I-BRIDGE's blog (Link Campus University's Research Centre on Global Affairs) - editor, Marco Emanuele - Critical thinking, complexity, international relations (Twitter, @Glob_Eye - Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/marco.emanuele.50)
Showing posts with label John C. Hulsman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John C. Hulsman. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Saudi-Turkish ties amount to a major strategic realignment in the Middle East (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
If you are dealing with rational actors (which is surely not always the case) global geopolitics is a bit like high math; there are routinized equations – strategic moves on the map – that just make logical, irrefutable sense. The recent visit of the Saudi Crown Prince to Ankara heralds a possibly decisive strategic counter-stroke to rising Iranian adventurism in the Middle East. Enduring, closer Saudi-Turkish ties provide political balance to Iran’s growing ambitions, amounting to nothing less than the nascent formation of a competing strategic bloc in the region.
Sunday, 4 September 2016
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Friday, 3 June 2016
Defeating ISIS solves nothing without a political solution (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
Conventional wisdom would have you believe that things are looking up in the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). As of the end of May, the caliphate has lost 46 percent of its territory in Iraq and 16 percent in Syria, according to the Pentagon - a faster collapse than American officials had thought possible
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/06/02/Defeating-ISIS-solves-nothing-without-a-political-solution.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/06/02/Defeating-ISIS-solves-nothing-without-a-political-solution.html
Tuesday, 17 May 2016
Sisi’s failing Egypt highlights the crisis of the Middle East (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
Traditionally since the time of Nasser, Egypt – based both on its demography and military might – has been first among equals in the Middle East, a perennial great power without which regional stability would not be possible. However, following the chaotic final years of the Mubarak era, and the shambolic interregnum of the Muslim Brotherhood that followed, Egypt has slid off the economic map, endangering its status in the region
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/05/17/Sisi-s-failing-Egypt-highlights-the-crisis-of-the-Middle-East.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/05/17/Sisi-s-failing-Egypt-highlights-the-crisis-of-the-Middle-East.html
Wednesday, 4 May 2016
Is this Iraqi’s last and best chance to reform itself? (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
While the US obsesses about the evil that is ISIS, a greater long-term problem, festering for years, has come to a boil in front of the world’s eyes: the obvious collapse of the Iraqi state. This is of far greater strategic consequence than whether and when ISIS can be dislodged from Mosul. For without a functioning Iraq, radicalism is bound to re-emerge, just as ISIS is merely the latest iteration of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), having risen from the ashes, nurtured by Iraqi political dysfunction.
Monday, 18 April 2016
Fixing the Obama doctrine in the Middle East (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
As this column has consistently argued, at the highest Olympian strategic level, there is absolutely nothing wrong the with Obama administration’s general foreign policy strategy for dealing with our new multipolar world.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/04/18/Fixing-the-Obama-doctrine-in-the-Middle-East.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/04/18/Fixing-the-Obama-doctrine-in-the-Middle-East.html
Tuesday, 12 April 2016
While Trump boggles the mind, Hillary will be no picnic for the Middle East either (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
The world’s fascination with the car crash that is Donald Trump is certainly understandable. However, lost in the global horror at the prospects of the White House being managed by someone with only the foggiest understanding of international relations, is the almost wholly unexamined case of what Hillary Clinton is likely to do as president.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/04/12/While-Trump-boggles-the-mind-Hillary-will-be-no-picnic-for-the-Middle-East-either.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/04/12/While-Trump-boggles-the-mind-Hillary-will-be-no-picnic-for-the-Middle-East-either.html
Tuesday, 29 March 2016
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
We will all come to miss Obama’s realism (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
You have to hand it to Barack Obama. Most presidents wait until they are safely out of office to launch their valedictories, summing up what they have learned about the world after years working at the most demanding job there is. Not President Obama. In an extraordinary series of long interviews with The Atlantic, he clearly spelled out that it was the horribly botched invasion of Libya that cemented his cautious, realist view of foreign policy.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/03/15/We-will-all-come-to-miss-Obama-s-realism.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/03/15/We-will-all-come-to-miss-Obama-s-realism.html
Wednesday, 2 March 2016
Why a crisis lies ahead for American foreign policy (John C. Hulsman, Aspenia online)
Super Tuesday fulfilled its traditional role of determining the two nominees for the presidency. Yes, if Hillary Clinton were to be indicted for her email server shenanigans after the FBI investigation (a long-shot but not impossible) Senator Bernie Sanders would inherit the Democratic nomination. Likewise, if Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Governor John Kasich of Ohio were to win their home states in the winner-take-all primaries of March 15, you could just about argue that Donald Trump could still be stopped.
http://www.aspeninstitute.it/aspenia-online/article/why-crisis-lies-ahead-american-foreign-policy
http://www.aspeninstitute.it/aspenia-online/article/why-crisis-lies-ahead-american-foreign-policy
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
Two cheers for the Iranian election (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of those topics which seems to unhinge analysts of all stripes, leading to two entirely different (and wholly contradictory) narratives emerging. Either Iran is effortlessly on its way to dominance in the region, or the whole place is just about to fall apart.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/03/01/Two-cheers-for-the-Iranian-election.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/03/01/Two-cheers-for-the-Iranian-election.html
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
The consequences of Obama being right about the world (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
Despite all the clown-car name-calling currently masquerading as the Republican presidential contest, I believe that history will judge Barack Obama’s overall foreign policy surprisingly kindly. For the president – unlike the vast majority of his peers in the foreign policy elite – has gotten many big things right.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/02/17/The-consequences-of-Obama-being-right-about-the-world.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/02/17/The-consequences-of-Obama-being-right-about-the-world.html
Wednesday, 3 February 2016
Could current oil prices be the new normal? (John C. Hulsman, Al Arabiya)
True to form, no sooner have sanctions been lifted then Tehran has moved to decisively ramp up energy production, the lifeblood of its struggling economy.
While it will take some months for the Islamic Republic to meet its ambitious goal of increasing oil production by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), there is little doubt that it will eventually get there, further exacerbating the present over-supply of energy that has so dramatically driven world-wide prices down.
In June 2014 oil stood at $120 a barrel; today the price stands at around $30 a barrel, a precipitous tumble of some 70 percent.
Iran’s latest energy gambit must be seen in the larger context of what is going on in the world’s energy market, and especially, what is driving prices down to unheard-of levels, and what is keeping them there. We can start and easily dispense with the important demand side of the equation.
Apart from booming India, and just possibly China, increased demand simply isn’t on the cards anywhere else in the world. Muted demand would be a challenge to global oil producers, even apart from what is happening on the wild and woolly supply side.
Saudi Arabia, as the swing producer in OPEC, have forthrightly embarked upon what I call the John D. Rockefeller strategy in energy markets. To see off growing competition, especially from the U.S. shale revolution, Riyadh has acted much as the great 19th century American oil tycoon so often did.
Rockefeller would increase his oil production, even enduring significant medium-term economic pain for his company as a result, all to know he could drive his erstwhile competitors out of business, thereby preserving market share.
As Saudi Arabia possesses one of the world’s largest capital reserves, and as high-grade oil can be brought to market from the country more cheaply than almost anywhere, a sustained attack on medium-price producers like the emerging American shale industry makes a great deal of sense, on the surface.
As such – and despite howls of protest from far more inefficient energy producers like Venezuela – OPEC has yet to blink, maintaining production at near record levels. With tensions between Tehran and Riyadh at their highest in decades, there is virtually no chance that OPEC will agree on meaningful production cuts anytime in the near future.
But if OPEC isn’t blinking, shale isn’t wilting. Despite a sharp fall over 2015 in the number of rigs in use – due to the Saudi Rockefeller strategy – the U.S. managed to sustain production of 9 million bpd over the course of the year. The simple reason for this is that shale drilling has become more efficient as engineers learn how to better work with the new technologies that surround the industry.
It is now estimated that shale drilling is still economical even when the price hits $50 a barrel, a marked improvement in its performance, if still not as economical as Saudi Arabia’s drilling. The other major advantage of shale is that its rigs can be turned on and off like a water tap, and are thus far more price sensitive than the fixed rigs that dominate energy production in the rest of the world.
Because of this, American production can nimbly ebb and flow. So even if the Saudis win their Rockefeller strategy, and drive shale producers to cap their rigs due to the low price over time, as the price then invariably begins to rise, shale will quickly come back on-line. In essence, the shale revolution has put a permanent influence over oil prices.
Further, even if shale companies are driven out of business that is no real hardship for the industry as a whole. The entire history of American wildcatting in the energy industry is about companies dramatically rising and falling, with the inherent value of oil meaning there were always corporate giants ready and eager to take their place.
In this case, there is little doubt that American hedge funds – some of whom have already evinced an interest – would step in and buy up smaller energy companies bankrupted by the Rockefeller strategy on the cheap, waiting to cash in as the price rises. American energy production is largely in private hands, which means that there is always another company ready to step into the energy market.
Given all this evidence, there is little doubt that energy prices will remain low, well into the medium term. Global demand is slowing and (barring India) there are no obvious bright spots ahead to power increased energy consumption.
OPEC members are now intent on pursuing their strategy. Iran is coming back online. Shale is not wilting, and is generally proving surprisingly resurgent. All this definitively means that low oil prices are now becoming the new normal.
_______________________
Dr. John C. Hulsman is the President and Co-Founder of John C. Hulsman Enterprises (www.john-hulsman.com), a successful global political risk consulting firm. An eminent foreign policy expert, John is the senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the city of London. Hulsman is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The author of all or part of 11 books, Hulsman has given 1500 interviews, written over 510 articles, prepared over 1280 briefings, and delivered more than 470 speeches on foreign policy around the world.
While it will take some months for the Islamic Republic to meet its ambitious goal of increasing oil production by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), there is little doubt that it will eventually get there, further exacerbating the present over-supply of energy that has so dramatically driven world-wide prices down.
In June 2014 oil stood at $120 a barrel; today the price stands at around $30 a barrel, a precipitous tumble of some 70 percent.
Iran’s latest energy gambit must be seen in the larger context of what is going on in the world’s energy market, and especially, what is driving prices down to unheard-of levels, and what is keeping them there. We can start and easily dispense with the important demand side of the equation.
Apart from booming India, and just possibly China, increased demand simply isn’t on the cards anywhere else in the world. Muted demand would be a challenge to global oil producers, even apart from what is happening on the wild and woolly supply side.
Saudi Arabia, as the swing producer in OPEC, have forthrightly embarked upon what I call the John D. Rockefeller strategy in energy markets. To see off growing competition, especially from the U.S. shale revolution, Riyadh has acted much as the great 19th century American oil tycoon so often did.
Rockefeller would increase his oil production, even enduring significant medium-term economic pain for his company as a result, all to know he could drive his erstwhile competitors out of business, thereby preserving market share.
As Saudi Arabia possesses one of the world’s largest capital reserves, and as high-grade oil can be brought to market from the country more cheaply than almost anywhere, a sustained attack on medium-price producers like the emerging American shale industry makes a great deal of sense, on the surface.
As such – and despite howls of protest from far more inefficient energy producers like Venezuela – OPEC has yet to blink, maintaining production at near record levels. With tensions between Tehran and Riyadh at their highest in decades, there is virtually no chance that OPEC will agree on meaningful production cuts anytime in the near future.
But if OPEC isn’t blinking, shale isn’t wilting. Despite a sharp fall over 2015 in the number of rigs in use – due to the Saudi Rockefeller strategy – the U.S. managed to sustain production of 9 million bpd over the course of the year. The simple reason for this is that shale drilling has become more efficient as engineers learn how to better work with the new technologies that surround the industry.
It is now estimated that shale drilling is still economical even when the price hits $50 a barrel, a marked improvement in its performance, if still not as economical as Saudi Arabia’s drilling. The other major advantage of shale is that its rigs can be turned on and off like a water tap, and are thus far more price sensitive than the fixed rigs that dominate energy production in the rest of the world.
Because of this, American production can nimbly ebb and flow. So even if the Saudis win their Rockefeller strategy, and drive shale producers to cap their rigs due to the low price over time, as the price then invariably begins to rise, shale will quickly come back on-line. In essence, the shale revolution has put a permanent influence over oil prices.
Further, even if shale companies are driven out of business that is no real hardship for the industry as a whole. The entire history of American wildcatting in the energy industry is about companies dramatically rising and falling, with the inherent value of oil meaning there were always corporate giants ready and eager to take their place.
In this case, there is little doubt that American hedge funds – some of whom have already evinced an interest – would step in and buy up smaller energy companies bankrupted by the Rockefeller strategy on the cheap, waiting to cash in as the price rises. American energy production is largely in private hands, which means that there is always another company ready to step into the energy market.
Given all this evidence, there is little doubt that energy prices will remain low, well into the medium term. Global demand is slowing and (barring India) there are no obvious bright spots ahead to power increased energy consumption.
OPEC members are now intent on pursuing their strategy. Iran is coming back online. Shale is not wilting, and is generally proving surprisingly resurgent. All this definitively means that low oil prices are now becoming the new normal.
_______________________
Dr. John C. Hulsman is the President and Co-Founder of John C. Hulsman Enterprises (www.john-hulsman.com), a successful global political risk consulting firm. An eminent foreign policy expert, John is the senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the city of London. Hulsman is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The author of all or part of 11 books, Hulsman has given 1500 interviews, written over 510 articles, prepared over 1280 briefings, and delivered more than 470 speeches on foreign policy around the world.
Friday, 22 January 2016
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Tuesday, 11 August 2015
Monday, 20 July 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)