Who Controls Strategic Resources?

The control of strategic resources lies at the heart of contemporary power dynamics. The multiplication of crises targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure, tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and the fragility of supply chains, reveals intensifying competition for access to and control over key resources. The low-carbon transition has shifted this rivalry toward critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths), which are essential for technology and energy systems. Certain actors concentrate this power. Resource-rich states, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo for cobalt, play a central role. However, control is not limited to extraction; it also depends on processing and logistics. In this respect, China overwhelmingly dominates refining and value chains, while strategic chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz shape global energy flows. Power is thus distributed among producers, industrial powers, and infrastructure actors, in a context of enduring geopolitical fragmentation. Are we witnessing a new form of global rivalry centered on value chains rather than territories? Can we still speak of resource control in such an interdependent economic system?