[88840-8855]

The US bombed oil producing countries when they tried to drop the petro dollar and the US was and is very depending on imports. Should we do the US model and bomb Russia ... or Should the US follow your suggestions and put US presidents into prison?

[aa-jv]

The solution to this crisis is for the remaining free people of the world to start demanding war criminals be prosecuted for their actions - whether American or Russian, it doesn't matter.

Until we start jailing the war criminals and undoing the actions they've taken, we're headed into the abyss.

[vachina]

> The US bombed oil producing countries when they tried to drop the petro dollar

Interesting. Is there a book that truthfully describes this event? (Not an American)

[jcranmer]

The only two countries that even come credibly close to this proposition are Libya and Iraq, and even there the evidence is paltry (in particular for Libya, Qaddafi had spouted rhetoric about abandoning pricing in dollars off and on for decades prior to the Libyan Civil War, and no one has produced any evidence that Libya was even close to actually doing anything about it).

It also fails to take into account all the countries who have tried selling oil not priced in USD and received no blowback from the US for it, such as Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. (This is not an exhaustive list, I believe.)

That's not to say that oil doesn't play a role in US foreign policy--US-Middle Eastern policy for much of the 20th century can be pretty fairly summarized as "keep the oil flowing"--but the idea that pricing energy in USD is a central plank of US foreign policy is one without identifiable foundation.

[berdario]

> countries who [...] received no blowback from the US [...], such as Venezuela, Iran[...], and Russia

Lol...

There's been sanctions (and coups, for the first two) against those.

Sure, the parent was strictly talking about "bombing", but just because an US bomber didn't physically drop bombs on their land, it doesn't mean that there was no blowback

[jcranmer]

> There's been sanctions (and coups, for the first two) against those.

Not for moving away from USD, or merely talking about it.

Indeed, of those examples you cited, trying to move oil sales away from USD happened after the US imposed sanctions (and, it can be reasonably referred, in part because of the sanctions).

[berdario]

Sure, Mossadegh didn't try to move away from USD, he just tried to nationalize their oil industry.

In both cases, those are acts contrary to US interests, and trying to argue that we shouldn't consider the US reactions as part of the same pattern is sophistry

[panick21_]

Its mostly not true. Some people assume that all US policy is actually oil policy and that the $ is valuable because of petrol. Neither is really true.

Sure in the last 70 years oil was important to US in foreign policy but its far from the only or dominate factor in most of it.

[brnaftr361]

Yeah, most people don't understand that the USD is granted value by the fact we'll come in with the world's most expensive army to kick down your doors and occupy your nation for a decade if you so much as consider stepping out of line. And one of those lines conveniently is oil exchange with that USD; which also happens to be the modern worlds biggest shared dependency.

[panick21_]

Yeah but funny enough some countries that don't do what the US wants like Cuba, Venezuela Iran, North Korea are not invaded and some of those have oil. During the oil crisis the US didn't invade countries that didn't sell oil.

At the same time the US invaded Vietnam, Iraq, Lybia, Syria and helped fight wars in places like Yemen. Some that don't have oil.

Are you seriously suggesting if France and Saudi Arabia traded in $ the US would invade either country?

At the same time the US is heavily involved with Israel/Palestine neither have oil.

So the idea that its all about oil is incredibly reductionist and a totally false understanding of US policy making.

In fact if you go threw most of the supposed 'its all about oil' foreign policy issues in more details and you look at the decision makes, oil usually isn't actually the driving force.

[brnaftr361]

Of course they're not invaded, we Banana Republic or Contra their asses, conversely we squeeze the everloving shit out of them through finance. There's also simply the concept of a persistent credible threat: look at a map of US bases. Note also I did indicate that it wasn't the exclusive determinant by using the phrase "one of those lines."

We've also fucked with Cuba, Iran, Venezuela.

Iraq did have oil and the Saudis were using directional drilling to tap it, which initiated the first Gulf War. Palestine is a proxy war.

Until the US is critically weakened, France will not trade in Francs or Rubles or etc... And Europe is dependent on the US for continued geopolitical stability.

[panick21_]

Banana Republics were about Fruit not oil. Lots things like Contra and other things the US does are for lots of reasons.

The US$ is the reserve currency and has been for quite a while and this is for a number of reasons but the idea that its all because of oil is simple not the case.

The US fucked with countries for lots of reasons, oil is an issue but not the dominant one.

Some people simply overestimate the impact of oil on policy choices.

Its is incredibly short sited and wrong when people attempt to make everything about oil when there are lots and lots of other reason that actually influence policy makers.

[dekhn]

The US doesn't depend on imports- we choose to not exploit our resources when other countries are happy to sell theirs cheaply.

[testfoobar]

The US is a net energy exporter.

[YesWeWill]

What does it have to do with the US? This is about the EU only. The EU only put all focus on "green" energy and then tried to solve the problems it created with fossil fuels while forgetting about or even actively working against nuclear. What the US did has nothing to do with that.

[jltsiren]

The EU put focus on replacing coal with natural gas, as that was the cheapest way of reaching their emission goals. Similar reductions would have been far more expensive with renewables or nuclear. Economics beat geopolitics, because the dominant ideology in the EU is using regulated markets to achieve policy goals.

This year geopolitics struck back and made the rational economic choice a poor one in retrospect.

[YesWeWill]

It was never a rational economic choice, everybody in the eastern EU knew this is coming. While we were sounding the alarms and pointing to Georgia in 2008, Westerners were busy mashing "reset buttons" with uncle Putin. Not even 2014 invasion to Ukraine changed their minds and now they act surprised?

You could've simply read the official Russian doctrine. "oil is for profits, gas is for political control" - they even published it on the web FFS.

[jltsiren]

"Rational" does not mean "smart", "good", or "beneficial to the society".

It was the choice businesses made, because they believed it was the best way to make profit in the energy market. The EU agreed on emission quotas and set up the emission trade system, in order to let the market choose how to reduce emissions. The market chose natural gas, and the politicians allowed that, because they believed in the wisdom of the market.

[YesWeWill]

I don't believe that for a minute - since now the market is choosing nuclear the moment the EU allowed it to be considered green. We were waiting for it for a decade with projects in hand and now there are entire new reactors being built, all so suddenly. Experts from my country were lobbying for that at least since 2008. The EU commission has chosen feels instead of evidence and nobody will ever pay for that - except Ukrainians with their lives and poorer Europeans with their savings.

And BTW this isn't just about the market - our state wanted to support nuclear but the EU sued it for unfair competition. Oh no, the German electricity producers might make less profit from their Russian gas, what would we do?!?!?

[rowanajmarshall]

> The EU only put all focus on "green" energy and then tried to solve the problems it created with fossil fuels while forgetting about or even actively working against nuclear.

I'm not sure that's true. The EU (25%) as a whole has more nuclear energy than the US (19%). About half of EU countries use nuclear power, keeping in mind almost half of EU countries have less people than Massachusetts.

Remember, the EU doesn't generally run energy policy. The individual countries do. If anything, it was a lack of commitment to green energy that led to this.

[YesWeWill]

The EU assigns money it takes from the states - money the pro-nuclear states would've used for their nuclear energy, but since it was appropriated by the EU and then assigned by its own rules that were constructed to rule out nuclear energy, they couldn't. So our pro-nuclear state has huge fields of solar arrays that everybody here hates because it replaced natural parks and makes us more reliant on gas powerplants, and the our/EU money was taken by gangsters, we call them the "solar barons" - great, thanks EU.

[rowanajmarshall]

For France (and I imagine it's similar for other countries), EU contributions are a smidgen under 1% of GDP. I can't imagine that makes the decisive difference here. And in any case, since the EU still gets more of its energy from nuclear than the US does they'd be doing a piss-poor job of it.

In fact, looking at the figures, the only countries worldwide that get more energy from nuclear than the EU _and_ aren't part of the EU are Ukraine (55%), South Korea (28%), Switzerland (29%), and Armenia (25%). And both Switzerland and Ukraine are synchronised with the greater European grid!

[YesWeWill]

Ukraine has been synchronized only very recently and it's much more like an emergency interconnect. Zaporozhi Power Plant is under attack.

[rowanajmarshall]

But it still shows there's more nuclear energy floating around the EU and it's neighbours than any other region of the world.

[rr888]

Most Oil from the Middle East goes to Asia and Europe, US produces enough energy itself. Yes US tries to stabilize the region, I think Asia and Europe gives not enough thanks.

[88840-8855]

The same how the US tries to stabilize the Taiwan/China conflict? :)))

[rr888]

I dont think that has anything to do with oil. Kinda similar though, should the USA help democratic small countries from authoritarian bullies next door? Maybe USA should just let the world burn like the Europeans do.