Klare: Less Oil==More Wars
Posted by Prof. Goose on May 17, 2006 - 3:14pm
This piece from Michael Klare deserves a read (hat tip: Energy Bulletin):
To explain the current run-up in gasoline prices, pundits throw out many reasons, including concern over a possible war with Iran, insatiable demand from China, inadequate refinery capacity, greedy oil companies and the gradual depletion of the world's oilfields. All of these do bear some degree of responsibility, but they are not the fundamental cause. There has been a historic shift in the center of gravity of world oil production from the global North-the older industrialized countries-to conflict-plagued areas of the global South-the developing world. Because this shift is all-encompassing and irreversible, global oil output will remain vulnerable to overseas instability and gasoline prices will remain high.Discuss.
“I'd put my money on solar energy… I hope we don't have to wait til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
—Thomas Edison, in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, March 1931
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~Mikhail Gorbachev, before the UN, December 7, 1988
I love to read articles such as this one, because they represent the kind of dynamic that I built my education around. The confluence of energy, sepecifically oil, and international political science, is THE defining paradigm of our times.
American non-involvement in the global south is simply not possible. The neocons who currently dictate policy are well documented as putting forth the concept of "seizing the unipolarity moment" or, projecting force to ensure protection of American interests abroad while we are militarily dominant.
Whether or not you agree with them is irrelevant, because American business agrees with them, overwhelmingly.
That being said, the real issue is that the other developed nations of the global north will not sit idly by as the US breaks the pax of sovereignty and gobbles up the oil-rich regions as protectorates. Never mind the strife and conflict within the regions we get involved in; the balance of power will shift away from us as other developed nations group together to offset our advantage.
While there is clearly no one nation that can yet challenge American preponderance of power (economically or militarily) American policymakers have ignored the history of the system of alliances that always arises in reaction to hegemony. Other countries cannot sit by as their lifeblood (oil) is taken over by just one nation, which holds both economic and military dominance in its grasp. In effect, the American "colonization" or "imperialism" (whichever term smacks the least of leftist conspiracy theory to you)will ignite another world war, and this is the true, imminent spectre of the energy crunch.
That's my analysis, anyway.
However, in my studies I have never seen any precedent for sustained meaningful cooperation and have seen thousands of examples of agressive responses to resource crises, in both politics and nature. Political science is even defined as the science of resource allocation!
I would like to think that being human offers us a choice, but the exploitation of advantage is an impulse felt by every living creature on earth.
In fact, barring a dictatorship, it seems possible (albeit small) that the US will devolve into smaller "countries" built from states that share an area of interest. We are already seeing states joining together in lawsuits against the Feds.
GOM area frustration with the federal government is growing.
Sometimes I think Iran's pres. and Chavez are competing to see who can rattle Bush the most. And with the US's relations with Russia suddenly turning frosty (thanks to Dick Cheney and his big mouth), there's another "interesting" country in the mix. Of course, China has a big pile of our debt, but Japan owns about 2.5X as much of our paper as does China, which gives them a terrifying amount of leverage if they should decide to take offense at the US using a nuclear bunker buster or three in Iran. (Japan, of all countries that would be third-parties to such a war, is uniquely placed in history to take deep offense at such an insane move.)
The next few years on the international front will be a lot of things, but dull ain't on the list.
So in order to appease you, lets say, again - for the sake of the argument, that "american business" means "international corporate lobbies in the United States". I'm pretty sure most knew what I meant, anyway. Unfortunately, there is no way around shorthand when describing something like I did, because almost every phrase can be magnified until it is incomprehensible.
International businesses are primarily concerned with short-term profits anyway, and majors realize that the US is their biggest market, so to identify them as "american businesses" or "american business interests (perhaps the preferred term)" within the confines of my statement isn't such a big leap.
I find this a frankly astonishing postulate. Where's the evidence?
Is it the economic stimulation due to huge military and reconstruction spending that you are talking about? Specific business opportunities aside (Blackwater, Halliburton...), I would expect rational economic actors to abhor the type of disruption, uncertainty and danger engendered by such adventures.
Or are you talking about sale of consumer goods to Iraq? (previously hampered by UN sanctions, which could have been dropped without a war...) I am not aware of specific trade barriers hampering companies wishing to sell stuff in Venezuela ?
Or when you talk about "impenetrable markets", are you talking about state ownership of such assets as oil, water, electricity distribution?
Saw this quote that looked like a Freudian slip to me:
"To become energy independent and no longer rely on foreign oil would be like depriving Dracula of his blood supply: he would shrivel up and die."
- Cal Thomas (conservative columnist), 20 April 2006.
I've posted here an out-of-context snippet, what I think he meant was that the oil-exporting countries (that support Islam and terrorism, he says) will "shrivel up"... But to me it read like this: if the US would try to live without imported oil it would shrivel up, since we're as addicted as Dracula. No wonder we're afraid of the sunlight of truth.
according to these people:
http://www.newsmax.com/fir/saudioilbust.cfm?s=so
Which gets me thinking -- has anyone "equated" the value of corn/wheat to the value of oil/naturalgas? How do European, Middle Eastern, North American, South American countries fare on food import vs energy export? What is the proper way to look at this exchange? Are we selling grains too "cheap" on an energy basis?
In terms of war, it seems that if a country gets hungry then they will do almost anything to solve that problem -- and right away! (and war is not a good option at that point) Whereas, a country short on oil, but not immediately short on food or electricity, has options.
Middle East oil production has been fairly stable even in times of conflicts - everybody wants to keep the oil and money flowing. There have been disturbances, of course. Worst of them have been caused by the US itself.
We could recall here the oil crises of the '70s, but they were not really caused by political factors after all. Everybody who look at the oil production statistics will see that the OPEC was grossly overproducing before that and something had to be done. They did like the Texas Railroad Commission in the US had done before that.
Sabotage and the like have not had any significant impact on the global oil production (In Iraq oil is produced in conditions of the war started by the US). Accidents have had sometimes much bigger effect. All in all, political risks, at least "indigenous" (other than those caused by "the indutrialized North" itself - like the probably coming war against Iran), are not the main threat to the global oil supply.
It is really very odd to read that Canada or Mexico is financing "internationl terrorists" with their oil money. Well, there seems to be a lot of talk about the "oil depenedency" of the US allowing the exporting countries to finance "hostile activity", But most of the oil comes from the Americas and Africa, where no really threats against the US exists.
Klare is just one example of very low level of the mainstream energy discussion in the US.
oil was one of the main if not the main income of the soviets.
The 'center of gravity' of oil production is indeed deep within the Middle East. But that is exactly the problem.
Many of these countries are highly unstable, and what stability we've been able to impose has been accomplished at great cost - monetarily, politically, and militarily. Our adventure in Iraq, which anyone can see has been a thinly veiled attempt at installing a Shah-like puppet government that would cozy up to the US and provide the US with favorable oil extraction arrangements, has been a total failure.
Many now think we are trying to do the much the same thing with Iran. Time will tell.
So, I think that the word 'stability' and the words the 'Middle East' should not be used in the same sentence.
Regardless of how much oil comes from the Western Hemisphere, the US is still highly dependent upon Middle Eastern oil, and I think that very fact is liable to be the thing that eventually does us in.
Again, time will tell. And time is running out.
Our government isn't going to act but we can. The problems are huge but can be fixed if we all take real action. Dump that second car. Barbara and I did it (with only a few withdrawal symptoms). Half the car payments, insurance, gas, pollution and maintenance.
right - namely, stability.
The suggestion that what stability there is or has been in the ME is due to and not despite US and England's contributions is a conceit too many westerners have to get over. We trained and funded OBL (to fight Soviets), we supported (and installed, by JFK) Sadaam Hussein. Set up the Iranian Theocracy after undercutting their democracy in the 50's, never mind the manipulations and war-crimes committed in the first half of the 20th century.
You leave out that this region has been plagued by warfare for thousands of years. It is not an anglo-saxon invention, but a continuation of a bloody history. The west has had many interactions with ME affairs often with terrible results. The path to hell is paved with good intentions...
Honestly do you believe the region would be more stable without western involvement. The only thing uniting the arabs is the existence of israel. If they did not have the US and Israel to hate they would war with each other historically.
Our hands are not clean but we are not responsible for for the warrior aspect of their culture.
But are we responsible for the warrior aspect of our culture?
I've read his books and followed various discussions related to petroleum and geopolitics, and do not find Klare to be typical of the "low level of the mainstream energy discussion in the US."
I think we would do well to heed Klare's analysis.
We would do well to reduce our consumption of petroleum quite radically, and to develop transportation alternatives and especially alternative forms of human settlement.
I recommend a good read of "Blood and Oil" as background to better understand "Less Oil= More War."
There are a variety of developments in the Americas and Africa, for example, which directly and very significantly affect the USA. The fact that many US citizens do not comprehend this is a reflection of the low level of understanding of the relationship between energy and geopolitics in the USA.
I am encouraged by Klare's clarity of analysis and expression, and heartened to hear him call for the action needed to navigate the troubled time ahead.
All oil is not produced in the ME. Even if the US would stop to import any oil from the ME, it would only cause some geographical shifts in the oil trade, but would not reduce the importance of the ME exporters or their oil revenues a bit. The US is not alone in the world. In fact China is doing more to regulate the world oil demand than the US. It seems that oil prices are not so high as we could expect because the Chinese are deliberately curbing their imports.
And of course, the "stabilizing efforts" of the US in the ME have been mostly disastrous. Iraq was a very stable country (sespite the US imposed sanctions) before the present war - now it is almost as unstable as a country can be, and its oil production is down. The problems with Iran, which is also politically very stable, are mostly generated by the US. Americans have now succeeded in restarting the civil war in Somalia (a potential oil producer).
We can say that less oil is causing more wars, but the causality in itself is not simple. "There are a variety of developments in the Americas and Africa, for example, which directly and very significantly affect the USA." Yes, but these developments do not threaten the oil supply. Everybody wants to produce more at these prices, but they want to keep the money. And this is the problem.
What can we learn from this? It is not the economic system but energy. The real underlying factor in the Chinese success is abundant coal. If you can increase yor coal production by almost 10% a year at the level of production of about 2 billion tons a year, you cannot avoid being an industrial superpower. It doesn't really matter if you are a Maoist socialist or a neoliberalist.
But be grateful that China is still a Socialist country and can regulate its oil imports. Otherwise we could have $100 oil or worse. In fact, nobody in the world cares what kind of cars the Americans are driving (only the car exporters do). The most important things are now happening elesewhere.
But energy - coal - is the real clue of the Chinese growth. Rememeber, there was very rapid growth even before the Chinese economy opened up and before it received any Western investments. Check the Chinese energy statistics and think again about the role of the energy.
It looks to me that the window has slammed shut on their fingers. Though the cost (in particular for Iraqis) is enormous, probably it's for the best globally : they have so completely soured the rest of the world against America, that any more attempts at "securing resources" through military domination will either be doomed to failure, or prohibitively expensive.
If American ascendancy in the 20th century can be correlated to the availability of cheap energy (and in particular, domestically produced cheap energy), then it surely is not sustainable in the 21st. There is no other country or region which is faced with such radical transformations.
We need to take action now if we are to avoid future wars.
Many say we will see $3.50/gal this summer. If you factor in Iran, who knows how high it could go. Everyone knows America MUST get off the oil. After September 11, 2001 I expected our President to call on Americans to GET OFF THE OIL. I was expecting a speech like the one JFK gave that motivated us to reach for the moon. As you know, this never happened. Eventually I realized that the only way this is going to happen is for us to do it ourselves. To that end I created this idea and have been trying to make it a reality..
The EPA is offering a research grant opportunity that I believe is a perfect fit for this idea. I have sent an e-mail to a hand picked list of university professors who have experience with government research projects. I'm looking to form a research team to apply for the EPA grant, conduct a social-economic experiment and surveys to determine to what extent the American public will support it, project the economic potential of WPH, and identify logistical, social and political obstacles as well as opportunities.
All government grants are awarded based on merit of the proposed research. I believe WPH has merit but your help is needed to verify it. You can help by posting your feedback. Let the professors and the EPA know what you think about WPH. Do you think this idea is worth pursuing? We need to know if Americans will support a plan like this.
Do you have any ideas to improve the plan?
Share any and all of your thoughts.
Tell your friends and family about this Blog post and ask them to post their thoughts on WPH
http://wepayhalf.org
Thank you
Craig