Fateful Consequences: U.S.-Iran Relations during the Nixon and Ford Administrations, 1969-77

<p>This thesis analyzes the trajectory of U.S.-Iran relations from 1969, when Richard Nixon came to office, through the early and mid-1970s when the Nixon Doctrine embraced Iran as the cornerstone of its national security architecture in the Persian Gulf and West Asia, to 1977 when Ford left office with U.S.-Iran relations in a state of disrepair. It discusses the factors—geopolitics, economics, Iranian nationalism, domestic politics, the rise of transnational entities like Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), rivalries between the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury and personal ambitions—which damaged the relationship and contributed to the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. It lays particular stress on the difficulties in resolving national security and conflicting economic interests in regards to Iran’s oil resources at time when U.S. dependency on oil from the Middle East increased. It places these conflicts in the context of a series of crises in the form of the 1973 energy crisis, the October War, Watergate, the OPEC oil embargo and oil shock. It explains that the inability or unwillingness of either side to resolve their policy differences resulted from the economic forces unleashed by the oil shock, the difficulties of reconciling strategic, geopolitical and economic goals, and the domestic political vulnerabilities of chief architects of the relationship—Presidents Nixon and Ford, Henry Kissinger, and the Shah Reza Pahlavi—at a time when Vietnam, Watergate and recession weakened the U.S. and the Shah faced the dangers of incipient rebellion, revolution and coup which he tried to suppress through the use of SAVAK, the secret police, and one-party rule. The thesis thus examines how the intrusion of economic concerns into cold war geopolitical calculations had fateful consequences, not only for U.S.-Iran relations, but for U.S. national security strategy, the survival of the Pahlavi regime, and stability in the Persian Gulf which resulted in a new U.S. reliance upon Saudi Arabia to ensure access to oil.</p>

Fateful Consequences: U.S.-Iran Relations during the Nixon and Ford Administrations, 1969-77

<p>This thesis analyzes the trajectory of U.S.-Iran relations from 1969, when Richard Nixon came to office, through the early and mid-1970s when the Nixon Doctrine embraced Iran as the cornerstone of its national security architecture in the Persian Gulf and West Asia, to 1977 when Ford left office with U.S.-Iran relations in a state of disrepair. It discusses the factors—geopolitics, economics, Iranian nationalism, domestic politics, the rise of transnational entities like Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), rivalries between the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury and personal ambitions—which damaged the relationship and contributed to the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. It lays particular stress on the difficulties in resolving national security and conflicting economic interests in regards to Iran’s oil resources at time when U.S. dependency on oil from the Middle East increased. It places these conflicts in the context of a series of crises in the form of the 1973 energy crisis, the October War, Watergate, the OPEC oil embargo and oil shock. It explains that the inability or unwillingness of either side to resolve their policy differences resulted from the economic forces unleashed by the oil shock, the difficulties of reconciling strategic, geopolitical and economic goals, and the domestic political vulnerabilities of chief architects of the relationship—Presidents Nixon and Ford, Henry Kissinger, and the Shah Reza Pahlavi—at a time when Vietnam, Watergate and recession weakened the U.S. and the Shah faced the dangers of incipient rebellion, revolution and coup which he tried to suppress through the use of SAVAK, the secret police, and one-party rule. The thesis thus examines how the intrusion of economic concerns into cold war geopolitical calculations had fateful consequences, not only for U.S.-Iran relations, but for U.S. national security strategy, the survival of the Pahlavi regime, and stability in the Persian Gulf which resulted in a new U.S. reliance upon Saudi Arabia to ensure access to oil.</p>

Libya’s transition risks reverting to frozen conflict

Significance Moves are already underway that empower eastern actors to dominate the Libyan state. Appendages to Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) will increasingly govern the administration of eastern Libya (Cyrenaica), and the political head will be a de facto executive comprised of Saleh and key MPs. Impacts A new parallel government in the east could lead to an oil embargo from installations under its control. Saleh could empower tribal forces within local administration and foreign-contracted projects in the east. As infrastructure degrades, discontent will rise and an election delay could trigger popular protests.

On the Political Nature of “Market Dominance” in the Energy Sector (1973 Crisis)

The article attempts to analyze the oil crisis of 1973 from the perspective of changes in the world financial system’s functioning. The author takes as the starting point of the crisis not the “oil embargo” of the Arab countries in response to the Yom Kippur War, but Richard Nixon’s decree of 1971 on the rejection of the gold fixing the dollar (Nixon Shock). The result was a transformation of the mechanisms and principles of the Bretton Woods system. According to the author, the economy and the socio-political model of the Western countries, subsequently (after the collapse of the socialist camp) of the whole world, underwent a transformation. The article’s relevance is due to the fundamental similarity of the parameters and characteristics of the world economy’s current crisis with the crisis of 1973, which gives the author reason to consider the current crisis a relapse. The author proves that the current global crisis is caused by the shortcomings and costs of the socio-economic model formed in 1973 On the agenda are the same questions and problems that were not answered 50 years ago.

Public Research and Development Funding for Photovoltaics in Europe—Past, Present, and Future

The use of photovoltaic technology is crucial to meet Europe´s ambitious climate and energy objectives set for 2030. To facilitate this shift, technological innovation is a key prerequisite, and the provision of public funding for related research and development is an important trigger. For this study, a vast set of data has been collected to explore how the EU and its Member States, plus Norway and Turkey, have so far invested in photovoltaic research and development. Based on historic values and actual trends, the authors additionally outline the possible future evolution of the investigated public funding. The study aims to shed light on the development of funding from the early 1970s until 2017 (most recent data available) and provide a forecast for 2030 (based on a business-as-usual scenario). According to results, at the national level, public funding had a considerable and steady rise after the OPEC´s oil embargo in 1973, reaching a first peak in the mid-1980s. The authors predict that, according to the most recent trends, by 2030, these will surpass 200 million € annually. In comparison, EU funding has steadily increased since its inception in the late 1980s up until 2007, but its evolvement is distinctively different, evidencing high fluctuations. The cumulative stock is also examined. National sources outweigh EU programs by a factor of almost five, and the stock should surpass 7 billion € by 2030. Based on the analysis and related insights, recommendations are elaborated on how the development of funding could inform policy strategies and actions to support research and development for photovoltaic technology.

Energy Security: A National Security Paradigm Shift for US in Post 9/11 Epoch

"Energy Security" is a safe and abrupt means of getting a secure supply of energy sources. In order to function smoothly, the modern economies need to have a secure and uninterrupted supply of energy resource. This importance has linked Energy Security with the National Security of Nation-States thus making energy primarily a significant resource for the powers around the globe. However, an uneven distribution of the resource has led to susceptibility amongst states thus leading to a situation of anxiety around the globe. Roots of this anxiety can be traced back in 1973, the oil embargo, which forced the giant economies to think seriously about the concept of Energy Security. This study thus aimed to explain that there exists a link between energy, economy and National Security. This linkage of energy with economy and national security has paved way for the National Security Paradigm shift. The study explains the factors related to political as well as economic global scenario that have ignited the concept of "Energy Security" and its link with "National Security".

Speaking for the ‘world power economy’: electricity, energo-materialist economics, and the World Energy Council (1924–78)

The emergence of a field of global energy policy is usually traced back to the events around the 1973–74 oil embargo. This article provides a prehistory to this by tracing the genealogy of the ‘global energy economy’. This genealogy is reconstructed through the lens of the World Power Conference (WPC, today the World Energy Council, WEC), a non-governmental international organization founded by a British electro-technical engineer in 1924. In a comparison with the engineering of ‘natural forces’ in the nineteenth-century steam economy, I argue that electricity, and particularly large electrical systems, not only changed the meaning of power and institutionalized a regular documentation of the ‘power economy’, but enabled and concentrated ownership of the ‘forces of nature’ as a productive factor. This more comprehensive view of the role of electricity in the economy gave rise to an energo-materialist economics among the electro-technical engineers, technicians, and planners whom the WPC assembled. The WPC imagined itself as the centre of calculation of this ‘global energy economy’, initiating international standardization and complementing the statistics of international organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. As the integration of all ‘energies’ in one statistical model required conversion factors across very different technical processes, it took the urgency of the oil crisis for the WEC to compile a global energy balance, thus statistically ‘representing’ the state of the ‘global energy economy’.