Low Oil prices, Islamic State, Mahdi Army, and Ebola means Saudi Arabia and others must prioritize10/18/2014 For drivers with strained budgets, the sight of falling gas prices is truly a miracle while there is no better treatment for the shellshock of last winter’s frigid weather than lower heating costs. With that in mind, the collapse of energy prices has consequences that reach far and wide. For many, lower energy prices are a boon, yet others look at those falling prices at the pump and see a market crash threatening their economic stability.
Where oil and natural gas producers could be seriously hurt if oil stays too low, too long, the world should expect the alternative energy sector to face a similar problem when the long-term savings of wind and solar equipment can no longer compete with the low upfront costs of carbon-based fuels. Aside from decreasing energy costs of consumers in need of extra dollars to spend as the US economy struggles with growing economic disparity, the collapse of energy prices also has international benefits. For Russia, diminished oil revenue clearly compounds the issues of its recent economic problems. At the moment, however, this is largely seen as a positive development due the efforts of the West to punish Russia with economic sanctions for its involvement in the Ukraine Crisis. On the other hand, the impact of depressed oil prices in the Middle East is more of a negative. Where less oil revenue means official corruption and misallocation of public funds in oil rich countries in the era of the Arab Spring Revolutions becomes more noticeable and less tolerable, which is beneficial to the region over time, smaller national budgets equals less willingness to spend on new priorities.
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“…government of the People, by the People, for the People….” -Abraham Lincoln
Given the George W. Bush Administration had resorted to using aluminum tubes as “evidence” that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program despite the thorough lack of evidence in the Administration’s rationale for war, concealing the fact that US troops found nearly 5,000 chemical munitions inside Iraq cannot be justified. One proposed explanation for the cover-up highlights the reality that the weapons were already known and made before 1991, but the discovery of the chemical weapons would still have been useful in demonstrating the threat of Saddam’s regime. Consequently, a secondary explanation rooted in the fact that the weapons were designed in the US and manufactured in Europe by Western companies points to a much more serious fault of the Bush Administration and the entrenched dysfunction of the US government. Following the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks and into the post 2003 Iraq Invasion era, the American People were genuinely shocked and confused as to why there was so much anti-American sentiment throughout the world. While many tried harder to comprehend the negative impact of our often overly aggressive and inconsistent policies, there is far more to the story than what the United States did wrong.
When something goes wrong in the world, the International Community has had a tendency of either relying on the US to take care of the problem or avoiding the issue until the United States does something on its own, which is then followed by a barrage of global criticism. Too often, the world’s most powerful and influential country has found itself in a “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” scenario where taking action is met with harsh criticism and not taking action is met with harsh criticism. Not only does the world’s dishonest reliance on US military might breed resentment among Americans, it helped lead to the George W. Bush Administration taking ill-conceived action against Iraq despite objections from experts and world leaders. Although the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the weak state of the US budget/economy, and mounting threats around the world limit what resources the United States can commit to the Middle East, there is growing pressure on the US to send ground troops back into Iraq to fight Islamic State forces. With Baghdad and the Kurdish city of Kobani under threat, criticism of US and Coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State is on the rise as the strategy appears to be failing. In reality, the airstrikes were never supposed to defeat the Islamic State. The airstrikes were the contribution the United States was willing and able to offer the Iraqi People in order to prevent their military from completely failing. Clearly, the near slaughter of thousands of Yazidi served as a turning point, but the overreaching motivation for the intervention was to break the momentum of the Islamic State and prevent it from spreading to the rest of the region. In the summer of 2012, a “Foreign Affairs” article by Kenneth Waltz showcased the extremely flawed argument that concluded allowing Iran to achieve its nuclear ambitions and the ensuing arms race would help stabilize the Middle East. Drawing on the easing of tensions between India and Pakistan once they achieved nuclear power status, as well as China’s less aggressive nature at the time, among other examples, the writer characterized nuclear weapons as weapons of peace. Unfortunately, nuclear India and Pakistan may be in the very act of proving this nuclear deterrent theory wrong.
If it was just a question of India and Pakistan at odds, the threat of nuclear war could be elevated above all other national interests, which was the case for the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In doing so, the nuclear arsenals of both nations could have even served as a deterrent against open conflict in general. That said, the rapid escalation of the Ukraine Crisis that divided the West and Russian reveals the nuclear deterrent has lost its ability to avert escalating hostilities between nuclear nations. Only due to the world’s economic ties with Russia was the West able to push back against Russian aggression without resorting to a massive violent confrontation. Unfortunately, the use of the economic deterrent is no longer available with the implementation of sanctions against Russia while the nuclear deterrent may well prove just effective enough for Putin to abuse in order to assert greater control over Ukraine. In the case of Pakistan and India where war between nuclear powers is already a reality, the threat is in what situation might convince military leaders the use of nuclear weapons would be necessary. While the extreme case of an Indian or Pakistani invasion/victory could scare Pakistan or India into using their nuclear weapons is most obvious and not likely, even with threats of nuclear attacks in the news, security forces might decide a strategic use of their nuclear arsenals could crush the capacity of the enemy’s military to respond to such an attack. The tragic death of the first person diagnosed with Ebola inside the US breaks a psychological barrier for the developed world. Certainly, we understood Westerners could die of Ebola, but we also had faith those afflicted with Ebola would be saved if they could just access our resource rich healthcare system. Although the Peoples of developed countries certainly feel compassion for the Peoples of Africa who have long lived in fear of an Ebola outbreak, the lethal pathogen has always been regarded as a disease of poor countries.
Considering the conspiracy theories and misinformation inside Africa surrounding Ebola, which has lead to people hiding infected relatives, angry residents “freeing” Ebola patients from holding centers, and attacks on healthcare workers the Peoples of Africa clearly see Ebola differently than their Western counterparts. Despite the reality that research takes time, the willingness of the developed world to try the experimental Ebola treatment ZMapp only once a Western doctor was inflected with Ebola cannot possibly sit well in the minds of Africans. |
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