Search -
Crude Awakenings: Global Oil Security and American Foreign Policy
Crude Awakenings Global Oil Security and American Foreign Policy Author:Steve A. Yetiv With oil prices reaching record high levels recently, many wonder whether we are we potentially headed towards another 1973-style oil shock. The answer is a resounding "no," according to the new book, Crude Awakenings: Global Oil Security and American Foreign Policy. Despite apparent threats from Middle East turmoil and terrorism, global petr... more »oleum supplies today are in fact more, not less, stable than they have been in decades, thanks to effective and forward-looking political, technological and market developments that have been implemented throughout the industry. Conventional wisdom on oil is wrong. So says the author, Steve A. Yetiv, Professor of Political Science at Old Dominion University: "The real story of global oil over the past twenty-five years is not about short run developments with Yukos, Venezuala or Nigeria, nor terrorist attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It is not even about periodic small- and large-scale U.S. attacks on Iraq. Rather, the real story is about longer-term developments that have changed the international relations of the Middle East, politics at the global level, and world oil markets. These developments have increased oil stability." Although prices continue to remain volatile, Yetiv argues that the world market in petroleum products is far more benign and predictable than what is portrayed to us by the media and lawmakers, a fact that has serious implications for our current domestic and foreign policy decisions.« less