Clash of Civilizations Theory and the House of Chavez

I wrote the following for a class presentation for PetE 489. Since this was an academic assignment I noted my references even though they weren't specifically required. The presentation was based on an Annotation in the June 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine "The end of cheap oil and the rise of the House of Chavez".

For most of the early part of the last century global relations were dominated by the two World Wars. With the unconditional surrender of Axis forces in 1945 however, a new world order was quickly established out of which grew the Cold War. From virtually the end of the Second World War until the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s the world was consumed by bipolar relations; the free world versus the soviet bloc, NATO versus the Warsaw Pact. With the Soviet Empire crumbling it became increasingly clear that the Cold-War model of world relations would soon be inadequate, if it wasn’t, in fact already. Several models were advanced including one by Samuel P. Huntington in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article that later culminated in this 1996 book entitled “The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of World Order.” The basic premise of this model is that, in Huntington’s own words, “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” It is to this geopolitical model that I subscribe and one that I believe is useful in describing the antagonistic relationship between Chavez’s Venezuela and other OPEC members as well as between petroleum importing nations, especially western importing nations, such as the United States.

According to the June 2006 Harper’s Magazine article, Chavez plans to offer the US a chance to lock in the price of oil at $50 a barrel to stabilize investment in his country’s heavy oil sector. This offer will be ignored as the US – Chavez relationship has been rocky at best. At various times Chavez has threatened to cut the US off from Venezuelan exports and has accused the US, perhaps rightly, of attempting to spy on, or overthrow his regime. Despite the often-combative nature of their relationship, the US is the largest consumer of Venezuelan petroleum, which in turn forms the fourth largest source for all US petroleum imports. So why is the US – Venezuelan relationship so much more tenuous than, say, the US – Canadian relationship when Canada is the largest source of foreign oil for the Americans? The reason can be explained by the “clash” theory presented previously. Canada and the US are cultural kin whereas the US and Venezuela are not. Therefore Canada and the US are able to more easily work towards resolutions while the US and Venezuela trade acid-tongue remarks, and economic ultimatums. There are certainly other forces at play, but they are ultimately rooted in a clash of civilizations. Many countries have historically seen petroleum resources as strategic, including both the US and Venezuela. In fact, the “U.S Strategic Petroleum Reserve” is the world’s largest government owned stockpile of crude oil, which is to be used in the case of a commercial supply disruption, in the style of the ’73-’74 oil embargo, or to quote “provide a national defense fuel reserve.” Clearly when petroleum supply is viewed in this light it is easy to see where differing foreign policy goals can come into conflict. Further once the “clash of civilizations” model is accepted, it seems only natural that the United States and other western importing nations would have an antagonistic relationship with oil-exporting Venezuela.

The keen observer will note at this point, that the American-Saudi relationship appears far less hostile than the US-Venezuelan relationship and certainly Saudi Arabia is not the cultural kin of the Americas. This is true and I will deal with it shortly, it is however important to keep in mind, as Thomas Kuhn stated in his “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” that quote “a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which is can be confronted.” The answer to the earlier question though, is that yes, the Americans and Saudis do clash and even, or perhaps, especially over oil. In fact at the height of the 1970’s oil boom John B. Kelly noted that “for the Saudi’s, there is undoubtedly a double satisfaction to be gained from the infliction of humiliating punishments upon Westerners” and further that actions of Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Muslim states “amount to nothing less than a bold attempt to lay the Christian West under tribute to the Muslim East.” Since then the American-Saudi relationship has been strengthened and made less tenuous by a myriad of other factors and a symbiotic relationship has formed in spite of their cultural disparity. On one hand the Americans reliably import significant quantities of Saudi petroleum, as well as providing tacit support to the House of Saud, despite it being one of the most draconian, totalitarian regimes on the planet. On the other hand, as mentioned in the Harper’s article, the Saudi’s return many of their American petrodollars to the US treasury, they allow Americans to operate in the Saudi oilfields in large western style camps, and the royal family keeps a tight leash on both the oft volatile OPEC and internal revolutionary forces that would certainly be less American friendly. So while there is a civilization clash between the US and Saudi Arabia, for the moment it is off set by complimentary foreign policy and domestic goals.

So what does the future hold for Chavez and the world? It’s hard to say really. Chavez has recently been elected to another six-year term that extends until 2013 and has further stated his intentions to alter the Venezuelan constitution to allow him to run for additional terms. It is therefore safe to say Chavez is here to stay. While it’s no secret that the personal relationship between Bush and Chavez is hostile, don’t bet on friendlier relations between Chavez and Bush’s successor in 2009. The new US Democratic congress is determined to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil especially from such enigmatic sources as Chavez’s Venezuela.

References:

Huntington, Samuel P. “Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993.

Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Associated Press, “Venezuela’s Chavez sworn in for third term.” [Online document] 2007, [2007 Jan 16], Available at: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070110/chavez_070110/20070110/

Russo, Tracy. The Democratic Party of the United States of America. “Middle Class Mandate” [Online document] 2006, [2007 Jan 16], Available at: http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/12/middle_class_ma.php

Energy Information Administration, “Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries” [Online document] 2007, [2007 Jan 17], Available at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

BBC News, “Chavez makes US oil export threat” [Online document] 2005, [2007 Jan 17], Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4153318.stm

U.S Department of Energy. “Fossil Energy: U.S Petroleum Reserves” [Online document] 2007, [2007 Jan 17], Available at: http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/

OilFinancier Review

This is a copy of the review I wrote for Dave Volek, inventor of OilFinancier after taking part in the OF2 seminar.

I came across Oil Financier (OF) via a poster in the Petroleum Computer Lab at University of Alberta in late 2005. I read about OF on the website and decided it would probably be fun but I was a little skeptical about how educational OF would be. Nevertheless I set to work building a spreadsheet to handle OF using the knowledge gained in my engineering economics class (UofA Engg 310). Throughout OF I did learn a lot about negotiation, the best way to entice various other financiers into contracts and I used my spreadsheet to evaluate whether a deal was worth making or how to choose between two potential deals when cash flow was restricted. At the end of the seminar I was still skeptical how beneficial OF would be in a truly educational sense versus the every experience teaches you something kind of way. It was not until the second half of my oil and gas property evaluation course (UofA PetE 484) that I realized how valuable OF was. The concepts weren’t hard and I don’t think any of my classmates struggled with them but undoubtedly I had a keener sense of how to handle the problems. It seemed very natural to decide between two projects and the various tactics that could be used. While many companies have software to handle these decisions in industry it never hurts to be acutely aware of how to tackle the problems on the back of a napkin. OF can certainly be an enjoyable experience, but it is important to note that you get out what you put in. Further, OF in its own small way will help prepare young professionals for Calgary’s ivory towers.

www.OilFinancier.com

Top news stories of 2006

The following is an article that I read on New Year's Eve from CTV.ca. The article struck me as profound. I don't know exactly why, but I really like it.

"It's just one of those unshakeable human characteristics, the compulsion to look back. Right or wrong, we may think it gives us a sense of where we're going. That we're given the chance to control the future but only when we codify our past.
No doubt there are two intellectual pathways at work -- the philosophical and the psychological. Sometimes the on- and off-ramps intersect.

To work in news or to have a daily news routine; be it television, radio, newspaper, Internet or any combination of media sources, is to have an overriding need to compartmentalize. There is simply too much to sift through and our lives are complicated.

When it's good news, we want desperately to relive it and this is where television shines with its emphasis on the image. Replaying the moment elevates our mood. Maybe it's a historic handshake, a pithy quote from an expert or a kindness shown to an animal, a child or the elderly. Let's not discount the elation brought by victory for a Canadian medical team on the world stage. Or what about something as monumental, albeit rare, as the end of a war? Heady stuff that. Progress for humankind, we tell ourselves.

Bad news is different. Modern technology allows us to see almost everything that happens, as it happens. Fear and anxiety sets in because we can't possibly understand all the reasons why. So we mark the event with a mental date stamp and when it's an all-out catastrophe we pray that it never happens again. But we're not stupid; we know that inevitably it will. There will be hurricanes and plane crashes, and humans will perpetrate evil on other humans.

And that's a year, 365 days of something we rarely comprehend it its entirety. Good and bad. Triumph and tragedy. Some events we wait to pass judgment on. What we know for sure is that while we're living our lives, other people are living theirs -- sometimes in the storm of a media crush.

This year, in the countdown to 2007, CTV News is offering up an unscientific selection of the top ten news stories of 2006.

For the record, here they are.

1. Stephen Harper Elected Prime Minister
2. War in Afghanistan
3. Lebanese-Canadians Evacuated From Middle East War Zone
4. British Columbia Ferry Disaster
5. Dawson College Shooting
6. Alleged Toronto Terror Suspect Arrests
7. Laval, Quebec Overpass Collapse
8. Canada's Winter Olympic Medal Count
9. West Coast Storms
10. Stephane Dion Elected Liberal Leader

It's instructive to remember that daily news has been called the first rough draft of history. That axiom also applies to Top Ten lists. Sometimes objectivity gets trampled by emotion when stories hit on a purely personal level. Arguments are expected and encouraged.

I was not on the CTV panel that contributed to the formation of the list. My ideas went into producing the nightly broadcast, CTV News with Lloyd Robertson, when these stories received their treatments the first time around.
Some thoughts: I fail to see the point in discussing the inclusion of politicians who may turn out to be blips on the national landscape five years or five months from now. First, let them do great things ... or allow them to fail. Then consider them. The mere fact that they were elected doesn't impress me. I was elected class president in 1974. Believe me I wasn't that good. I go with the experts who tell me to pay attention to municipal politics, the rest is only window dressing.
War, it appears, is with us no matter horrifying we may find it and how much it hurts to see our brave men and women in its grip. I wholeheartedly agree with its place on the list.

It's easy to pass off sports as nothing more than, well, sports, and certainly not news. The fact is, sometimes I feel that way, and yet one of the greatest nights of my life was with my brother, watching the Canadian team beat the Russians from the blue seats at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1972.
As someone who helped produce the news, night after night this year, three stories on that list stand out: the B.C. ferry sinking; the overpass collapse; and the Dawson School shooting. The theme should be apparent. I'm like most people. I follow rules (most of the time) and I put my trust (naively, perhaps) in officialdom. I almost never question my right to travel freely and with an expectation of safety in our great Canadian society. I'm willing to bet that most of the victims of those three stories -- many of them emotionally shattered now, for who knows how long -- felt the same way.

So there you have it. Our top ten list of news stories that meant the most to Canadians in 2006. Some choices I agree with, some I don't. Where are Frank and Nancy Ianiero, for example? What story would you remove to include them? Welcome to the world of a news producer. Your chair is waiting ... and so are more than one million people every night who think they know better. And who knows. They may be right."

Information overload causes conversation to crash

I read an article in "The Economist" (December 23rd 2006) the other day. It was on the art of conversation entitled "Chattering Classes." It went through a brief history of conversation through the ages, from Socrates and Plato to today's Barnes & Nobles shelves brimming with self-help books on how to be a better conversationalist. The main comment of the article was on how the etiquette of conversations has changed remarkably little from the time that Cicero in 44BC wrote "On Duties."

The final portion of the article states quotes Stephen Miller as writing "neither digital music players nor computers were invented to help people avoid real conversations, but they have that effect." This struck me as remarkably true.

In late 17th century France the French elites were shut out of politics by an absolute monarch and then turned their energies towards entertaining themsleves. And you know what they did? They had conversations. Conversations that were highly scrutinized and highly stylised. We don't do that anymore. We don't sit and talk for the eentertainment. The television is always on, and if not the television then the stereo system. Dinner is taken in front the television or in front of the computer. Conversations reduced to the bare minimum number of words without care for grammar or spelling or punctuation or form.

I am not going to decry technology. I am not going to blame MSN Messenger for the decline of the english language. Nor libel the iPod, or cell phones, or PSP's or other portable media for the downfall of civilization. But these devices, these technologies were meant to make our lives more enjoyable, not less and how can our lives be more enjoyable when we would rather plug ourselves in to the latest offering of Snoop Dogg than to converse with our fellow man?

Our generation has instant access to such a vast library of information, information that is constantly being updated as new information screams through the twenty-four hour news cycle. Yet take a look at your MSN conversations, think about your last cell phone exchange, or even the last time you talked to an actual human being. Rarely do we converse above small talk. Perhaps so many topics are wrapped up in political correctness that we have given up trying to tiptoe through a conversation. Perhaps we have become so good at filtering through the ocean of information available to us that we are able to boil down everything to a couple of bullet points. Perhaps we simply find it less enjoyable to talk with one another than to see some fame-seeker eat a worm trying to win $50,000. Either way, it is a shame that the art of conversation has been sent back to the stone age.