Yesterday's Guardian had a fascinating column by Lutz Kleveman about the global fight for Caspian Oil, which he refers to as the New Great Game in his recent book of the same name.
The thing is, oil is important. It's hard to keep in mind, with the travesty of our current administration and its disgusting kickbacks, shills, and preferences, that any decent administration would in fact keep its eyes on the oil prize. Does that justify invading Afghanistan? No, but it justifies spending some resources on providing stability to Afghanistan. It wouldn't, for instance, be a terrific boost to the lives of individuals in the region if China were to have her wicked way. Letting Russia or the Turks call the shots is not much better. Yes, it would be best to have local control over local issues, and it is (as I have said and will continue to say) disgusting for our wealthy and supposedly idealistic country to exploit the oil to the detriment of the people of the Caspian region. Still, it would be bad, if not quite as disgusting, to fail to engage in this New Great Game, as there are real consequences to losing it, and, as the man says, you can't win if you don't play.
What would, perhaps, be the most depressing would be if much of our foreign policy were based on the New Great Game, but because people didn't know that and weren't particularly interested in it, and because the game appears to broadcast media to be too complex to get people to become interested in, that aspect of our foreign policy was under the proverbial radar, and there was no significant oversight. But how likely is that?
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
Surely U.S. interests would be better served if our leadership were determined to find a way to avoid playing this “game.” The economies that are most prepared to opt out of oil dependency will do better in the longer run.
It seems extremely unlikely that the pursuit of oil interests in Central Asia will ever appear on the public’s radar unless the U.S. becomes involved in much more intensive military activity in the area, involving troop deployment on the scale of Iraq or confrontation with Russia or China. That’s unfortunate, but when has American oil policy ever gained the electorate’s attention, except when the price of gasoline spikes or a lot of Americans die?
A last thought — it’s unsurprising that “the new Great Game” does not grip the American public, because it is a game for empires and imperial-style corporations, not for free republics. Since Americans, despite their pleasure in the material comforts of empire, have (generally) little emotional investment in American imperial grandeur, there is not much here, aside from cheap gas prices, to draw their attention.
A better-governed republic, one truly committed to its own liberty, would be cultivating energy alternatives that would enable it to steer clear of foreign entanglements with corrupt and brutal dictatorships and rivalries with other great powers.