Anyone care to guess how expensive oil would be, and how volatile its price, if it were not for decades of US Military patrol of the Persian Gulf and protection of The Kingdom? If that is not a gov’t subsidy I don’t know what is.
Earlier today, Tim posted an interesting article about US forces engaging a Russian militia in Syria. A small number of US troops handily defeated a much larger force, thanks in large part to superior US equipment, including thermal imaging systems, remotely controlled guns, missiles, rocket artillery, attack aircraft that were able to loiter above the battlefield, and of course the battlefield was being surveilled by drones.
I wonder what the direct costs of that battle were? I’d guess easily in the tens of millions. The Russians’ objective: A Conoco gas plant.
The reality is we don’t have much choice but to spend that kind of money on a crappy gas plant. Our economy and the world economy is dependent upon a reliable supply of gas and oil. History shows that if that supply is interrupted, our economy will crater, erasing literally trillions of dollars from the GDP. Hence the reason our military is parked in the Middle East.
I highly recommend every METARite read “The Prize” by Daniel Yergin
https://www.amazon.com/Prize-Epic-Quest-Money-Power-ebook/dp…
It is a history of the oil industry, which in actuality is a discussion of how oil has influenced nearly every geopolitical event since the 1850s. Everything points back to oil in surprising ways I had never thought of. Although the book was written in 1991, it is still topical in the current day. U.S. troops are in Iraq because of oil. Putin is in power because of oil. And how does Gazprom affect German policy? Maintaining our oil-based economy requires we park our military overseas and engage in near-continual foreign conflicts. Either directly, or through proxy. For example, taking sides in the Yemeni civil war. What interest could we possibly have in Yemen? Besides the three to nine billion barrels of oil reserves, you mean? A previous poster lamented solar subsidies. Fair enough. How much has the US spent in Yemen? If you don’t know, you are in good company. No one knows. Our “allies” are supposed to reimburse us for use of our crews and aircraft, but no one seems to be able to find the checks or invoices.* Funny how that works. On the flip side, we’ve spent about $4 billion on humanitarian aid in Yemen to help fix the humanitarian crisis we helped create.
It is clear to me it is in our obvious best economic and security interests to decouple our economy from oil as rapidly as it is practical to do so. There is a clear path forward. And it is cheaper, easier, and more reliable than trying to bomb our way into energy security.
*By a show of hands, how many people knew that American crews and aircraft had participated in the Yemini civil war?