Solar would be Cheaper: US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil (xpost from NSD)

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/cheaper-pentagon-trillion.html

Solar would be Cheaper: US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil
By Juan Cole | Dec. 8, 2013

~snip~

It has cost the United States $8 trillion to provide military security in the Gulf since 1976. According to Roger Stern, a Princeton economist, the US has spent as much on Gulf security as it spent on the entire Cold War with the Soviet Union! In recent years through 2010 it has been $400 billion a year, though the US withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 and the gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan this year and next presumably means that the figure is substantially reduced. Still, we have bases in Kuwait, Qatar and elsewhere, and a Naval HQ in Bahrain, none of which is cheap. If it were $200 billion a year, that is a fair chunk of the budget deficit the Republican Party keeps complaining about. And if we could get that $8 trillion back, it would pay down half of the national debt.

Some argue that since the US itself imports relatively little petroleum from the Gulf, we’re crazy to pay for policing it. But this argument seems to me not the right one for several reasons. First, petroleum is more or less a single global market (with a spread of say $10 in different spot markets). If the Gulf couldn’t export petroleum, it would put the price up so much that everyone’s economy would collapse, including that of the US. Second, US policy has been to encourage Germany and Japan not to militarize, in return for an American security umbrella. American geopolitical power benefits from having fewer credible rivals, and that is part of what we are paying for. The US has to police the Gulf if Japan is to stay strong in the face of a rising China, and if Germany is not to be Ukrainized.

The right argument is that we shouldn’t be using petroleum and nor should our allies. The supreme tragedy is that the US has bankrupted itself ensuring military security for the oil-producing nations of the Gulf when oil production is destroying the world. We need a crash program to get the world off petroleum, some 70% of which is used to power automobiles. People should be given incentives to move back to cities so they don’t have to commute. Better public transport is needed. Portland is an example of how a concerted push can change the urban transportation situation quickly. 8% of commuters in Portland now get to work on bicycle, 10 times more than any other American city. Portland adopted a global warming action plan in 1993 and has renewed it, and demonstrates what can be accomplished in only 20 years if a city puts its mind to it. And, we should move as quickly as possible to hybrid plugins or where practical electric vehicles (EVs).

Moreover, we should be pressuring our allies in this direction (Germany doesn’t need any encouragement but Japan and others do). Otherwise we are locking the world into as much as a 9 degrees Fahrenheit increase in average surface temperature over the next century, which could well destabilize our climate. And we are paying through the nose for the privilege! It would be like paying hundreds of billions of dollars a year to ensure that people can get access to meth, which then ruins their health.

[Turbineguy]

1. There's about 850 billion barrels of reserves still left.

The US does not import much from the ME. We pay for it, the Europeans the Japanese and the Chinese benefit. Maybe it's a quid pro quo for all the money they lend us. Security in lieu of interest.

We're protecting the oil of course. It has nothing to do with Israel. After all, look at all the troops we have in Venezuela and Nigeria.

[Bortman33]

2. a cogent argument indeed ~

Last edited Sun Dec 8, 2013, 12:10 PM - Edit history (1)

How greatly would America benefit if we started doing a real business analysis on all the externalities that are neglected in the present pricing structure of the goods and services that are imported to this country and others that are produced right here.

If it hadn't been for insightful, dedicated, and ethical American politicians, health and safety conscious labor movements, and environmental groups, America would look like Nigeria, Mexico, China, Texas, or any other third world country that treats it's labor as expendable and it's environment like a open landfill.

Marx was spot on as to what the end product of capitalism would look like. It is quite ironic that what has proven him correct are true capitalists projecting their soulless version of unfettered capitalism and free markets on the world.

The moral of the story is that capitalism, when left to its own devices, acts just like a virus. When a country places regulations and controls on it, it simply replicates itself in another country and continues to decimate people and the environment, usually at a more vicious rate. When it’s medicated again with the penicillin of insightful, dedicated, and ethical politicians, health and safety conscious labor movements, and environmental groups, capitalism either tries to buy them off thus diluting the medication or it simply moves to a more receptive host.

There is no silver bullet to solve the problems that unfettered capitalism creates but a good start would to make them show all the externalities that encompass their procucts and also show the pay, benefits, and working conditions of all their employees. The American people would be due for the rude awakening they would receive from such a honest accounting.

[kristopher]

3. "the right argument is that we shouldn’t be using petroleum and nor should our allies."

That sums up the solution.