by Tan Copsey
I saw a rather interesting little piece on Juan Cole the other day about inverting the logic of resource wars. He argues that US security could in fact depend on investment in alternative energy, but not for the reasons one might assume. Cole claims that,
US militarism cannot secure petroleum and gas supplies from places such as Iraq, because the pipelines are so easily sabotaged and local nationalisms and religious activism make it impossible for people to accept that kind of US hegemony.
Since the Pentagon cannot practically speaking hope to safeguard US petroleum supplies from the Gulf, national security requires a massive and rapid research and development program of green energy. A lot of green technology, especially solar, would come down in price rapidly if enough government money were thrown at it. We need to press Congress on this, and maybe Californians can craft some of their famous referendum items. That would be one way to promote a new generation of electric cars.
Green energy-- wind, thermal, solar, maybe ultimately fusion, etc.-- is what would allow the US to retain its autonomy and independence into the next century, and what would allow it to avoid losing more cities the way Bush and Cheney lost New Orleans. Oil and War will, in contrast, ruin us all’.
This is of course a rather different argument to those espoused by traditional proponents of ‘environmental security’, and is all the more interesting for it. However, you can’t help wondering whether the ‘energy independence’ trumpeted by many on both the left and right in the US, is a rather illusory concept. Would every country be capable of supplying its own energy, or just a select rich few? If one is taking into account a parallel desire to foster peace and trade, wouldn’t forms of negotiated energy interdependence be more helpful? – a potential European-North African Solar project springs to mind as an illustrative example.
