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ENERGY
AND SECURITY How have American policymakers met the challenge? “Virtually everything concerning energy policy has changed,” noted the CFR report, “except U.S. policy.” American leaders act as though the realities of energy dependence do not signify a rising threat. In this most vital matter, America’s sense of reality fails the essential test of realism. American policymakers do not think ahead, and they dare not acknowledge the danger. Politics in America has become a playground of fictions. The politicians tell the public what the public wants to hear. Whether the question is social security, education, budget deficits or national security, the public wants to believe that things aren’t so bad. Why would the political hot potato of U.S. energy dependence prove any different? According to the CFR Task Force, “the lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undermining U.S. foreign policy and national security.” Of course it is. And no politician would dare to sound an alarm, because alarmists cannot politically prevail over prevailing myths. If there’s a threat of any kind, and if it’s real enough, nothing will be done. The nature of democratic capitalism is well known from history. Threats are allowed to develop and the reaction is often tardy. The crisis that follows can be severe. Even so, Western Civilization has met every challenge so far, but now there is reason to fear that Western Civilization is no longer itself. Perhaps some vital element has been compromised. One might ask: are we as free, politically and psychologically, as we once were? A vibrant society is a vibrant organic growth. Like a wild flower, it isn’t the product of a bureaucratic plan. Nobody planned Western Civilization. The thing arose spontaneously from an emerging freedom to buy and sell, to think and speak. But now the freedom that enabled growth, that opened the way to so many technological solutions, has gradually given way to a culture of self-deception, of cheating and lying, of entitlements and failed government programs. We have to admit that America may eventually end up like Russia and the Third World. Nobody knows if some new high-tech discovery will emerge to save the West from its energy dependence, but given the spirit of regulation, and the turkeys who increasingly call the shots in a bureaucracy “with all the stuffings,” there is reason to fear the worst. We wonder what happened to the likes of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. What we have, in their place, is a scientific bureaucracy. Can a bureaucracy – scientific or otherwise – resolve the crisis of energy dependence? Or will our scientist-bureaucrats make extravagant promises as months become years and years become decades? Consider NASA’s announcement on Dec. 4. The American space agency unveiled its plan to set up a lunar settlement around the moon’s south pole, a region where “volatile gases” like helium-3 could be mined as nuclear fuel. According to one enthusiastic scientist, if a spacecraft could carry just 25 tons of helium-3 from the moon to the earth, it would be enough to meet America’s energy needs for a year. There is a hitch, of course. We do not know how to build the fusion reactor needed to turn helium-3 into electricity. But don’t worry, your government will solve this problem about the same time they cure cancer. We cannot help wondering if this isn’t just another in a series of outrageous government boondoggles. Or should we call it a “moondoggle”? We may hope that helium-3 will save our grandchildren, but who will save us – here and now? According to the aforementioned CFR task force, “U.S. energy policy has been plagued by myths,” and politicians know that myths are sometimes more politically viable that truths. The CFR’s report lists the following five myths with regard to energy policy: (1) The United States can be energy independent; (2) “Cutting oil imports will lower fuel prices; (3) “Large Western companies like Exxon, Mobil, BP, and Chevron control the price of oil.” (In fact, the major oil companies only control about 10 percent of the world’s “proven hydrocarbon resources); and (4) “There is plenty of low-cost oil ready to be tapped; (5) “Renewable energy and nuclear power can quickly reduce dependence on oil and gas.” According to the CFR Task Force, conservation and increased energy efficiency are absolutely vital to “managing” our energy dependence. Even with the best results, we will remain at the mercy of foreign suppliers through most of the 21st century. As the CFR report stated, “Major energy suppliers – from Russia to Iran to Venezuela – have been increasingly able and willing to use their energy resources to pursue their strategic and political objectives. Major energy consumers … are finding that their growing dependence on imported energy increases their strategic vulnerability and constrains their ability to pursue a broad range of foreign policy and national security objectives.” With respect to the Western alliance, the CFR Task Force noted: “As Europe becomes even more dependent on Russian gas supply, it is likely that European governments will become even more reluctant to challenge Russia’s behavior on a wide range of issues, such as [nuclear] nonproliferation and anticorruption.” There is no quick or easy solution to the problem at hand. The best we can do, according to the CFR Task Force, is adopt “incentives to slow and eventually reverse the growth in consumption of petroleum products, especially … gasoline.” To this end we must embrace even higher gasoline taxes, stricter fuel economy standards, and tradable gasoline “vouchers” to cap national consumption totals. We will also need more nuclear power plants; and we will need to burn more coal, regardless of any resulting increase in carbon dioxide emissions. It should be acknowledged that “barring draconian measures” several decades of liquid fuel dependency loom ahead. And this means that the oil-rich countries will continue to be empowered at the expense of oil-dependent countries. An immediate consequence of America’s energy dependence may be grasped after reading the CFR report. Given the importance of oil to the global power equation, the United States cannot safely attack Iran’s budding nuclear infrastructure for fear of what Iranian missiles and torpedoes might do against oil tankers or oil facilities in the Persian Gulf. A military misadventure versus Iran could send the U.S. economy into a tailspin, alienate U.S. allies and justify a Russian-Venezuelan energy embargo against the U.S. with devastating economic consequences. Would America’s military power survive such an embargo? One may even doubt the stability of the American political system itself. © 2006 Jeffrey
R. Nyquist
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