The "Carter Doctrine" - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

A264172 · #1 09-14-2008, 02:05 PM

"the United States will use whatever means are necessary, including military force, to ensure the continued flow of oil"

THE BUSH/CHENEY ENERGY STRATEGY:

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY

A Paper Prepared for the Second Annual Meeting of the Association for Study of Peak Oil Paris, France, 26-27 May 2003

By Michael T. Klare Professor of Peace and World Security Studies

Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002 USA (mklare@hampshire.edu)

When first assuming office as President in early 2001, George W. Bush’s top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction (or any of the other goals he has espoused since 9/11); rather, it was to increase the flow of petroleum from foreign suppliers to markets in the United States. In the year preceding his assumption of office, the United States had experienced severe oil and natural gas shortages in many parts of the country, along with periodic electric-power blackouts in California. In addition, U.S. oil imports had just risen over 50 percent of total U.S. consumption for the first time in American history, provoking great anxiety about the security of America’s long-term energy supply. For these and other reasons, Bush asserted that addressing the nation’s "energy crisis" was his most important task as President.

Addressing the energy crisis was seen by Bush and his advisers as a critical matter for several reasons. To begin with, energy abundance is essential to the health and profitability of many of America’s leading industries, including automobiles, airlines, construction, petrochemicals, trucking, and agriculture, and so any shortages of energy can have severe and pervasive economic repercussions. Petroleum is especially critical to the U.S. economy because it is the source of two-fifths’ of America’s total energy supply – more than any other source – and because it provides most of the nation’s transportation fuel. In addition to this, petroleum is absolutely essential to U.S. national security, in that it powers the vast array of tanks, planes, helicopters, and ships that constitute the backbone of the American war machine.

Given these realities, it is hardly surprising that the incoming Bush Administration viewed the energy turmoil of 2000-2001 as a matter of great concern. "America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two decades," Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told a National Energy Summit on March 19, 2001. "The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation’s economic prosperity, compromise our national security, and literally alter the way we lead our lives."/1/

To address this challenge, President Bush established a National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) composed of senior government officials and charged it with the task of developing a long-range plan for the meeting the nation’s energy requirements. To head this group, picked his closest political adviser, Vice President Dick Cheney, a former executive of the Halliburton Company. Cheney, in turn, turned to top officials of U.S. energy firms, including the Enron Corporation, to provide advice and recommendations on major issues./2/

As the NEPDG began its review of U.S. energy policy, it quickly became apparent that the United States faced a critical choice between two widely diverging energy paths: it could continue down the road it had long been traveling, consuming ever-increasing amounts of petroleum and – given the irreversible decline in domestic oil production – becoming ever more dependent on imported supplies; or it could choose an alternative route, entailing vastly increased reliance on renewable sources of energy and a gradual reduction in petroleum use. Clearly, the outcome of this decision would have profound consequences for American society, the economy, and the nation’s security. A decision to continue down the existing path of rising petroleum consumption would bind the United States ever more tightly to the Persian Gulf suppliers and to other oil-producing countries, with a corresponding impact on American security policy; a decision to pursue an alternative strategy would require a huge investment in new energy-generation and transportation technologies, resulting in the rise or fall of entire industries. Either way, Americans would experience the impact of this choice in their everyday life and in the dynamics of the economy as a whole; no one, in the United States or elsewhere, would be left entirely untouched by the decision on which energy path to follow./3/

The National Energy Policy Development Group wrestled with these choices over the early months of 2001 and completed its report by early May. After careful vetting by the White House, the report was anointed as the National Energy Policy (NEP) by President Bush and released to the public on May 17, 2001./4/ At first glance, the NEP – or the "Cheney Report," as it is widely known – appeared to reject the path of increased reliance on imported oil and to embrace the path of conservation and renewable energy. The NEP "reduces demand by promoting innovation and technology to make us the world leader in efficiency and conservation," the President declared on May 17./5/ But despite all of the rhetoric about conservation, the NEP does not propose a reduction in America’s overall consumption of oil. Instead, it proposes to slow the growth in U.S. dependence on imported petroleum by increasing production at home through the exploitation of exploiting untapped reserves in protected wilderness areas.

As is widely known, the single most important step toward increased domestic oil production proposed by the NEP was the initiation of drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a vast, untouched wilderness area in northeastern Alaska. This proposal has generated enormous controversy in the United States because of its deleterious impact on the environment; but it has also allowed the White House to argue that the Administration is committed to a policy of energy independence. However, careful examination of the Cheney report leads to entirely different conclusion. Aside from the ANWR proposal, there is nothing in the NEP that would contribute to a significant decline in U.S. dependence on imported petroleum. In fact, the very opposite is true: the basic goal of the Cheney plan is to increase the flow of oil from foreign suppliers to the United States.

In the end, therefore, President Bush did make a clear decision regarding America’s future energy behavior, but the choice he made was not that of diminished dependence on imported oil, as suggested by White House rhetoric. Knowing that nothing can reverse the long-term decline in domestic oil production, and unwilling to curb America’s ever-growing thirst for petroleum products, he decided to continue down the existing path of ever-increasing dependence on foreign oil.

The fact that the Bush energy plan envisions increased rather than diminished reliance on imported petroleum is not immediately apparent from the President’s public comments on the NEP or from the first seven chapters of the Cheney report itself. It is only in the eighth and final chapter, "Strengthening Global Alliances," that the true intent of the Administration’s policy – increased dependence on imported oil – becomes fully apparent. Here, the tone of the report changes markedly, from a professed concern with conservation and energy efficiency to an explicit emphasis on securing more oil from foreign sources. "We can strengthen our own energy security and the shared prosperity of the global economy," the NEP states, by working with other countries to increase the global production of energy. To this end, the President and his senior associates are enjoined by the Cheney report to "make energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy."/6/

But while acknowledging the need for increased supplies of imported petroleum, the Cheney report is very circumspect about the amount of foreign oil that will be required. The only clue provided by the report is a chart of of America’s net oil consumption and production over time. According to this image, domestic U.S. oil field production will decline from about 8.5 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2002 to 7.0 mbd in 2020 while consumption will jump from 19.5 mbd to 25.5 mbd, suggesting that imports or other sources of petroleum (such as natural gas liquids) will have to rise from 11 mbd to 18.5 mbd./7/ It is to procure this increment in imported petroleum – approximately 7.5 mbd, or the equivalent of total current oil consumption by China and India combined – that most of the recommendations in Chapter 8 of the NEP are aimed.

To facilitate American access to overseas sources of petroleum, the Cheney report provides a roster of 35 foreign policy recommendations – exactly one-third of all of the recommendations in the report. Although many of these proposals are region or country-specific, the overall emphasis is on removing obstacles – whether political, economic, legal, and logistical – to the increased procurement of foreign oil by the United States./8/

The Cheney report’s emphasis on procuring ever-increasing supplies of imported energy to satisfy America’s growing demand will have a profound impact on American foreign and military policy in the years ahead. Not only will American officials have to negotiate access to these overseas supplies and arrange for the sorts of investments that will make increased production and export possible, but they must also take steps to make certain that foreign deliveries to the United States are not impeded by war, revolution, or civil disorder....

the story continues: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4458.htm

RichC · #2 09-15-2008, 06:26 AM

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein

RichC

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