Military action to influence oil-producing nations ineffective, expert says

Clifford Singer, former director of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security, says trying to influence oil supply with military force in the Middle East is not only... Click here for more information.

There is another inconvenient truth about finite resources and human behavior on Planet Earth, an expert on international security and energy says. Trying to influence oil supply with military force in the Middle East is not only ineffective, it also is counterproductive.

So says Clifford Singer, a professor of nuclear engineering and of political science at the University of Illinois, who has done extensive work on energy systems for the U.S. Department of Energy. Singer also has been a visiting scholar working with the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and at the International Atomic Energy Agency. At Illinois, he recently stepped down as director of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security.

Singer’s latest analyses show that despite the deep-seated perception that oil-producing regions retain a special strategic importance, with strong effects on U.S. defense planning and strategy, “The time has already passed when oil was strategically important enough to require individual industrialized nations to be prepared to intervene militarily in oil-producing regions.”

Singer explains his findings in a policy analysis brief he recently published for the Stanley Foundation, titled “Oil and Security.” The brief was based on research Singer conducted for his forthcoming book titled “Energy and International War: From Babylon to Baghdad and Beyond.” His writings represent his personal views, not those of any funding sources, he said.

The works in question address the widespread belief that the U.S. needs to maintain military capability to intervene unilaterally in the Middle East, “because the oil in that region makes it strategically important.”

“This idea persists even though the invasion of Iraq resulted in reduced oil production and higher oil prices for many years.”