Lecture Outline

I Addicted to Oil

1. Importance of oil
2. Where our oil comes from
3.  

II The Political Economy of Oil and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Scale of Analysis: Global

1. Hypocrisy: U.S. support for non-democratic but oil-rich regimes
2. Cost of protecting supplies of oil in the Persian Gulf
3. The Gulf War
4. Plan Colombia
5. The Balkans
6. Afghanistan

III Oil Development at the Local Scale

Question: how are the costs and benefits of the oil industry distributed in oil producing countries?

1. Burma: Unocal, Total and the Karen Nation

Take two things from this lecture:

1. An understanding of the political-economy of oil: how our addiction to oil dictates our foreign policy.
2. An understanding of the human and environmental cost of our energy policy.

Ask the following questions:

1. Given the costs (political, social, and environmental) of oil dependence, do we need to rethink our energy policy?
2. How is the "national energy security debate" constructed? In other words, who shapes our thoughts about "energy security" and who sets the parameters for what choices we have?

1. Britain shifted its navy from coal power to oil power in the two years prior to WWI.
   • Faster overall speeds
   • Quicker acceleration
   • Less labor intensive
2. Why didn't Germany switch to oil?
3. Paris, 1914: The Taxi Armada
4. British military dependence on the internal combustion engine

   1914 1918

Motor cars 827 23,000

Motorcycles 15 34,000

Trucks 0 56,000

• In both world wars, Germany made a desperate attempt to seize Caspian Sea Oil

"Oil is the blood of the earth, the blood of victory. Germany had boasted too much of its superiority in iron and coal, but it had not taken sufficient account of our superiority of oil." - Senator Bérenger, 1918

1. September 2000: Clinton pledged $1.3 billion in military aid to "eradicate the cocaine trade" not to battle Marxist rebels.
2. FARC earns $500 million per year from coca
3. Oil is Colombia's largest export (coffee is second)

• 1/3 of export earnings
• 15% of government's fiscal income
• Colombia is the #9 supplier of oil to the US

1. In 2000, rebel groups blew up the main Colombian pipeline 98 times, causing a 15% drop in oil production, and a loss to the government of $230 million in oil revenues.
2. In 2001, there were 177 attacks on the Colombian pipeline, costing the government $500 million in lost oil revenues.
3. Between 1996-2000 major U.S. oil companies spent $25 million lobbying the government for greater security in Colombia.

1. 1999: US intervention in Kosovo
2. The US spent $36.6 million dollars building Camp Bondsteel
3. Trans-Balkan pipeline to avoid the bottleneck at the Dardanelles
4. Bill Richardson (then US energy secretary): "This is about America's energy security. Its also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries to the West."

1. 2002: US is building large bases and moving in more troops
2. 1997: Unocal plans oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea
3. "The Taliban does not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran."

   - Zalmay Khalilzad (1997)

4. On December 31, 2001, Zalmay Khalilzad was named the US representative to Afghanistan.

1. Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948, a resource rich country with fertile soil and large gas fields

    

2. U Ang San
3. White Bridge Massacre: 1988
   • SLORC
4. Aung San Suu Kyi
   • National League for Democracy won 82% of the parliamentary seats in 1990
   • SLORC took only 2% of the vote
   • Suu Kyi awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994
5. Yadana Natural Gas Pipeline Project: Unocal and Total
   • $400 million per year for SLORC
   • Burmese vs. ethnic minorities
6. EarthRights International

1. Geological surveys indicate that the ANWR holds 0.3% of the world's total oil reserves
2. Extraction of oil from the ANWR will take 50 years, during which time it will provide us with less than 1% of the oil we consume
3. If we could extract the oil all at once (which we cannot) it would provide us with 6 months of oil at our current rate of consumption