When Herman Melville was penning his great epic “Moby-Dick” (roughly from the late 1840s to 1851), the United States was engaged in, or perhaps coming to the end of, a war with Mexico over land—specifically the state of Texas. Whether the Mexican-American war was on Melville’s mind when imagining Captain Ahab and his ruthless, mindless and bloody pursuit of the great white whale is anyone’s guess. However, Melville certainly was concerned with the American hubris that had accreted over the years since the Revolution, attempting to frame his national allegory in the guise of a whale hunt.
In 1823, four years after Melville was born, the U.S. instituted the Monroe Doctrine, and by 1845 the doctrine had been transmogrified by James Polk and like-minded men into Manifest Destiny, which hardly needs any definition. 1842, Hawaii was annexed to undercut Britain’s machinations on the islands, a hub of trade in the Pacific. And by 1852, the Monroe Doctrine was being applied by the U.S. to rip Cuba from the hands of the Spanish, as if we had any more right to determine the Cubans’ fate than the Spaniards.
All the while, as detailed by Melville in “Moby-Dick,” the U.S. reigned supreme in the whaling industry, which was the chief source of energy for the nation’s homes and businesses, used in large measure to power the machines at the heart of the American Industrial Revolution, which hurdled this country into its preeminent status as a global economic power.
So, we might say with some confidence that the U.S. was largely energy independent, or self-sufficient, even in the 19th century. And, yet, the Monroe Doctrine only accelerates with more wars and interventions in Latin American countries until Teddy Roosevelt hits overdrive with the idea that any European intervention in the Western Hemisphere will not be tolerated. We all know the path the U.S. has followed since Roosevelt, but more particularly since the end of World War II.
I invoke Melville’s “Moby-Dick” and the brief American history above only to highlight a faulty perception about American energy independence: the idea that we might gradually (or quickly) withdraw militarily from the world stage, and insulate ourselves from another recession, such as the one triggered by the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo.
Bloomberg’s Rich Miller, Asjylyn Loder and Jim Polson seem rather celebratory in their article titled “Americans Gaining Energy Independence,” and why not, for they emphasize the gains in clean energy, millions of new jobs, and a slashed trade deficit that will “buttress the dollar.” For balance, the authors throw a bone to environmentalists, noting that these energy production gains (oil, natural gas, etc.) will come at an environmental cost; but hot damn, folks, we willl be free from foreign-induced recession!
Are these writers on retainer at the Obama White House? Is this propaganda?
One could forgive the writers their exuberance if not for the fact that they fail to mention the great reality of our time: that oil supply and demand shocks are not the only events that trigger recessions. Did they not learn anything from the housing bust in 2008, and before that the tech bubble, both of which were followed by recessions? Do they not know that the global economy is so interconnected now that Greece’s debt (supplied by EU creditors) and risk of default might be enough to upset the established economic order? Did they not see how the sub-prime mortgages and credit-default swaps crafted in America imploded and then rippled across Europe and the rest of the world?
Returning to the earlier points about energy independence, hubris and hegemony, Obama’s dedication to robust (and clean) American energy production, as detailed in the 2012 State of the Union, does not indicate any less of an international U.S. military presence. That this reality is not discussed in energy independence debates, both within government, the media and amongst the American people, is a great diversion.
We will not be folding our military bases up in the Middle East, despite Obama’s very public withdrawal from Iraq and the coming Afghanistan withdrawal. On the contrary, the U.S. will maintain its current military bases, which number approximately 662 across the world (according to a 2010 Pentagon report), because it makes sense to do so for national defense and economic reasons.
So, we can trumpet America’s gains in energy independence all we want, but we will not be relieved of the pains of recession and international conflict.
