Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf examines the national security implications of U.S. energy security policies in the Middle East, and the emerging U.S. involvement in oil exploration and extraction in West Africa. Similar political, social, and economic challenges_poverty, corruption, lack of infrastructure, and weak governments_are seen in the oil-producing states of both the Middle East and Africa. Drawing comparisons between these two regions allows Forest and Sousa to formulate policy recommendations for how to handle foreign policy toward Africa in the future based on lessons learned from past interaction with the Middle East. Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf promises to inform a lively debate over the future of U.S. foreign policies toward Africa and is a valuable resource for policymakers and the academic community that should be approached in a coherent, integrated fashion to ensure the success of the United State's energy and national security agendas.
In his new book, Terrorism & Oil, Neal Adams discusses the vulnerabilities faced by the global petroleum supply and infrastructure in the wake of the war on terror. Beginning with the economic impact of oil, Adams educates readers on: worldwide energy vulnerabilities; potential terrorist modes of attack; oilfields and related targets; effective preparation and response strategies. Valuable to both industry and non-industry readers, Terrorism & Oil is essential for anyone working in oil-related professions or concerned about resource security. From tool pushers to engineers; from executives to government officials and financial advisors; from city planners to rescue and response professionals; everyone will gain insight from this study on oil security issues. Terrorism & Oil will not only help you understand the impact a terrorist attack can have on the global oil industryuwith it you can be proactive in facilities security and implementing a company-wide program. Contents: Section 1: Why oil terrorism - and why should we care?; Mechanics of oil U.S. and world oil supply; Oil as a weapon; Section 2: Strategy and tactics for oil industry terrorism; Oil as a target; General risk and exposure assessment; Federal coordination; Appendices; Glossary; Bibliography.
This book investigates the paradox at the heart of present-day Gulf of Guinea politics. The governance crisis festering throughout every one of the region's states ought to discourage outsiders from capital-intensive, long-term commercial involvement and cast doubts over the political survival of ruling cliques. However, the presence of large petroleum deposits radically changes this equation: the negative dynamics of state failure and widespread violence affect the general population but spare the oil nexus. The material and political resources made available by oil allow states to survive regardless of bad policies, facilitate their governing elites' material success regardless of reckless management, earn international allies regardless of erratic domestic conduct, and make companies want to invest regardless of risk. The recent oil boom only strengthens this paradoxical viability. Making possible what is arguably the largest inflow of resources into Africa in history, it is of a different order from the short-term viability afforded by the exploitation of other natural resources. Nonetheless, the partnership between insiders and outsiders that permits the extraction of oil is not conducive to positive long-term outcomes in institution-building or broad-based economic growth. Highly dependent on uninterrupted money flows and beset by various destabilising trends, the political economy of oil in the Gulf of Guinea is poised in a state of 'permanent crisis'. This study, based on extensive fieldwork, interviews and engagement with primary and secondary sources, is the first on the subject to take on the regional, as opposed to the country-specific, dimension. It has four key aims. The first is to bring out the extent to which oil has forged the interaction of the region with the world economy and how the ongoing expansion of the oil sector will deepen this pivotal role. Secondly, how this international relevance of petroleum has shaped postcolonial domestic politics and institutions. Thirdly, it examines the interests of different sets of empowered actors in the partnership between importers, producers and oil companies, their interplay, and the manner and contexts in which their goals diverge or converge. Finally, it analyses the sources of long-term sustainability of the political economy of oil in the Gulf of Guinea amidst seemingly unmanageable chaos.
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.
In The Petroleum Triangle, Steve A. Yetiv tells the interconnected story of oil, globalization, and terrorism. Yetiv asks how Al-Qaeda, a small band of terrorists, became such a real and perceived threat to American and global security, a threat viewed as profound enough to motivate the strongest power in world history to undertake extraordinary actions, including two very costly wars. Yetiv argues that Middle East oil and globalization have combined to augment the real and perceived threat of transnational terrorism. Globalization has allowed terrorists to do things that otherwise would be more difficult and costly: exploit technology, generate fear beyond their capabilities, target vulnerable economic and political nodes, and capitalize on socio-economic dislocation. Meanwhile, Middle East oil has fueled terrorism by helping to bolster oil-rich regimes that terrorists hate, to fund the terrorist infrastructure, and to generate anti-American and anti-Western sentiments about American support for oil-rich regimes and perceived Western designs on Middle East oil. Together, Middle East oil and globalization have combined in various ways to help create Al-Qaeda's real and perceived threat, and that of its affiliates and offshoots. The combined effect has shaped important contours of the Petroleum Triangle and of world affairs. A sweeping analysis of contemporary world politics and American foreign and military policy, The Petroleum Triangle convincingly argues that it is critical to understand the connections among oil, globalization, and terrorism if we seek to comprehend modern global politics. What happens within the Petroleum Triangle will help determine if the death of Osama bin Laden will ultimately cripple Al-Qaeda and its affiliates or be yet another milestone in an ongoing age of terrorism.
For more than a century, oil has been the engine of growth for a society that delivers an unprecedented standard of living to many. We now take for granted that economic growth is good, necessary, and even inevitable, but also feel a sense of unease about the simultaneous growth of complexity in the processes and institutions that generate and manage that growth. As societies grow more complex through the bounty of cheap energy, they also confront problems that seem to increase in number and severity. In this era of fossil fuels, cheap energy and increasing complexity have been in a mutually-reinforcing spiral. The more energy we have and the more problems our societies confront, the more we grow complex and require still more energy. How did our demand for energy, our technological prowess, the resulting need for complex problem solving, and the end of easy oil conspire to make the Deepwater Horizon oil spill increasingly likely, if not inevitable? This book explains the real causal factors leading up to the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, a disaster from which it will take decades to recover.
The US-led war in Iraq in 2003 represented the most dramatic shake-up of regional politics in the Gulf for more than a decade. This book contains an up-to-date analysis of central questions affecting the construction of a post-Ba'th regime in Iraq, and charts possible ways forward in other key states of the region such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. Future developments on this important issue are bound to be of immense significance for the management of some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves, with immediate implications for both regional political stability as well as for the world economy.
Insecure Gulf examines how the concept of Arabian/Persian Gulf 'security' is evolving in response to new challenges that are increasingly non-military and longer-term. Food, water and energy security, managing and mitigating the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, addressing demographic pressures and the youth bulge and reformulating structural economic deficiencies, in addition to dealing with the fallout from progressive state failure in Yemen, require a broad, global and multi-dimensional approach to Gulf security. While 'traditional' threats from Iraq, Iran, nuclear proliferation and trans-national terrorism remain robust, these new challenges to Gulf security have the potential to strike at the heart of the social contract and redistributive mechanisms that bind state and society in the Arab oil monarchies. Insecure Gulf explores the relationship between 'traditional' and 'new' security challenges and situates them within the changing political economy of the GCC states as they move toward post-oil structures of governance. It describes how regimes are anticipating and reacting to the shifting security paradigm, and contextualizes these changes within the broader political, economic, social and demographic framework. It also argues that a holistic approach to security is necessary for regimes to renew their sources of legitimacy in a globalizing world.
On April 20, 2010, the Macondo well blew out, costing the lives of 11 men, and beginning a catastrophe that sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill disrupted an entire region’s economy, damaged fisheries and critical habitats, and brought vividly to light the risks of deepwater drilling for oil and gas—the latest frontier in the national energy supply. Soon after, President Barack Obama appointed a seven-member Commission to investigate the disaster, analyze its causes and effects, and recommend the actions necessary to minimize such risks in the future. The Commission’s report offers the American public and policymakers alike the fullest account available of what happened in the Gulf and why, and proposes actions—changes in company behavior, reform of government oversight, and investments in research and technology—required as industry moves forward to meet the nation’s energy needs.
