Findings: the U.S. energy system and the role of imported oil and gas -- Findings: how dependence on imported energy affects U.S. foreign policy -- Findings and recommendations: U.S. domestic energy policy -- Findings and recommendations: The conduct of U.S. foreign policy -- Additional view.
Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.
From the author of Resource Wars, a landmark assessment of the critical role of petroleum in America's actions abroad In his pathbreaking Resource Wars, world security expert Michael T. Klare alerted us to the role of resources in conflicts in the post-Cold War world. Now, in Blood and Oil, he concentrates on a single precious commodity, petroleum, while issuing a warning to the United States-its most powerful, and most dependent, global consumer. Since September 11th and the commencement of the "war on terror," the world's attention has been focused on the relationship between U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil. Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America's own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010, the United States will need to import 60 percent of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones-the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America, and Africa-our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement. With clarity and urgency, Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.
Oil is the world's single most important commodity and its political effects are pervasive. Jeff D. Colgan extends the idea of the resource curse into the realm of international relations, exploring how countries form their foreign policy preferences and intentions. Why are some but not all oil-exporting 'petrostates' aggressive? To answer this question, a theory of aggressive foreign policy preferences is developed and then tested, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Petro-Aggression shows that oil creates incentives that increase a petrostate's aggression, but also incentives for the opposite. The net effect depends critically on its domestic politics, especially the preferences of its leader. Revolutionary leaders are especially significant. Using case studies including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, this book offers new insight into why oil politics has a central role in global peace and conflict.
Introduction : A Petrostate Typology -- Applying the Typology : Petrostates at War --Resource Arms Racing : Oil Wealth and Military Power -- Proxies and Altriusm : The Light and Dark of Oil Wealth -- Institutions, Intelligence, and Personalization : The Resource Curse and Foreign Policy -- Crude Power : The Oil Weapon in Practice -- Under the Umbrella : Soft Oil Power and Hegemonic Protection C -- Conclusion : Peak Petrostate? -- Appendix A: Methods and Measurements -- Appendix B: Oil and Conflict -- Appendix C: Military Spending and Arms Sales -- Appendix D: Soft Power, Sanctions, and Oil.
"When and why does international order change? Easy to take for granted, international governing arrangements shape our world. They allow us to eat food imported from other countries, live safely from nuclear war, travel to foreign cities, profit from our savings, and much else. New threats, including climate change and simmering US-China hostility, lead many to worry that the "liberal order," or the US position within it, is at risk. Theorists often try to understand that situation by looking at other cases of great power decline, like the British Empire or even ancient Athens. Yet so much is different about those cases that we can draw only imperfect lessons from them. A better approach is to look at how the United States itself already lost much of its international dominance, in the 1970s, in the realm of oil. Only now, with several decades of hindsight, can we fully appreciate it. The experiences of that partial decline in American hegemony, and the associated shifts in oil politics, can teach us a lot about general patterns of international order. Leaders and analysts can apply those lessons when seeking to understand or design new international governing arrangements on topics ranging from climate change to peacekeeping, and nuclear proliferation to the global energy transition"--
“A valuable addition to the new wave of critical studies on the history of oil and energy policy”—and a bracing corrective to longstanding myths (James M. Gustafson, Diplomatic History). Conventional wisdom tells us that the US military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees American access to oil; that the “special” relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary to stabilize an otherwise volatile market; and that these assumptions in turn provide Washington enormous leverage over Europe and Asia. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Robert Vitalis debunks the myths of “oilcraft”, a line of magical thinking closer to witchcraft than statecraft. Oil is a commodity like any other: bought, sold, and subject to market forces. Vitalis exposes the suspect fears of oil scarcity and investigates the geopolitical impact of these false beliefs. In particular, Vitalis shows how we can reconsider the question of the US-Saudi special relationship, which confuses and traps many into unnecessarily accepting what they imagine is a devil’s bargain. Freeing ourselves from the spell of oilcraft won’t be easy, but the benefits make it essential.
United States monetary policy has traditionally been modeled under the assumption that the domestic economy is immune to international factors and exogenous shocks. Such an assumption is increasingly unrealistic in the age of integrated capital markets, tightened links between national economies, and reduced trading costs. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy brings together fresh research to address the repercussions of the continuing evolution toward globalization for the conduct of monetary policy. In this comprehensive book, the authors examine the real and potential effects of increased openness and exposure to international economic dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Their findings reveal that central banks continue to influence decisively domestic economic outcomes—even inflation—suggesting that international factors may have a limited role in national performance. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy will lead the way in analyzing monetary policy measures in complex economies.
