The Politics of International Oil
Gov 365P/MES 322K: Class 3
What is the "politics" of oil all
about?
- US national security
- partisan politics: Environment Gore vs. Big
Oil Bush?
- environmental issues - Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge to develop or preserve? Your readings:
Jim Hansen, "The
Threat to the Planet," New York Review of Books,
53:12 (July 13, 2006)
- issues of political development in the
oil-producing countries: rentier states and the problem of
economic diversification
- other (class discussion)
Position in the World of the United States?
- see Patrick
Buchanan:
Condi's
'New Middle East: " If neither U.S.
party is willing to show any independence of Israel, if America
will not address the root causes of Arab animosity, and if we will
not even negotiate with our enemies, we should probably pack up
and get out of the Middle East. Before we are thrown out."
- John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt,
"The
Israel Lobby," London Review of Books, March
2006
- Richard Haass, "The New
Middle East," Middle East Journal, Nov-Dec.
2006
- President Obama's Cairo
Speech, June 4, 2009
- Look at those BP
Statistical Review of World Energy
2009 statistics, esp on reserves
vs. consumption - US imports close to 2/3 of its oil.
- Michael Klare, Rising Powers, pp. 1-31 -
power and dependency - Klare's Resource
Wars (2001) Blood for oil? US
"addiction" (G.W. Bush). China threat: CNOOC vs Chevron for
UNOCAL. Energy surplus vs. energy deficit countries, see Table 1.1
p 18 proven reserves - only Chevron among top 15? NOC alliances
(PDVSA-Petrobras-INOC to develop Orinoco River basin?). Back to
"resource nationalism"? Who is being "neo-mercantilist"?? [Will
Japan continue to refuel US ships in Indian Ocean?]
- Recall that the road to 911 was via Desert
Shield 1990 and Desert Storm 1991. We did not leave KSA until 2002
or so, redeploying Tampa's CENTCOM antennae to Qatar.
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Choice, pp. 7-40 - for a
more balanced understanding of the US security predicament. He
understands that we need to work on underlying Muslim and Arab
grievances for our geopolitical survival - and, I might add, to
regain our "soft power" or moral authority in the world
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Main page
Sept. 1, 2009