New Realities: Energy Security In The 2010s and Implications for The U.S. Military
Abstract : Global energy markets are undergoing dramatic shifts. Developing countries are beginning to outpace their more developed counterparts in energy demand, the result not simply of higher economic growth rates in the former, but also due to increased efficiency in the latter. Traditional producers of hydrocarbons in places such as Latin America, Eurasia, North Africa, and the Middle East face a host of political, economic, technical, and societal challenges that could potentially lead to major disruptions in the global energy supply. Meanwhile, the unconventional fossil fuels revolution has led to major changes in the flow of the global energy supply, seemingly overnight. All of these changes will have implications for U.S. security generally and the U.S. military specifically. Evolving energy-based U.S. national interests in Africa or the Middle East may shape the degree to which the U.S. military becomes involved in political or humanitarian crises in those regions. Tightening energy supplies may alter fundamentally the way in which the United States wields military force in a contingency operation. And closer to home, increasingly vulnerable domestic energy infrastructure may undermine military installation operations and security. To further investigate the changes among energy producers and consumers and to subsequently assess the implications for the U.S. military, the Strategic Studies Institute the research arm of the U.S. Army War College organized a conference in November 2013 entitled, New Realities: Energy Security in the 2010s and Implications for the U.S. Military. That event, which included North American and European experts from government, the military, academia, the private sector, and think tanks, was hosted by the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, DC, and funded through the generous support of the U.S. Army War College Foundation.
The African ‘oil rush’ and US national security
Abstract The world's major oil-consuming nations, led by the USA, China and the Western European countries, are keenly interested in the development of African oil reserves, making huge bids for whatever exploration blocks become available and investing large sums in drilling platforms, pipelines, loading facilities and other production infrastructure. Indeed, the pursuit of African oil has taken on the character of a gold rush, with major companies from all over the world competing fiercely with one another for access to promising reserves. This ‘oil rush’ has enormous implications both for African oil producers and for the major oil-importing countries. For the producing countries it promises both new-found wealth and a potential for severe internal discord over the allocation of oil revenues (or ‘rents’); for the consuming countries, it entails growing dependence on imports of a vital substance from a region of chronic instability, with obvious national security overtones. Both these trends are reflected in US policy towards African oil. Desperate to procure additional supplies of foreign oil (to make up for the decline in domestic output), the Bush administration has made strenuous efforts to increase the role of US energy firms in African production. But because instability in Africa is an obstacle to such investment, it has sought to boost the internal security capacity of friendly African states and has laid the groundwork for direct US military involvement in Africa. At the same time Washington has become deeply concerned by China's growing interest in African oil, provoking an intense competitive contest between the two, with growing military overtones. In the end African societies will most probably suffer from this competition as an influx of arms bolsters the capacity of entrenched African regimes.
Cultural constraints on the delivery of HIV/AIDS prevention in Ireland.
HIV appeared in Ireland following an opiate epidemic in the early 1980s. Initially, however, the gay community mounted the only response to the spread of the virus while the implementation of early actions by the government was hampered by the constructions of the disease within Irish society. This paper considers the influence of the religious hierarchy in both the development of AIDS policy and in the shaping of public perceptions of the disease and those affected. A qualitative methodology is used to examine the role of such cultural constraints in an evaluation of the social context within which the prevention of HIV infection occurs. Three key issues pertinent to the policy context in Ireland are explored in depth. These are the role of the Catholic Church, the influences on health education programmes, particularly information giving, and the development of services and other interventions. These findings are discussed within the social and political contexts in which health policy is formulated.