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Global Energy Security and American Hegemony

Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael

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This analysis of the United States and energy security examines the close relationship between US military supremacy in oil-rich regions and America's maintenance of global power.

Energy security generally evokes thoughts of American intervention in the Middle East to protect US interests in that region's oil-rich fields. Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael move beyond that framework to consider US actions in Latin America, Central Asia, and Africa. Drawing on State and Defense Department records and other primary sources and previous scholarship, they show how US foreign policy since World War II has...

This analysis of the United States and energy security examines the close relationship between US military supremacy in oil-rich regions and America's maintenance of global power.

Energy security generally evokes thoughts of American intervention in the Middle East to protect US interests in that region's oil-rich fields. Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael move beyond that framework to consider US actions in Latin America, Central Asia, and Africa. Drawing on State and Defense Department records and other primary sources and previous scholarship, they show how US foreign policy since World War II has sought to maintain a global energy security regime that supports the nation's allies while maintaining American hegemony.

Stokes and Raphael explain how US intervention in energy-rich states insulates and stabilizes those nations' transnationally oriented actors and political economies and why American oil diversification strategy strengthens the country's position against rivals in the global capitalist system. They argue that counterinsurgency aid and other types of coercive US statecraft protect the recipient states from an array of potentially revolutionary armed and unarmed internal social forces, thereby securing the energy supplies of nations deemed strategically important to the United States or its allies.

Clear and accessible, this cutting-edge contemporary policy analysis will engage scholars of US foreign policy and international relations as well as policymakers grappling with the importance of energy security in today's world.

Reviews

Reviews

Global Energy Security and American Hegemony should definitely be on your reading list.

This well—researched book is impressive in its scholarship and insightful analysis of US pursuit of hegemony in oil—rich regions... Highly recommended.

Rests on a... grounded theoretical framework.

This brilliant book forces us to rethink the last 70 years. It demonstrates how the Iraqi invasion 'was clearly about oil'; how that quest has roots running back to the 1940s; and how lopsided policies termed 'globalization' have been integrated into this quest. These themes are graphically driven home in superb analyses of, among other areas, Latin America, the Middle East, and Central Asia—areas that will determine future American prosperity.

This sober analysis of the dynamics of U.S. power, focusing on the quest for energy security and the use of coercive power in the 'oil-rich global South,' is a significant corrective to the recent overemphasis on the personalities of presidents and the ideology of neo-conservatism. This persuasive book helps its readers to understand the essential continuities of the grand strategy of the U.S. state in the pursuit of the ‘necessities’ to maintain predominance in the global order.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
296
ISBN
9780801894978
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Global Oil Supplies and US Intervention
1. US Hegemony and Global Energy Security
2. Counterinsurgency and the Stabilization of Order
3. The Persian Gulf and

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Global Oil Supplies and US Intervention
1. US Hegemony and Global Energy Security
2. Counterinsurgency and the Stabilization of Order
3. The Persian Gulf and Beyond
4. The Caspian Basin: US Oil Hegemony in the Former Soviet Union
5. West Africa: Stabilizing the Gulf of Guinea
6. Latin America: Capital, Crude, and Counterinsurgency in America's "Backyard"
Conclusion: The Futures of American Hegemony?
Notes
Index

Author Bios
Doug Stokes
Featured Contributor

Doug Stokes, Ph.D.

Doug Stokes is a senior lecturer in international politics at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is the author of America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia.
Featured Contributor

Sam Raphael

Sam Raphael is a lecturer in politics, human rights, and international relations with the Kingston University's School of Social Sciences.