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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
In seriousness, according to the quoted article, Saudi Arabia's actions run contrary to America's security interests, which would make it a subversion of Realpolitik.
From what I understand, The reason the US tolerates nations like Saudi Arabia is because they're selling us oil, which the US has a very legitimate need for. I can see that being justified as Realpolitik
On the other hand, in this case I would rather the US should pursue a less friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia until they cut the crap.
Leviticus 19:34I would say it's more a case of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, since the Saudis notionally advance U.S. interests in the area and would make very bad enemies if we cut off their support, especially because most of their weapons are things we sold them.
edited 15th Aug '16 4:22:37 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Thanks, but I think the long-term strategy is to drain the Middle East oil fields dry before we begin using up the stuff in North America. That way, after Peak Oil Day when the shit hits the fan, we'll still have some here at home. And it'll be a bit easier to defend our own borders than to keep troops deployed half a world away. We'll just tell the Saudi's, "Thanks for the oil, but now that it's gone, you've got nothing we want. So you're on your own."
Makes sense. It would also make sense to develop the infrastructure to be able to pump in the oil more effectively now for when that time comes, especially since there's an ongoing economic slump at the moment. But then I'm a little biased there.
As someone who lives in Alberta, where we rely extensively on oil, could I ask what the reasons were for Obama blocking the Transcanada Pipeline all those months ago? Were the concerns primarily environmental ones? I mostly just saw a bunch of mud-slinging and fearmongering from the left and right while it was happening and genuinely want to understand what happened there.
Oissu!If I remember correctly, the pipeline got shot down because A) environmental issues, B) the construction was going to be done by the lowest bidder, so not good quality construction most likely, (which ties back into environmental) and C) the project was beginning to abuse Eminent Domain and the local governments were beginning to take people's land away with little to no warning.
Also, the "it creates jobs" argument was completely worthless. It would create some jobs...for a few months and then the jobs would disappear again.
edited 15th Aug '16 4:58:48 PM by Zendervai
From my experience, these jobs are always done by the lowest bidder because governments are cheap.
More ignorance on my part, but were these land seizures being done on a state or federal level? It seems a little odd to me that the federal would start these proceedings only to have Obama throw it out... But I guess that's how your guys' system works and why nothing gets done.
Oissu!Was that pipeline the Keystone pipeline? I remember we had a full on thread discussing it a while back.
Here's the thread if you want to take a look.
edited 15th Aug '16 5:02:55 PM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."So Transcanada put in a shitty bid because it was cheap to do so, the government accepted it over other pipelines because it was cheap, it caused a kerfuffle because trying to get the cheapest land available resulted in ranchers getting harassed and potential environmental issues due to the nature of the land. So instead of picking a different bid or trying to resolve the issue with a change order, the State Department dug their heels in and so did our government before Trudeau came in and no one got what they wanted in the end.
I'll stop derailing because the pipeline is pretty old news. It's just news everyone here is still really sore about because of the downturn in oil prices and the continued difficulty of not being able to get our crude oil down to the refineries in the USA. With the talk on Saudi oil I just thought maybe I could finally get some answers as to what happened.
edited 15th Aug '16 5:11:48 PM by PhiSat
Oissu!The main reason, I suspect, is that the government accountants foresaw the massive drop in oil prices coming and decided the cost/benefit simply wasn't worth it. Also it doesn't make much sense to invest in this big pipeline while trying to move away from fossil fuels.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?Eminent Domain is a very real issue some states have. Even my favorite project to be greenlit by our very conservative government down here in Texas, the Dallas-Houston bullet train, has gotten a bunch of flak for the heavy use of eminent domain on ranchers.
And on that note, protester for the Dallas-Houston bullet train shouts "Remember Pearl Harbor" because the train uses tech used in Japan's bullet trains.
The sad reality with Saudi Arabia is that it's felt that if the Saudi youth are employed, be it killing Yemeni children, crewing US sold weapons or working in the oil business, than said youth are less likely to turn to extremist Islam. On top of that the goverment is less likely to support extremist Islam directly and less US children are likely to die.
It's a trade.
edited 15th Aug '16 5:23:51 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIt's also worth noting that "peak oil" is proving to be something of a myth, as current scientific research says that the Earth has more petroleum in it (produced by abiological means, no less) than we could use in a thousand years. The trouble is getting to it, which is an environmental problem as much as it is a technology problem, but neither is insurmountable. Ultimately, the problem that will get us off of fossil fuels is the whole "baking the planet like a potato in a microwave" thing, not the "oh, no, we're out of oil and have to tear down our cities and live in a Scavenger World" thing.
Also, eminent domain is something that Republican voters are very much against, while their corporate-sponsored overlords are very much for, which is another reason Trump is so popular, even though he looooooves him some eminent domain. Makes perfect sense to me!
edited 15th Aug '16 5:27:50 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Obama allows the Saudi's to war in Yemen in exchange for their acquiescence to the Iran deal. The US's problem is that we are into half measures. We try to quietly influence our allies to be more humane, but at the end of the day if the US has to chose between Human rights and maintaining it's alliances, nine times out of ten it will chose the alliance. And that tenth time, when Obama refused to back up Mubark, is credited by many with setting the Middle East ablaze. We try to care about Human Rights, not only because doing otherwise would be intolerable to the domestic audience, but because deep down most of our leaders, not to mention numerous idealistic staffers at the state department want to be a "force for good." And yet we are mostly unwilling to sacrifice our alliances, especially when it comes to strategic assets like oil, and volatile regions like the Middle East.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.We'll always need oil, sure, but if green energy and electric car technology keeps improving at their current pace I can see oil going the way of coal in the not-to-distant future. It'll be very interesting to see how power is redistributed when a barrel goes for 20 bucks.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?Johnson and Stein have until September to get their poll numbers up to at least 15% to participate in the debates. For Johnson that could easily happen, if Trump stumbles badly (he's only about 5 points off). For Stein, who is at best 10 points away from the threshold, she'd require a Clinton implosion.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/15/media/commission-on-presidential-debates-polls/index.html
Imagine the whining from the Greens if the Johnson manages to sneak in but Stein remains irrelevant.
With respect to US oil sources, the United States has not been dependent on Middle Eastern oil as a primary petroleum source for a long time. Canada is by far the primary source of imported oil (both crude and refined), at almost three times the oil imports from the second largest source, Saudi Arabia (just over 3,000,000 barrels per day vs just over 1,100,000 barrels per day). Other countries in the Americas (mostly Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia, making up four of the top five foreign sources, but also Ecuador and Brazil) combined make up just over two-thirds of US oil imports. Of the remaining 9 of the top 15 foreign sources of US oil, four are Middle Eastern (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman), four are African (Nigeria, Libya, Angola, and Chad), and one is Indonesia. Domestic production outstrips them put together (total daily output from US oil fields last week was just shy of 8,500,000 barrels per day, while the top 15 sources of US crude oil imports shipped an average of about 7,800,000 barrels of crude oil per day in May (the most recent month I could find data for)).
As for oil "going the way of coal", that'd still leave oil burning stuff as a pretty significant market force. Coal burning was only recently surpassed by natural gas burning as the number one source of US electricity. Number 3 is nuclear (I favor more nuclear, personally), then renewables (combined), then hydropower, then petroleum and other gases. Coal hasn't really gone anywhere, unfortunately.
TL;DR: Middle Eastern oil isn't even close to the primary source for the USA - 2/3 of imports are from this hemisphere, and we actually extract more than we import.
edited 15th Aug '16 9:16:36 PM by Balmung

This makes me feel like posting this:
I'd think that's how realpolitik advocates would react.