Mad Maduro

 

I predict that nothing will come of the current Venezuelan threat to annex most of Guyana.

Of course, the reason they suddenly want to do so is that a large reserve of oil has been discovered off the Guyanese coast. 

How large? At least 11 billion barrels, putting it in the top twenty producers worldwide, with the second largest reserves per capita, after Kuwait. And there may be more.

I doubt, busy as it is elsewhere, the US will let Venezuela swoop in and take that oil, any more than they let Saddam’s Iraq grab Kuwait’s oil back in the 90s. The geopolitical stakes are too high. If the US is overextended, Britain or Canada, plus the Caribbean nations, as fellow members of the Commonwealth, might, at American urging, take up the cause, or join a “coalition of the willing.” The more so since Guyana is an English -speaking democracy, and Venezuela a failing dictatorship.

Or Brazil might. The Guyanese region actually has no roads connecting it to Venezuela. The only road runs through Brazil. In order to attack Guyana in any force, Venezuela will actually first need to invade Brazil. Brazil is not likely to be too keen on that, and they are much bigger and wealthier than Venezuela. Rather, a Venezuelan incursion into Brazil would give Brazil an excuse to go in and take Venezuela itself, with its own oil, while America approved.

Brazil has already sent a contingent, if a small contingent, of troops to the border. Ensuring at least that it will come to blows.

Might the Venezuelans try instead a landing from the sea? 

Perfect. Plays into the American or British strength: sea and air power.

Presumably this is all for Venezuelan domestic consumption, an attempt to rally the people behind the government by whipping up a foreign enemy. It is the sign of a government in desperation.

If Maduro is desperate and reckless enough to go through with it, I expect the result to be similar to what happened when the Argentine government tried the same trick over the Falkland Islands, or the Greek government over Cyprus. The main result will be the collapse of the Maduro regime.

Let’s hope nobody gets killed along the way.

A Quick-Step in the Right Direction

 

Liz Truss legalizes fracking in the UK

News of the Future

The end of oil.

It started as a fossil, and it's going to end as a fossil.

The Best Thing for the Middle East

A case might be made here for a larger crown.

The Middle East is mess. A lot of people are upset with the US and NATO for not going in and helping the poor people of Syria. It's such a mess. A lot of the same people are upset with the US and NATO for going in and getting rid of Ghaddafi. Leaving such a mess. Not to mention with Bush going in and taking out Saddam, leaving the mess of ISIS there now.

Wait a minute, though. What would you have the US and NATO do?

The problem with nasty dictatorships is that they destroy all elements of civil society. They do this, because any separate organizations could become rival power centres and challenge their rule. They want an absolutely free hand, or what's a totalitarian supposed to do? It's in the job description.

That means that, when they fall, there is nobody and nothing in a position to replace them. And you have a mess.

So, the rest of us have three options here, and only three options, when they start to shoot their own people:

1. Go in, take out the dictator, and try to set up a civil society before we leave. That's Iraq.
2. Go in, take out the dictator, and leave, letting the chips fall where they may. That's Libya.
3. Do nothing, and leave matters to work themselves out. That's Syria.

The West is catching all kinds of criticism for each of these. In other words, they are being blamed no matter what they do.

For my money, number 2 is the best option available. All three end in a mess, but in 1, the West gets blamed for the chaos, while in 3, the West gets blamed for the dictator. The West still gets blamed for the chaos in 2, but it is less convincing, and certainly costs less.

The one institution that dictators in the Middle East do not dare to shut down, because it is too culturally ingrained, is the mosque. As a result, all organized opposition must develop a quasi-religious character, or at least a religious disguise. So, when a dictator goes, almost the only option to replace him ends up being the so-called “religious extremists” (a serious misnomer—these guys aren't very religious at all). This is why democracy doesn't work here. There are only two organized groups: the army, and the mosque. Neither is democratic in nature.

So how do you get to a healthy civil society in the Middle East?

History tells us that there is really only one way: monarchy.

The matter is partially obscured, because many nations have chucked the monarchy since achieving democracy, but it has almost always been necessary to have a monarchy in order to get a democracy in the first place. This is of course true of Canada, Britain, Australia, and the rest of the Commonwealth. It is true, recently, of Spain. It is also true, despite the national mythology, of the US: they got their democratic institutions when they were still colonies. It is true of Japan—under Hirohito; and of Italy. Germany achieved it without a king, but under long foreign military occupation. It is also true of France. Despite the revolution and all that, stable democracy came under Napoleon III, the hereditary Emperor.

With rare exceptions like Henry VIII, monarchies are not totalitarian. One reason is because you do not become the leader in a monarchy through personal ambition. On average, the average monarch will have only the average drive for personal power. Accordingly, there is so desire in the typical monarch to destroy civil society. Or, should suitable institutions arise, to hang on to power for the sake of power.

Like other citizens, they are mostly inclined to do whatever seems best for the nation. Nor do they have the same incentive as a dictator to loot the country's treasury: given the hereditary principle, they have every reason to want to leave the country in the best possible condition for the sake of their children.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have oil. Iraq and Iran have oil. Which governments have made better use of the resource?

Fortunately for the Middle East, it does include some monarchies.

Eat First, Burn Later

This piece from Britain's Guardian cites a World Bank report that finds biofuels to be the main cause of the sudden rise in world food prices.

In other news, a company in California has developed a genetically engineered microorganism that, when fed biological waste, excretes diesel oil. They project the cost of oil using this method at about $40 per barrel—the same as tar sands.

Just feed the critters urban garbage, algae, and grass clippings, please. Not corn or sugar cane.

The World Has Plenty of Oil

So a recent article by the former head of reservoir management for Saudi Aramco, world's largest oil extractor.

Executive summary: we've pumped 1 trillion barrels. Twelve to sixteen trillion remain in the ground.

Snap Quiz


Question: What proportion of the US’s oil imports come from the Middle East?

Answer: 20%. That’s 20% of imports, not 20% of needs—the US remains the US’s largest supplier, followed by Canada and Mexico.

The Middle Eastern oil fields are not strategic to the US itself—the US could get along without them, and barely notice. Remember that next time someone says the war in Iraq is “all about oil.”

Of course, if they were strategic, and the US were of an imperialist mind, it would be trivial for them, logistically, to walk in and take the oil fields of sparsely populated Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait. They would not need to trouble with more populous Iraq.


Question: what proportion of the world’s ten biggest oil companies are US owned?

Answer: 0%. ExxonMobil, the biggest American player, is number 14. The biggest oil company, worldwide, is Saudi Aramco, owned by the Saudi government.

The largest producer in the US? British Petroleum.


Quesion: How much has the price of gasoline gone up in the past 20 years?

It's gone down. Adjusted for inflation, the price of gas is currently lower than it was in 1981.



People want to believe that oil is some kind of conspiracy, and that the Americans--or the Saudis--are behind it.