Dear Friend,
A World Health Organization (WHO)-United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-The Lancet Commission report said: Rising inequalities and environmental crises threaten political stability and risk international conflict over access to resources. By 2030, 2·3 billion people are projected to live in fragile or conflict affected contexts.
Sharjeel Imam is one among dozens of cases today of young scholars and intellectuals targeted by the Indian state for merely expressing their opinions, which is not a crime under any law in the country (at least till now). Using half-baked or cooked up evidence anyone who dissents is subjected to years of harassment by police and other authorities, casting not just a chilling effect on all intellectual enquiry or expression but turning all of India into a land of imbeciles. In solidarity with Sharjeel we at Countercurrents are republishing a series of five articles written by him in various other publications in the last couple of
years.
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By 2030, 2·3 billion people are projected to live in fragile or conflict affected contexts
by Countercurrents Collective
A World Health Organization (WHO)-United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-The Lancet Commission report said: Rising inequalities and environmental crises threaten political stability and risk international conflict over access to resources. By 2030,
2·3 billion people are projected to live in fragile or conflict affected contexts.
A World Health Organization (WHO)-United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-The Lancet Commission report said: Rising inequalities and environmental crises threaten political stability and risk international conflict over access to resources. By 2030, 2·3 billion people are projected to live in fragile or conflict affected contexts.
The commission’s report – A future for the world’s children? (www.thelancet.com, published online on February 18, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736 (19)32540-1) – has warned: “Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country,” a new report warned.
Not a single country working to ensure children’s future
The WHO-UNICEF-The Lancet Commission report has found: Not a single country on the planet is properly working to ensure safety, wellbeing, health and suitable environment for their children.
The commission’s report was released on Wednesday.
“Despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over recent decades, today’s children face an uncertain future,” said the report.
The report recalled that successful societies invest in their children’s futures and protect their rights. However, many politicians and governments in the world still do not consider such an investment as a priority.
It said: Even in rich countries, many children, especially in marginalized groups including indigenous people and ethnic minorities still suffer from hunger or live in conditions of total poverty.
The experts based their work on the observation of and recommendations for four key areas: the investment in children’s health and education, greenhouse gases, the issue of “commercial harm” done to children, and the role decision-makers ought to play to protect children.
The report said: “Our children […] stand on the precipice of a climate crisis.”
The report said: Wealthy countries are threatening the future of all the children in the world through carbon pollution.
Unhealthy commodities
The report observed the largely negative impact the commercial sector on the well-being of children in all countries, with companies promoting “addictive or unhealthy commodities,” such as fast food, sugar-sweetened beverages, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and social media. Companies make huge profits from marketing products directly to children and promoting addictive or unhealthy commodities, all of which are major causes of non-communicable diseases.
Profit motive
The commission’s report said:
The commercial sector’s profit motive poses many threats to child health and wellbeing, not least the environmental damage unleashed by unregulated industry. Children around the world are enormously exposed to advertising from business, whose marketing techniques exploit their developmental vulnerability and whose products can harm their health and wellbeing. Children’s large and growing online exposure, while bringing benefits in terms of information access and social support, also exposes them to exploitation, as well as to bullying, gambling, and grooming by criminals and sexual abusers.
Industry self-regulation does not work
The report said:
Industry self-regulation does not work, and the existing global frameworks are not sufficient.
The commission suggested:
A far stronger and more comprehensive approach to regulation is required.
The commission called for the development of an Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (i.e., an additional component to the treaty that must be independently ratified), to protect children from the marketing of tobacco, alcohol, formula milk, sugar-sweetened beverages, gambling, and potentially damaging social media, and the inappropriate use of their personal data.
It said:
Countries who have led the way in protecting children from the harms of commercial marketing, supported by civil society, can support a protocol for adoption by the UN General Assembly, providing impetus for further legal and constitutional protections for children at national level.
Many hungry children in rich countries
The report said:
Even in rich countries, many children go hungry or live in conditions of absolute poverty, especially those belonging to marginalized social groups — including indigenous populations and ethnic minorities. Too often, the potential of children with developmental disabilities is neglected, restricting their contributions to society. Additionally, many millions of children grow up scarred by war or insecurity, excluded from receiving the most basic health, educational, and developmental services.
Wealthy countries’ GHG emission
It said:
Wealthy countries generally have better child health and development outcomes, but their historic and current greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions threaten the lives of all children. The ecological damage unleashed today endangers the future of children’s lives on our planet, their only home. As a result, our understanding of progress on child health and wellbeing must give priority to measures of ecological sustainability and equity to ensure we protect all children, including the most vulnerable.
The commission said:
The poorest countries have a long way to go towards supporting their children’s ability to live healthy lives, but wealthier countries threaten the future of all children through carbon pollution, on course to cause runaway climate change and environmental disaster. Not a single country performed well on all three measures of child flourishing, sustainability, and equity.
Except the USA
The report said:
The rights and entitlements of children are enshrined within the CRC ratified by all countries, except the USA.
The report recommended that the CRC adopt a new protocol to protect children from commercial harm.
The report said: The world’s countries agreed in 2015 on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to leave future generations with a cleaner and healthier world. Yet the SDG agenda is so far still paralyzed.
The report’s authors are: Helen Clark, Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Anshu Banerjee, Stefan Peterson, Sarah L Dalglish, Shanthi Ameratunga, Dina Balabanova, Maharaj Kishan Bhan, Zulfiqar A Bhutta, John Borrazzo, Mariam Claeson, Tanya Doherty, Fadi El-Jardali, Asha S George, Angela Gichaga, Lu Gram, David B Hipgrave, Aku Kwamie, Qingyue Meng, Raúl Mercer, Sunita Narain, Jesca Nsungwa-Sabiiti, Adesola O Olumide, David Osrin, Timothy Powell-Jackson, Kumanan Rasanathan, Imran Rasul, Papaarangi Reid, Jennifer Requejo, Sarah S Rohde, Nigel Rollins, Magali Romedenne, Harshpal Singh Sachdev, Rana Saleh, Yusra R Shawar, Jeremy Shiffman, Jonathon Simon, Peter D Sly, Karin Stenberg, Mark Tomlinson, Rajani R Ved and Anthony Costello.
Children at the heart of SDG
The report said:
This Commission presents the case for placing children, aged 0–18 years, at the centre of the SDGs: at the heart of the concept of sustainability and our shared human endeavor. Governments must harness coalitions across sectors to overcome ecological and commercial pressures to ensure children receive their rights and entitlements now and a livable planet in the years to come.
Invest in children’s health
The report said:
“Early investments in children’s health, education, and development have benefits that compound throughout the child’s lifetime, for their future children, and society as a whole. Successful societies invest in their children and protect their rights, as is evident from countries that have done well on health and economic measures over the past few decades.
Long-term vision
The report said:
Decision makers need a long-term vision. Just as good health and nutrition in the prenatal period and early years lay the foundation for a healthy life course, the learning and social skills we acquire at a young age provide the basis for later development and support a strong national polity and economy. High quality services with universal healthcare coverage must be a top priority.
It said:
The benefits of investing in children would be enormous, and the costs are not prohibitive: an analysis of the SDGs suggests a financing gap of US$195 per person. To ensure stronger economic and human development, each government must assess how to mobilize funding using instruments that help the poorest pro portion of the population to meet this gap for children, and frame these as the most powerful investments a society can make.
Not just monetary
The report said:
Investments are not just monetary: citizen participation and community action, including the voices of children themselves, are powerful forces for change that must be mobilized to reach the SDGs. Social movements must play a transformational role in demanding the rights that communities need to care for children and provide for families.
Government’s duty
The report said:
Government has a duty of care and protection across all sectors. Countries that support future generations put a high priority on ensuring all children’s needs are met, by delivering entitlements, such as paid parental leave, free primary health care at the point of delivery, access to healthy — and sufficient amounts of — food, state funded or subsidized education, and other social protection measures. These countries make sure children grow up in safe and healthy environments, with clean water and air and safe spaces to play. They respect the equal rights of girls, boys, and those with nonconforming gender identities.
Policy makers in these countries are concerned with the effect of all policies on all children, but especially those in poorer families and marginalized populations, starting by ensuring birth registration so that the government can provide for children across the life course, and help them to become engaged and productive adult citizens.
It said:
Countries might provide these entitlements in different ways, but their realization is the only pathway for countries to achieve the SDGs for children’s health and wellbeing, and requires decisive and strong public action.
Since threats to child health and wellbeing originate in all sectors, a deliberately multisectoral approach is needed to ensure children and adolescents survive and thrive from the ages of 0–18 years, today and in the future.
Investment in sectors beyond health and education — such as housing, agriculture, energy, and transport — are needed to address the greatest threats to child health and wellbeing.
Political commitment
The report said:
Political commitment at executive level is needed to coordinate across sectors and leverage synergies across the life course, ensuring universal health coverage; good nutrition and food security for all; thoughtful urban planning; safe and affordable housing and transport; clean energy for all; and equitable social welfare policies.
Multisectoral governance might take different forms in each country, but it will require strategic partnerships, cabinet level coordination across ministries, and management of diverse partners, with clear roles for each, including for non-state actors and the private sector.
Heads of state and PMs
The report said:
Heads of state or prime ministers must designate a crosscutting government ministry or equivalent to ensure joined up action and budgeting for pro-child policies and to demand harmonized assistance from global stakeholders, whose support is currently fragmented and inefficient.
The report suggested to measure: How countries’ GHG emissions are destroying their future.
The commission assessed the feasibility of monitoring countries’ progress through a new child flourishing and futures profile, developed on the basis of survive and thrive SDG indicators reported by 180 countries, territories, and areas, and future threats to children’s wellbeing using the proxy of GHG emissions by country. It complemented the profile with existing measures of economic equity.
Children, hope for the future
It said:
Children and young people are full of energy, ideas, and hope for the future.
Children are angry
It added:
Children are angry at the state of the world. Worldwide, schoolchildren and young people are protesting about environmental threats from fossil fuel economies.
Amplify children’s voices
The commission said:
We must find better ways to amplify their voices and skills for the planet’s sustainable and healthy future. The SDGs require governments to place children at the very centre of their plans to address this crisis.
No time to lose
This Commission said:
We have no time to lose, and no excuses if we fail. A new global movement for child and adolescent health is today an urgent necessity.
It should be mentioned that Dr Bhan of the commission died in January 2020.
In solidarity with Sharjeel Imam:
Over Representation of Muslims in jail in most of Indian States: Here’s the State Wise Data
by Sharjeel Imam
Sharjeel Imam is one among dozens of cases today of young scholars and intellectuals targeted by the Indian state for merely expressing their opinions, which is not a crime under any law in the country (at least till now). Using half-baked or cooked up evidence anyone who dissents is subjected to years of harassment by police and other authorities, casting not just a chilling effect on all intellectual enquiry or expression but turning all of India into a land of imbeciles. In solidarity with Sharjeel we at Countercurrents are republishing a series of five articles written by him in various other publications in the last couple of years.
The politics of seeing and non-seeing
by Priyanka Krishna
Ahead of the Namaste Trump event which is being held to welcome the President of the United States visit to India, a large wall is being built along the route the president will take to reach the Motera Stadium- the largest cricket stadium in the world, in an effort to hide the informal settlements on its way. This has received widespread coverage in the media with headlines accusing Modi, the Prime Minister of India of trying to hide poverty and the poor.
In the Ring of Gyges, the famed myth framed by Plato, the wearer of the ring may wear it and turn invisible. In the story, Gyges wears the ring to commit unjust acts and because of the invisibility accorded by the ring is then able to thwart any moral consequence. One of the arguments then which Plato wants to bring forth through this myth is that it is visibility that brings accountability to an action. If we were to slightly extend this, we could even ask, what when injustice – the act itself is made invisible. Does it then absolve responsibility of the act and what then maybe the consequence of such invisibility?
Ahead of the Namaste Trump event which is being held to welcome the President of the United States visit to India, a large wall is being built along the route the president will take to reach the Motera Stadium- the largest cricket stadium in the world, in an effort to hide the informal settlements on its way. This has received widespread coverage in the media with headlines accusing Modi, the Prime Minister of India of trying to hide poverty and the poor. In response, the local body in Ahmedabad has said that it is only a cleanliness drive and a beautification effort. This is not new in India or the world. In 2016, Rio built a wall to hide the Mare Favela complex. In 2010, ahead of the Commonwealth Games, the Sheila Dixit government erected bamboo curtains to hide poverty and the poor. Such attempts to hide then tends to render poverty and in turn render the poor invisible.
For centuries, rendering people and places invisible has been the modus operando for exclusion. In his article Saliem Fakir( https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-07-08-the-politics-of-invisibility-and-racial-dominance-a-new-dawn-of-racial-vulgarity/) speaking of invisibility and race quotes Ralph Ellison’s novel ‘Invisible Man’ and the ways black experience is made invisible. In apartheid South Africa, the blacks couldn’t be visible in areas ear marked for the whites. Women for the longest and perhaps in some parts of the world even today couldn’t and cannot be visible in public deliberations. People from lower castes in India were/are driven to Ghettos outside of the villages. What essentially was/is at work here was/is the exclusion of sections of peoples from the public. Etymology points out that public means to be part of people. And to be part of people, requires visibility. Visibility, participation and inclusion then all are analogous and come to mean the same. Visibility therefore one could even say is power and invisibility is akin to being powerless.
What has changed however, in the current times to render a section of population invisible is the rationale behind rendering this section invisible. If with race and caste it is ‘purity’ and with gender it is power, with class or the act of rendering the poor invisible today rests on the idea of ‘beauty’. The act of building the wall ahead of Trump’s visit was claimed to be a beautification effort. ‘Beauty’ is the ring of Gyges of our times, the invisibility ring of injustice. Thinking of beauty, one is reminded of Nietzsche who famously said that to view the world as beautiful is to experience it wrong. But in our world today dominated by images, of representations of an imagined and desired future – the manicured parks, the tall imposing high-rise apartments, gated communities and ubiquitous malls, authentic experience has little value when compared to accumulation of symbols of capital and the precedence of luxury. And every city in the world therefore begins to mimic others.
Scholars such as Ghertner in his seminal work- Rule by Aesthetics speaks of how the populations are ruled by the ideas of beauty. Several others root this is what is now called the ‘worlding’ literature. The idea of ‘worlding’ was brought into existence by Heidegger in his work Being and Time (1927) where he refers to worlding as being in the world. Worlding practices then involve visions of a global city and desires of world- class infrastructure. Such visions are taken in by the middle class as well as by the governments. Such symbols of capital become necessary to beget more capital in forms of investment. In an increasingly unequal world order then one cannot discount geo-politics in the rise of beauty as a mode of rule. The diplomacy efforts of India when a state head is to visit the country then is also rooted to seek a certain visibility. A visibility which rests on projecting a certain kind of image, a presentation which isn’t authentic because it isn’t a representation of historic time but is rooted only in the future, desires for a future which increasingly looks similar around the world and is pivoted on capital. In doing this, thus losing any authentic self of a city or culture. This is a sort of a iront for the mainstream politics propagating authentic Hindu hood for a nation which in itself is worthy of criticism and why no one imagination can dominate a nation of multiplicities, but increasingly on the other hand it gives in to this sort of loss of self of a nation.
And in such visions of a city, there is no place for the poor or the several informal settlements in which they live in. Never mind the fact that it is on their informal labor and exploitation that the economy runs on and increasingly extracts value. In seeking a certain visibility then in the world order, India renders several sections of its own invisible. What it forgets is that when you ‘see’ you make the seen visible. And therefore, this act of seeing brings the seen into ‘being’. The act of willing non-seeing is an act of violence.
Priyanka Krishna is a graduate from SOAS, University of London and works as a researcher in the field of education and development in India.
Democracy is hypocrisy as long as ‘Wall’ of Shame exists in India
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Now, Gujarat is ‘welcoming’ Donald Trump and we say ‘athithi devo bhav’ but we cant allow our poor people to come to the street and welcome the ‘guests’. We only ‘welcome’ athiGujarat model is basically successful in hiding the dirty realities of
the state, its below the standard education system, its highly caste prejudiced societies and how it has handed over the public land to a few cronies, some of whom may be in the dinner table tonight rubbing their shoulders with global business and political elite.
Many Dimensions of Shaheen Bagh Movement in India
by Adv Dr Shalu Nigam
The protest in Shaheenbagh began on December 16, 2019 against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC), National Population Register (NPR) and against police brutalities. Now, more than seventy days later, it emerged as a non-violent, creative and an inspiring movement led by women – a movement against fascism, a movement of reckoning based on the ideology of humanity to protect constitution and its values.
Trolleyology And India’s Citizenship Conundrum
by Sumithra Prasanna
Injustice can be committed in the name of common happiness, precisely what the BJP’s acrimonious rhetoric and vote bank politics are set to accomplish.
A thinking imperfection we brought with us into this New Age
by David Anderson
Scientists are now warning us that irreparable damage is being done to our planet. Continuing human existence is in question. Yet most of us go about our daily lives with no sense of fear for the future.
Scientists are now warning us that irreparable damage is being done to our planet. Continuing human existence is in question. Yet most of us go about our daily lives with no sense of fear for the future.
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This brings us to the question of our Age:
Do we all psychologically neurologically have the ability to develop by means of some sort of Transformational Experience a form of synchronous thought and behavior that can establish for Homo sapiens coexistent unity and inter active equilibrium on our planet with all life and nonlife?
An examination of our evolutionary timeline can be of help:
- 252/250 million years BCE; Permian extinction wipes out 81% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species and begins the age of the Dinosaurs.
- 65 million years BCE; mass extinction wipes out Dinosaurs.
- 7 million years BCE; Australopithecusto Homo, oldest hominins Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Homo separates from chimpanzees and others like them. Evidence of standing and bipedal walking.
- 4.4 million years BCE Ardipithecus ramidus. More evidence of Quadra to bi pedal. Gene-culture revolution for Homo habilisbegins wherein there is biological and cultural genetic evolution affecting the future of Homo habilis. Part of the long creation story begins. (for Homo habilis or a species closely related to it) Prior to that, pre humans had human-like bodies with the cranial capacity of a chimpanzee today; at or below 500 cubic centimeters. Starting with the habiline period the capacity grew to 680 cubic centimeters in Homo habilis, then to 900 in Homo erectus, and now to about 1,400 in Homo sapiens. The expansion of the human brain was marked by ongoing complex cultural evolution. First crude stone tools appear during the early period.
- 1.5 to 1 million years BCE; slowly Hominids go from flight to fight, from being prey for the stronger animals to being predator of them. This transition from plant eater/scavenger to superior hunter occurs within a time frame of one million years; called the Middle to Late Pleistocene, a period associated with the emergence of Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Heidelbergensisand others: eventually to the superior Homo sapiens. Point-bearing hafted spear tips are used as early as 500,000 years BCE. Fire discovery begins allowing for storage high meat protean diet.
- 270/250‑50 thousand years BCE; Hominids with Modern human bio physical characteristics develop the distinctive capacity to sense a dimension beyond the immediacy of their existence. They begin to see themselves as a part of nature. (the natural world around them) In terms of their capacity to reason, brain function becomes generally the same as with modern humans.
- As humans increase in numbers, the surrounding animal population declines from over-killing.
- Humans over this long period develop primitive weaponry; then spears and clubs, then the sling and the bow and arrow, thus allowing superiority over prey and other humans. Humans are then able to stalk and attack large animals and feed on them.
- Working together within families and communal groups, this allowed for the multiplication of individual and group strength.
- Then with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian move beginning about 7,000 BCE we humans separated ourselves from all other life and nonlife on our planet, from being a species that had for many hundreds of thousands of years lived in a symbiotic relationship with Nature to a species viewing Nature as something to be controlled, conquered and manipulated. Armed with this mandate, we saw Nature as a treasure trove to be exploited at will.
This is our problem today. It is the reason that we have become a threat to our existential existence. Many are aware of this, but for most the realization is far distant and even questionable. The reason: Most of us have no fear for the future.
Why is this so?
The answer is deeply implanted in our DNA eukaryotic chromosome brain cage. That implantation was developed over several million years. It is a neurotic/psychotic “Disney World” defect that is now preventing us from becoming aware of our future.
This fearless psychological neurological response mechanism was once our strength. It was with us when we abandoned our arboreal attachment and moved on to outlying territory. It enabled us to confront the challenges before us. For Homo sapiens over its evolutionary history the fear of failure was subsumed into the far reaches of its cranial memory bank. It was given second place.
When we brought it with us out of Africa into our New Age, it gave us enormous confidence. In every sphere of our activity it allowed us to move unhesitatingly forward. It allowed us to try again and again regardless of pain of failure.
This is the reason why most of us today have no fear of the possibility of our extinction. There is discussion at many levels, but in time it fades into inconsequence. An example: The 2015 COP21 agreement in Paris made headlines and then faded. The Pope’s environmental encyclical that same year the same.
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David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics. He has written four books. The fourth is about a necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival. See:
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REFERENCES
Rich v. Poor: New York faces Climate Crisis, But Bangladesh Faces Climate Apocalypse
THE CONVERSATION 02/13/2020
Mixed Returns for the Huawei Bashing Tour
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
The US imperium is rattled, so much so it’s letting everyone else know about it. Move over the trade war with its bitchy insistence on redressing imbalances, surpluses and deficits; the next phase of conflict with China is
being waged in matters of technology, with Huawei’s 5G prowess featuring prominently. As the veteran Australian journalist Tony Walker soberly notes, “The ultimate destination of this conflict is unclear, but its ramifications will scar international relationships for decades to come.”
Why Trump Rejects the Need from Middle Eastern Oil
by Dr James M Dorsey
Oil may not be the only factor driving a reduced US commitment to guaranteeing security in the Middle East, but it certainly is one that weighs heavily in US President Donald Trump’s mind. “Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World. We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas, & in fact have very few tankers there…,” Mr. Trump said in a self-congratulatory tweet.
Oil may not be the only factor driving a reduced US commitment to guaranteeing security in the Middle East, but it certainly is one that weighs heavily in US President Donald Trump’s mind. “Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World. We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas, & in fact have very few tankers there…,” Mr. Trump said in a self-congratulatory tweet. (1)
The timing of Mr. Trump’s assertion that a decade-old, technology-driven drilling boom had propelled the United States to become the world’s top fossil fuel producer gave his tweet real meaning even if his claim that the US was no longer dependent on Gulf imports or vulnerable to oil price fluctuations was questionable. He was tweeting two days after drones and missiles allegedly launched by either Iran or Houthi rebels in Yemen seriously damaged two key Saudi oil facilities. (2)
Coming on the back of Mr. Trump’s failure to respond to the earlier downing by Iran of a US drone, the sabotaging of tankers in the Arabian Sea off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and multiple attacks on US facilities in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias, the tweet reinforced nagging questions among Gulf leaders about the reliability of the United States’ longstanding regional defense umbrella intended to protect against such incidents.(3)
All Roads Lead to Rome
Oil was a factor in an ongoing rethink of US interests in the Middle East that started already at the time of the Obama administration even if Mr. Trump’s approach to some form of disengagement differs starkly with that of his predecessor, Barak Obama.
In contrast to Mr. Trump’s transactional approach and maximum pressure campaign designed to force Iran to unconditionally renegotiate the fledgling 2015 international agreement that curbed the Islamic republic’s nuclear program, discontinue its development of ballistic missiles and halt support for regional proxies, Mr. Obama negotiated the agreement and sought to gradually return Iran to the international fold.
Transactionalism was at the core of Mr. Trump’s assertion in the wake of the oil facility attacks that they were ”an attack on Saudi Arabia, and that wasn’t an attack on us. If we decide to do something, they’ll be very much involved, and that includes payment. And they understand that fully.” (4)
Both approaches set off alarm bells in the Gulf. Saudi and UAE leaders favoured Mr. Trump’s campaign against Iran but worried about his transactionalism.
Nonetheless, both approaches were informed by the re-emergence of the United Sates as a powerful player in international energy markets even if statistics failed to bear out Mr. Trump’s assertions of energy independence.
Despite having become the world’s largest oil producer, US production of some 18 million barrels a day falls just short of the country’s daily consumption of 20 million. The United States’ requirement for imported oil also stems from a mismatch between what some US refiners want and what the United States produces.
Some refiners, including Motiva Enterprises LLC in Port Arthur, Texas, the US’ biggest facility are part owned by Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s national oil company, and set up to accommodate medium and heavy Saudi grades.
Others, primarily in California that depends on Saudi Arabia for 37 percent of its total foreign oil imports, because it lacks pipelines that would connect it with oil-rich states such as Texas. (5)
Much of the US shortfall is covered by imports from Canada. The United States, nonetheless, acquires an average of 48 million barrels per month of crude oil and petroleum products from the Gulf region. That is a third less than what the United States imported a decade ago and roughly equivalent to what it purchased in the mid-1990s. (6)
Said Jason Bordoff, a former senior director of Obama’s national security council and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University: “US consumers (and Trump) may yet discover that while the shale revolution has strengthened the United States’ position economically and geopolitically, the nation is far from energy-independent: The Middle East remains critical to oil markets, and disruptions there can still cause pain for consumers here.” (7)
Even if the US would import no oil from the Middle East, it would retain an interest in ensuring that supply from the region is not disrupted given the impact that would have on the United States itself as well as its trading partners.
As a result, a reduced US commitment to Middle East security could backfire, particularly given that some degree of dependence on oil from the region is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. That is all the more true given that domestic US prices will be vulnerable to disruptions in the Gulf with its significant price-setting influence that impacts not only oil derivatives, but also other commodities such as corn and soybeans whose prices respond to movements in oil markets.
Because Gulf producers are state-owned entities rather than private corporations as in the United States, US leaders have no control of production levels that influence prices. As a result, energy independent or not, Trump needs his Gulf and other allies in OPEC to intervene when oil prices rise too high for US consumers.
Similarly, greater US energy self-sufficiency has in some respects changed the nature of rather than reduced US dependency on the Gulf. In effect, the dependency is less economic and more geopolitical.
The United States’ use of energy as a weapon in its sanctions-driven efforts to change policies, if not regimes in Iran and Venezuela relies on Gulf states to compensate for market shortfalls resulting from US policies. US sanctions have removed at least 2.5 million Iranian barrels of crude per day and aim to reduce Iranian exports to zero. The sanctions, without Gulf intervention, would have sent oil prices soaring.
“A stout U.S. military deterrent to those who might threaten oil and gas flows from the Gulf does not guarantee stable prices, but it helps reduce the risk of both damaging spikes and the geopolitical risk premium that markets generally price-in during periods of instability in the region,” said energy scholar Gabriel Collins. (8)
Continued dependence does not mean that the United States has not and economically, strategically and geopolitical from the impact of shale oil. Increased domestic production has boosted GDP by not spending dollars overseas and has reduced America’s trade deficit by some US$250 billion. (9)
Higher oil prices have furthermore benefitted US producers and helped offset price hikes for consumers. Increased US production has also bolstered global inventories, reduced the impact of supply shocks, forced the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut production, and given the United States the kind of flexibility to manage production levels that traditional producers do not have.
The Future is Complex
Moving forward, energy-driven US interests in regional security not only in the Middle East but also in the Eastern Mediterranean are likely to be less shaped by the degree to which the United States may rely on imports and more by developments in the region itself, including the emergence of the eastern Mediterranean as a potential gas supplier to Europe, Asia and China; Saudi plans to establish a natural gas network with the UAE and Oman that eventually would extend to Kuwait, Bahrain Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and possibly Palestine; and the kingdom’s intention to massively invest in development of its own gas resources. (10)
The Eastern Mediterranean lurks on the back ground in the war in Libya with Turkish backing of the United Nations-recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli designed to protect a Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement creating an Exclusive Economic Zone against rebel forces of Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar, who is supported by Turkey’s regional rivals, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. (11)
Russia has joined the fray, hoping that a victory by Khalifa, who has been attempting to capture Tripoli since last April, will thwart a Greek-Cypriot-Israeli agreement to build a pipeline that would supply gas to Europe, reducing European dependence on Russian gas in the process. (12) Critics charge that the maritime agreement that would limit Greek-Cypriot Israeli access to hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean, violates the Law of the Sea. (13)
Throwing the Eastern Mediterranean into the mix raises US interest not only for reasons of energy security. Israel’s stake in Eastern Mediterranean gas reinforces the United States’ commitment to the security of the Jewish state that requires some regional American presence.
Even so, if Mr. Trump believes his own energy independence rhetoric, he may be blinded to the kind of US influence that will be needed to defend Israeli interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. Serious strains in US-Turkish relations coupled with Mr. Trump’s inclination to by and large abandon Syria and his disinterest in Libya despite having taken a phone call from Mr. Haftar in April 2019 would suggest that the president has not connect ed the dots.
Tension in the Eastern Mediterranean mounted with two Turkish exploration vessels, Fatih and Yavuz, exploring in territorial waters belonging to European Union-member Cyprus, a country Ankara refuses to recognize. Turkey invaded the Turkish Cypriot north of the island in 1974 and is the only country to recognize the region’s unilateral declaration of independence. Turkey is unlikely to be deterred by the sanctioning of two of its officials for involvement in the exploration in Cypriot waters in violation of international law. (14)
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) cautioned in a report that “the United States needs a holistic and integrated approach towards the Eastern Mediterranean that will stabilize Europe and shift the regional balance in the Middle East back towards the United States. Resolving the Syrian conflict is essential for Eastern Mediterranean stabilization and developing an appropriate policy approach toward an increasingly antagonistic and anti-democratic Turkey is the key to solving the Syria puzzle and re-anchoring the region toward the Euro-Atlantic community.” (15)
Describing the Eastern Mediterranean as a theatre of big power competition that threatens US and trans-Atlantic interests, the report, maps out a detailed strategy for US re-engagement.
The United States, “must make hard choices and embrace realistic goals, however unattractive, to reinvigorate US diplomatic, economic and security engagement in the region. This will involve addressing and reconciling seemingly incompatible US policies towards Syria and Turkey that can only be bridged through active created and sustained diplomacy backed by ongoing military engagement,” the report said.
It Is Geopolitics, Stupid!
Similar to the Eastern Mediterranean, it is the geopolitics rather than the economics of energy that will drive US interest, particularly as it regards efforts to change Iranian policies, if not the Iranian regime, as well as the longer term power balance in the Middle East and Central Asia.
And it’s as much about gas as its about oil. A Saudi push to become a major natural gas player seeks to take advantage of the US sanctions against Iran in a bid to turn the kingdom into a gas powerhouse that rivals the Islamic republic. (16) The push came after Saudi Arabia discovered major reserves in the Red Sea. (17)
Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said he expected US$150 billion to be invested in the Saudi gas sector over the next ten years. Mr. Nasser envisioned gas production increasing from 14 billion standard cubic feet to 23 billion by 2030.
“We are looking to shift from only satisfying our utility industry in the kingdom, which will happen especially with the increase in renewable and nuclear to be an exporter of gas and gas products,” Mr. Nasser said.
“Aramco’s international gas team has been given an open platform to look at gas acquisitions along the whole supply chain. They have been given significant financial firepower – in the billions of dollars,” he added. (18)
Saudi Arabia has targeted acquisitions in the United States in an effort to both boost its position in the gas market as well as US interest in the kingdom’s stability and also in the Artic.
Aramco agreed in May 2019 to a buy a 25 percent stake in Sempra Energy’s Texas liquefied natural gas terminal in one of the biggest gas deals ever. The deal involves a 20-year agreement under which Saudi Arabia would buy 5 million tons of gas annually from Sempra’s Port Arthur plant, due to begin operations in 2023. (19)
While the Trump administration looks favourably at Saudi investment, some analysts are raising red flags. “We simply cannot hand the quickly globalizing (via LNG) gas market to more risky exporters that often have political goals that are contrary to ours (to put it politely),” said Jude Clemente of JTC Energy Research Associates. (20)
The kingdom has also expressed an interest in acquiring a 30 percent stake in Russia’s Novatek Arctic LNG project. (21)Access to the project’s gas would allow Saudi Arabia to negotiate long-term deals and/or sell cargoes on the spot market or increase domestic supply.
A Saudi-Russian deal in the Artic would likely not only enhance the kingdom’s position but also bring Saudi Arabia, a member of OPEC, and Russia, which is not formally part of the cartel, closer together in their joint management of global oil supplies.
Beyond investments, Saudi Arabia is seeking to become a force in the marketing and trading of gas. The kingdom scored an initial success with the sale in April 2019 of its first Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) cargo in Singapore, the trading hub for Asia and the Pacific, the world’s largest LNG market. (22)
Conclusion
US President Donald J. Trump claims that his shale oil has made his country energy independent. It is a claim that goes down well with a significant segment of the American public even if the facts do not bear out Mr. Trump’s assertion in a year in which voters go to the polls to decide whether he will get a second term.
Increased self-sufficiency has fuelled perceptions that the United States is losing interest in the Middle East and is likely to reduce its commitment to the region’s security. Even if US economic interest may lessen, US strategic interest in regional stability continues to loom large.
The question is not whether the emergence of the United States as the world’s largest energy producer will lead to its departure from the Middle East but what consequences it will have coupled with uncertainty among Gulf leaders about the level of Mr. Trump’s commitment on the region’s future security architecture.
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