When it comes to other nations, energy dependence is “dangerous”
The fellow who called drilling for our own oil “junk economics” and those who are proponents of such policies “stupid” seems to have a different view when it comes to other nations. NYT:
the war in Georgia isn’t that big a deal economically. But it does mark the end of the Pax Americana — the era in which the United States more or less maintained a monopoly on the use of military force. And that raises some real questions about the future of globalization.
Most obviously, Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, especially natural gas, now looks very dangerous — more dangerous, arguably, than its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. After all, Russia has already used gas as a weapon: in 2006, it cut off supplies to Ukraine amid a dispute over prices.
And if Russia is willing and able to use force to assert control over its self-declared sphere of influence, won’t others do the same?
Isn’t is vastly “more dangerous,” to quote Mr. Krugman’s piece above, for the nation enforcing what remains of the Pax Americana to be 70% dependent on its rivals and adversaries for its most important strategic resource? Ah, what’s the use…