Main Page | Month Archive | Email Updates | RSS Feed | Print Version

The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

CAN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY COUNTER RESOURCE NATIONALISM?
SEP 28, 2006 - 1:22PM PST
Posted by Joshua Kurlantzick

Via http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061002&s=kurlantzick100206

Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in China -- and quickly made himself at home. The occasion was a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional group linking China, Russia, and Central Asia. During the summit, Ahmadinejad seemed to be everywhere. He posed, arms linked, with Russian and Chinese officials, who said nothing as he called for "impartial and independent experts" to investigate whether the Holocaust happened. He delivered a major address broadcast on Chinese state television. He touted Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing's "identical" views on world issues. And he proposed making "the SCO into a strong and influential economic, political, and trade institution [to] thwart the threat of domineering powers." One can guess which domineering power he had in mind. Ahmadinejad's Shanghai strategy signals a potentially momentous change in the international system--a change overshadowed by the war on terrorism. In four key regions of the globe--East Asia, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Latin America--a toxic combination of factors has created a new, fluid alliance of nations that could potentially oppose the United States and other democracies. In the past five years, each of these regions have witnessed rising nationalism and anti-Americanism, the result of greater domestic confidence and clumsy U.S. foreign policy. In all four regions, countries that have flirted with democracy since 1989 have begun to turn their backs on it. And, in all four regions, authoritarian governments have a new weapon, one potentially more powerful than nukes or suicide bombers: oil. Three of these regions contain major oil exporters, while China, thanks to its powerhouse economy, is now the world's second-largest oil consumer, behind the United States. China's appetite gives these countries an alternative to the United States and other democratic oil-guzzling customers--and thereby holds this loose alliance together. As Middle East experts Flynt Leverett and Pierre Noel note in a fascinating recent National Interest article, with their power, confidence, and common interest in oil, the members of this new alliance probably will ensure that Iran obtains nuclear capacity. And Iran could be only the beginning. This alliance of authoritarian regimes -- Leverett and Noel, along with others like economist Irwin Stelzer, call it an "axis of oil" -- could pose the most serious threat to the United States and its democratic allies since the collapse of the Soviet empire. Unlike the Soviet Union, however, this axis does not offer a comprehensive ideological alternative to the United States comparable to communism; indeed, many of its member countries have embraced elements of capitalism, while using very different political models. Instead, the world has returned to an earlier system, one reminiscent of the early twentieth century, when ideology was not paramount but new powers like Germany and Japan developed flexible alliances to win resources and to weaken Great Britain, the world's strongest country at the time. Welcome to a new era of resource nationalism. Less than a decade ago, most policymakers thought oil's viability as a weapon had gone out with skinny…... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (4) | Add Your Own

Read Comments:

Andy Sternberg on September 28, 2006 @ 1:58 pm:
Blog contributor Craig Hayden responds to this post here

Carl Holder on September 29, 2006 @ 11:04 pm:
"the axis of oil and autocracy"
You have not identified the impact of the nuclear renaissance and the Global Nuclear Partnership, INPRO, etc. Imported oil can be replaced.

Jack Lifton on October 3, 2006 @ 11:07 pm:
Resource nationalism is not an all or nothing agenda. The United States is about due to recognize that it cannot depend on the world's good will to ensure a continued flow of metals and minerals that our domestic environmentalists have dismissed as too impure of production to be considered.

Paul Reese on October 30, 2006 @ 9:04 am:
In your scenario, it's the United States and the European countries that appear to be the shut out Axis, and the likely ones to start a global war. Much like Japan and Germany were the shut out Axis of WWII.

The US is in a no-win situation. If they want to have China as an ally, the US will eventually have to open up it's resources to Chinese investment and ownership. China will eventually see the need to turn its trillion dollar USD holdings into real tangible assets.

Add a Comment:

Your Name:
Your Email:
Comment:
Please enter the word you see in the image below:

NOTE: Comments are moderated by CPD and will typically be posted if they are relevant and respectful.