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.
‘Forget the Rhetoric and Boost the Geopolitics’: Emerging Trends in the Bush Administration's Policy Towards Africa, 2001
This article assesses the Bush administration's self-proclaimed 'realist' policy towards Africa, the essential thrust of which is captured by the motto: 'Forget the rhetoric and boost the geopolitics'. Three essential elements of this approach include the strategic imperative of cultivating strong links with Africa's leading regional powers, most notably Nigeria and South Africa, harkening back to the Nixon administration's strategy of relying on such powers to ensure regional stability; building upon the Clinton administration's success in promoting US trade and investment with African countries, with a special focus on oil-producing countries; and underscoring the need for Africans to 'do more for themselves' in the realm of conflict resolution, suggesting a low-profile Bush administration approach to involvement in either peacekeeping or peacemaking operations. Emerging trends are analyzed by treating the US policymaking establishment as a series of three concentric circles: the inner circle of the White House; a second circle comprising the bureaucracies of the executive branch; and an outer circle inclusive of the US Congress and the larger African affairs constituency. An important result of White House and Congressional neglect of Africa is that the Bush administration's foreign policy towards Africa, perhaps more so than that directed towards any other region of the world, essentially will be delegated to the high-level bureaucrats and political appointees within the executive branch, leading to an outcome best characterized as 'bureaucratic incrementalism' in which continuity rather than change will mark the administration's policies towards Africa. THE INAUGURATION IN JANUARY 2001 OF GEORGE W. BUSH as the 43rd President of the United States potentially heralds the beginning of a new era in US policy towards Africa. As was the case with two previous presidential transitions in which Republican Presidents took office after a period of Democratic Party control of the White House (Nixon's replacement of Johnson in January 1969 and Reagan's replacement of Carter in January 1981), the Bush foreign policy team has castigated its Democratic predecessor (the Clinton administration) as having pursued an overly idealistic and ultimately Peter J. Schraeder is associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. His most recent books include African Politics and Society: A mosaic in transformation (2000) and Exporting Democracy: Rhetoric versus reality (forthcoming 2001).
The Tsetse Problem on the Eastern Cattle Route in the Gold Coast
1. Primary fly-belts round Makongo consisted of three different vegetational communities: a Cynometra-Vitex association along the main length of the Makongo river, on a clay soil; a Ficus congensis association along the river close to the town, on a sandy soil; and Isoberlinia doka woodland on moist sandy soil north-west and south of Makongo. 2. Secondary fly-belts of less dense vegetation occur in the orchard bush savannah round Makongo, and these are not colonised until the commencement of the rainy season. 3. Glossina tachinoides and G. palpalis both occurred in the riverside communities, and G. palpalis alone in the Isoberlinia woodland. 4. Along the river G. palpalis outnumbered G. tachinoides by 3:1 in the dry season. At the commencement of the rains G. tachinoides increased more quickly than G. palpalis , bringing their numbers very nearly equal, but at the end of the rains there was a decrease in G. tachinoides which restored the original proportion. 5. G. morsitans had been found at Makongo formerly but was not met with at the time of this investigation, its absence being due to the disappearance of the larger antelope from the neighbourhood. 6. Smaller game animals, small mammals and reptiles afforded an adequate food supply for tsetse in the fly-belts, and also passing herds of cattle, as well as natives from the village and travellers. 7. The distribution of G. palpalis within the fly-belts was markedly influenced by the proximity of a cattle road along which herds of cattle passed almost daily, and by village water-holes. 8. During the dry season the primary foci were always found to be the places of greatest relative humidity, and the fly does not tend to move out of these until the general atmospheric humidity has reached a certain fairly high degree. 9. In clearing the fly-belts the removal of all primary foci within a quarter of a mile of the town and of thick bush within 100 yards of water-holes was undertaken. The work lasted from the beginning of February to the end of March 1931. 10. The effect of clearing the Isoberlinia doka woodland was to banish G. palpalis completely, and it never returned to these clearings. 11. On clearing the riverside Ficus congensis fly-belt, G. tachinoides was practically eliminated for the first three months, but reappeared in the clearings in June when there was a general increase and up-stream migration of this fly. G. palpalis remained in this clearing in fluctuating numbers up to June, when observations were suspended. 12. 565 marked tsetse were liberated in the fly-belts immediately previous to clearing. Of G. palpalis 12·7% were recaptured in the clearings and 11% outside the clearings. Of G. tachinoides 5·5% were recaptured in the clearings and 6·8% outside.