Solar would be Cheaper: US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil

[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.

[bemildred]

1. A lousy investment, yes. But a great racket for the "owners". nt