Description
Book SynopsisBlack Gold and Blackmail seeks to explain why great powers adopt such different strategies to protect their oil access from politically motivated disruptions. In extreme cases, such as Imperial Japan in 1941, great powers fought wars to grab oil territory in anticipation of a potential embargo by the Allies; in other instances, such as Germany in the early Nazi period, states chose relatively subdued measures like oil alliances or domestic policies to conserve oil. What accounts for this variation? Fundamentally, it is puzzling that great powers fear oil coercion at all because the global market makes oil sanctions very difficult to enforce.
Rosemary A. Kelanic argues that two variables determine what strategy a great power will adopt: the petroleum deficit, which measures how much oil the state produces domestically compared to what it needs for its strategic objectives; and disruptibility, which estimates the susceptibility of a state''s oil imports to military interd
Trade Review
Kelanic takes a deep dive into national governments' strategies to protect their access to oil by imagining how bad actors might interfere and by developing 'anticipatory strategies' to protect access. Her arguments are forceful and... convincing.
* The Middle East Journal *
Kelanic's, Black Gold and Blackmail: Oil and Great Power Politics is deeply engaging and [an] important book that advance[s] our knowledge on the politics of energy security.
* H-Diplo *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Ubiquity of Oil
1. A Theory of Strategic Anticipation
2. Oil and Military Effectiveness
3. Qualitative Methods for Testing the Theory
4. British Vulnerability and the Conquest of Mesopotamia
5. The Oil Strategies of Nazi Germany
6. American Efforts to Avoid Vulnerability
7. Empirical Tests with Fuzzy-Set QCA
Conclusion: Oil and the Future of Great Power Politics
