Global Energy Security and American Hegemony

by Doug Stokes, Sam Raphael

Overview

This analysis of the United States and energy security examines the close relationship between US military supremacy in oil-rich regions and America's maintenance of global power.

Energy security generally evokes thoughts of American intervention in the Middle East to protect US interests in that region's oil-rich fields. Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael move beyond that framework to consider US actions in Latin America, Central Asia, and Africa. Drawing on State and Defense Department records and other primary sources and previous scholarship, they show how US foreign policy since World War II has sought to maintain a global energy security regime that supports the nation's allies while maintaining American hegemony.

Stokes and Raphael explain how US intervention in energy-rich states insulates and stabilizes those nations' transnationally oriented actors and political economies and why American oil diversification strategy strengthens the country's position against rivals in the global capitalist system. They argue that counterinsurgency aid and other types of coercive US statecraft protect the recipient states from an array of potentially revolutionary armed and unarmed internal social forces, thereby securing the energy supplies of nations deemed strategically important to the United States or its allies.

Clear and accessible, this cutting-edge contemporary policy analysis will engage scholars of US foreign policy and international relations as well as policymakers grappling with the importance of energy security in today's world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801894978
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	06/07/2010
Series:	Themes in Global Social Change
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Doug Stokes is a senior lecturer in international politics at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is the author of America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia.

Sam Raphael is a lecturer in politics, human rights, and international relations with the Kingston University's School of Social Sciences.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xi

Introduction: Global Oil Supplies and US Intervention 1

1 US Hegemony and Global Energy Security 18

2 Counterinsurgency and the Stabilization of Order 53

3 The Persian Gulf and Beyond 82

4 The Caspian Basin: US Oil Hegemony in the Former Soviet Union 112

5 West Africa: Stabilizing the Gulf of Guinea 145

6 Latin America: Capital, Crude, and Counterinsurgency in America's "Backyard" 177

Conclusion: The Futures of American Hegemony? 215

Notes 221

Index 275

What People are Saying About This

Ken Booth

This sober analysis of the dynamics of U.S. power, focusing on the quest for energy security and the use of coercive power in the 'oil-rich global South,' is a significant corrective to the recent overemphasis on the personalities of presidents and the ideology of neo-conservatism. This persuasive book helps its readers to understand the essential continuities of the grand strategy of the U.S. state in the pursuit of the ‘necessities’ to maintain predominance in the global order.

— Ken Booth, Aberystwyth University

Walter LaFeber

This brilliant book forces us to rethink the last 70 years. It demonstrates how the Iraqi invasion 'was clearly about oil'; how that quest has roots running back to the 1940s; and how lopsided policies termed 'globalization' have been integrated into this quest. These themes are graphically driven home in superb analyses of, among other areas, Latin America, the Middle East, and Central Asia—areas that will determine future American prosperity.

From the Publisher

This brilliant book forces us to rethink the last 70 years. It demonstrates how the Iraqi invasion 'was clearly about oil'; how that quest has roots running back to the 1940s; and how lopsided policies termed 'globalization' have been integrated into this quest. These themes are graphically driven home in superb analyses of, among other areas, Latin America, the Middle East, and Central Asia—areas that will determine future American prosperity.
—Walter LaFeber, Cornell University

This sober analysis of the dynamics of U.S. power, focusing on the quest for energy security and the use of coercive power in the 'oil-rich global South,' is a significant corrective to the recent overemphasis on the personalities of presidents and the ideology of neo-conservatism. This persuasive book helps its readers to understand the essential continuities of the grand strategy of the U.S. state in the pursuit of the ‘necessities’ to maintain predominance in the global order.
—Ken Booth, Aberystwyth University

This brilliant book forces us to rethink the last 70 years. It demonstrates how the Iraqi invasion 'was clearly about oil'; how that quest has roots running back to the 1940s; and how lopsided policies termed 'globalization' have been integrated into this quest.
—Walter LaFeber, Cornell University

Editorial Reviews

Global Energy Security and American Hegemony should definitely be on your reading list.
—Aaron W. Hughey, Daily News

This well—researched book is impressive in its scholarship and insightful analysis of US pursuit of hegemony in oil—rich regions . . . Highly recommended.
—Choice

Rests on a . . . grounded theoretical framework.
—International Affairs

From the Publisher

Rests on a . . . grounded theoretical framework.

International Affairs

"This well—researched book is impressive in its scholarship and insightful analysis of US pursuit of hegemony in oil—rich regions... Highly recommended."

Choice

Global Energy Security and American Hegemony should definitely be on your reading list.

— Aaron W. Hughey

Daily News

Global Energy Security and American Hegemony should definitely be on your reading list.

Daily News - Aaron W. Hughey