Posted on 05/25/2002 3:31:13 PM PDT by Shermy
A new element in the U.S.-Russia agenda has emerged at this Summit: energy deals. It is a subject where the two countries are basically on the same side; they can reach deals to greatly increase their success in realizing their mutual interests, if they first simply set up a framework to reconcile the secondary differences in interest.
Their initial agreement is meant to do this. They have agreed to work together on energy strategy, reconciling their national energy strategies: this means they both recognize it as a strategic matter in which they are on the same side. Specifically, they will cooperate against instability in global oil markets; which in practice means that Russia should increase its oil supplies to make up for the shortfall in case of cuts in oil supplies to the West from the Middle East. Meanwhile, America is to help develop Russian oil sources and markets: this means investment. Evidently there is to be cooperation on developing Central Asian oil markets.
This is, at first glance, a modest step, but it is one that is pregnant with a change in the basic nature of Russia-West relations. As Mikhail Khodorkovsky of Yukos wrote, "the opportunities would be almost limitless" if the U.S. and Russia started making bargains in this field (Financial Times, May 24). They have started. The effects should keep growing with time:
1. It makes Russia an ally of the West in a vital Western economic security interest.
2. It makes the West an ally of Russia in a vital Russian economic growth interest.
3. It places a new regular item on the agenda of U.S.-Russia relations. Nuclear weapons disagreements need not always have the spotlight at a summit; energy bargains might instead.
4. It creates an invigorating atmosphere. Energy bargains are win-win deals, not zero-sum deals (which is the depressing feeling that always accompanies nuclear arms talks). Everyone can feel in the wallet how their interests are being benefited.
This is not likely to be the last energy deal. It is just the opening wedge. Now that energy-dealing has gotten onto the agenda, people can start thinking about what the next deal could be. Pressure groups should soon come to see the benefits they have gained from the present bargain and mobilize in favor of further deals. This is the classic way for setting an integrative dynamic into motion.
This energy deal should be seen as Stage 1. It is already possible to envisage Stage 2 and Stage 3 deals that would multiply the benefits several times over.
A Stage 2 energy deal: Russia joins the International Energy Agency (IEA), a fair oil price is agreed upon for Russian oil, the West agrees to compensate Russia for financial losses when oil prices fall below this level, and Russia agrees to compete ruthlessly against OPEC to cut world oil prices as low as possible.
The benefits: the West gains literally 10 ten times in low oil prices as much as it transfers to cover Russian losses from the same. Russia recoups all its losses, then gains some from increased market share. Desert sheikdoms stop accumulating huge financial power, something that has destabilized global finances and put big money behind the spread of religious extremist seminaries and terrorism. The world economy benefits tremendously, Third World (India, China, etc.) as well as First World. China and other countries burn less coal.
A further, long-term benefit: The Russian economy starts to rise and fall together with the rest of the world economy, instead of the other way around. It gets onto the same cycle as the West and the world economy, rather than an opposite cycle. This fosters a new enterprising and productive spirit, in keeping with the tremendous capabilities and skills of the Russian people. It encourages a better, mutual-gain attitude toward the world at large - not the old spirit of monopoly and extortion. It helps Russia become a healthy society. And it lances the financial boil of Middle Eastern societies, which have become unhealthier, cartel-and-extortion societies through their oil wealth.
A Stage 3 energy deal. A Russia-West Oil and Gas Community is established, incorporating the deals in Stages 1 and 2. The harmonization of Western and Russian oil price interests, achieved in Stage 2, makes it possible to form a strong joint organization in this sphere. The IEA is upgraded institutionally to form the basis for the Oil and Gas Community.
Like the Coal and Steel Community that laid the foundations of the European Common Market and today's EU, a Russia-West Oil and Gas Community could lay the foundations for a Euro-Atlantic-Eurasian common market.
And then there would be still further prospects:
Stage 4: the end of OPEC. By this stage, OPEC has been greatly weakened; and IEA, representing all the countries of the global "North", greatly strengthened. IEA can set norms for energy policy, energy taxation, stabilization funds and reserves, investment and production among its members. And the UN can set global norms on these matters and dictate to OPEC. A First World-Third World alliance can easily prevail in the UN against OPEC. UN regulations can undermine what is left of OPEC, outlawing its role as a cartel -- an illegitimate form of inter-governmental organization. Eventually OPEC members would no longer find it worth the embarrassment of maintaining the organization.
Stage 5: the end of global oil injustice. The UN Security Council proclaims oil and gas to be a commodity of global economic and security interest and to be subject to global antitrust regulation, as well as regulation motivated by environmental and other concerns. In low-population high-oil states such as the Gulf states (or perhaps all states where oil and gas production and reserves exceed population by a certain specified ratio), it undoes their nationalization of oil, placing the oil and gas fields under global ownership and authority. A UN energy agency could work closely with IEA to set overall management guidelines; a fair rent could be paid to the host states for use of their land.
And there we would have it. No more sucking of the world economy by a few barely populated states. No more letting the hundreds of billions of dollars go to financial destabilization, religious extremism, and terrorism, among other things. Instead a healthier Russia, a healthier Russia-West relation, and a healthier Northern leadership of the world system.
"Ira Straus is executive director of Democracy International, in Arlington, Va., and US coordinator for the independent Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia."
MIss Marple...President is playing chess again ...while the media worries over the 20 commie protestors...LOL!
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Since the Arab Oil Embargo (almost 30 years ago), U.S. dependence on imported oil has risen from 25% to over 65%.
The REAL U.S. National Security interest is to REDUCE this dependence on imported oil.
The alternate sources of energy available that are most capable of providing the vast quantity necessary to achieve this are nuclear and clean-coal electric power generation.
Construction of modern, efficient, electricly-powered mass-transportation systems in our nation's most densely populated regions and urban areas would further reduce our petroleum consumption, thus enhancing our national security.
This guy who wrote this must of started on some serious drugs when he wrote #4 and #5. Why in hell would we want the U.N. involved or have any regulatory powers? A good article until 4 & 5
And this is leaving out all the massive mineral wealth yet unexploited in Russia. The entry of Russia into the world economy on a massive scale could trigger one hell of a demand boom.
Funny how history and historical projection never take into account folly. That nations will from time to time do ridiculously stupid things. Saudi Arabia funding terrorism against both the US and Russia at the same time cannot be exceeded in terms of the purest folly.
I see a day, maybe ten years from now, when the Saudis are once again eating camel dung and the Twin Towers rise high and proud.
There you go again, looking at things through the prism of infidel logic? Any Saudimite can tell you that Allah only loves Muslims, who are following the One True Religion, and He is gonna come down from the sky and personally defeat the West for the sake of Islam...any day now.
But all this crap about strategically setting oil prices and UN control is all more big government planning over something that should never be controlled in the first place.
Uh-oh! Look out for this!
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