped up authoritarian regimes from Latin America to the Arabian Gulf. Most recently, Opec has played a crucial role in keeping Vladimir Putin’s creaking war economy afloat.

Half a century on from the oil crisis, some things haven’t changed. Relations between an embattled Israel and her Arab neighbours are once again deteriorating; Russia is throwing her weight around in her near-abroad.