Windfall
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According to Nye, the soft power: Joseph S. Nye, “What China and Russia Don’t Get About Soft Power,” Foreign Policy, April 29, 2013, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/29/what-china-and-russia-dont-get-about-soft-power/.
To the extent that these three factors: Since Nye developed this concept, it has become common parlance in academic settings, as well as in the practice of foreign policy; it has also been embraced in the business world, where it has been used to refer to intangible factors that influence negotiations or specific qualities that individuals bring to the table. See “Soft Power: How to Open Doors and Influence People in France,” Economist, June 7, 2014, www.economist.com/news/business/21603466-how-open-doors-and-influence-people-france-soft-power; Diane Coutu, “Smart Power,” Harvard Business Review, November 2008, https://hbr.org/2008/11/smart-power.
America has always relied: The United States has never been the sole purveyor of soft power. The Soviets also wielded significant soft power, at least until their use of military force in Hungary and Czechoslovakia undermined it. More recently, the Chinese have embraced the concept. In 2007, then Chinese president Hu Jintao had declared at the 17th Communist Party Congress that China must increase its soft power. Seven years later, his successor, Xi Jinping, emphasized the same, affirming the need to “increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s message to the world.” Jane Perlez, “Leader Asserts China’s Growing Importance on Global Stage,” New York Times, November 30, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/asia/leader-asserts-chinas-growing-role-on-global-stage.html.
During the Cold War, the attractiveness: For instance, Washington-funded radio broadcasts reached 70–80 percent of Eastern Europeans during the height of the Cold War. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The Decline of America’s Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 3 (May/June 2004): 16–20, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2004-05-01/decline-americas-soft-power.
The United States unquestionably still claims: According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, there were 1.23 million international students studying in the United States in 2016, up from 1.19 million the previous year. SEVIS by the Numbers: General Summary Quarterly Review (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, November 2016), 2, https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/byTheNumbersDec2016.pdf.
For much of the 2000s: See, for instance, “A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over?” Der Spiegel, November 1, 2010, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-superpower-in-decline-is-the-american-dream-over-a-726447.html.
In 2009, China’s government-run: Li Hongmei, “The U.S. Hegemony Ends, the Era of Global Multipolarity Enters,” People’s Daily Online, February 24, 2009, http://en.people.cn/90002/96417/6599374.html.
In 2011, while speaking: Al Lewis, “Blood-Sucking Nation,” Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2011, www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903454504576492541189581766.
Gregory Zuckerman, author of The Frackers: Bret Stephens, “The Marvel of American Resilience,” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2014, www.wsj.com/articles/bret-stephens-the-marvel-of-american-resilience-1419292945.
In his far-reaching book: Henry Kissinger, World Order (London: Penguin, 2015), 362–63.
The liberal economic order has been: A 2013 study done by Martin Ravallion assesses that in the absence of big changes in political and economic thinking that occurred around 1950, 1.5 billion more people would be in poverty today than there are today. See Martin Ravallion, “The Idea of Antipoverty Policy” (Working Paper 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, July 2013), 30, http://www.nber.org/papers/w19210.pdf.
Wars have not ceased: See Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011).
This liberal international order, however: See, for instance, Kissinger, World Order, 365–67; also see Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression: 1929–1939 (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1986).
First is self-doubt: Kissinger, World Order, 365.
The second challenge—also clear in today’s world: Ibid., 366–67.
At a minimum, China desires: For two views on the changes China desires, see Thomas Fingar, “China’s Vision of World Order,” in Strategic Asia 2012–13: China’s Military Challenge, ed. Ashley J. Tellis and Travis Tanner (Washington, D.C.: October 2012), http://nbr.org/publications/element.aspx?id=624 and John G. Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order: Internationalism After America,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 3 (May/June 2011).
Scholars and policymakers feverishly debate: For example, Council on Foreign Relations president Richard N. Haass argues that “the world needs an updated operating system—call it World Order 2.0—that takes into account new forces, challenges, and actors” because the current “trend is one of declining order.” Other scholars like Princeton professor John Ikenberry argue that it is American leadership that is in crisis rather than the world order. Richard N. Haass, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), 2–6. In contrast, G. John Ikenberry argues that “American leadership may be in crisis, but the world order is not.” G. John Ikenberry, “American Leadership May Be in Crisis, but the World is Not,” Washington Post, January 27, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/27/american-leadership-is-in-crisis-but-the-world-order-is-not/.
It is now more comfortable: See Chapter Ten and Michal Meidan, “The Structure of China’s Oil Industry: Past Trends and Future Prospects,” Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, University of Oxford, U.K., May 2016, 54, https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/The-structure-of-Chinas-oil-industry-past-trends-and-future-prospects-WPM-66.pdf.
The goal was to establish: These countries had good reasons to believe they could face persistent challenges and manipulation from OPEC in the years ahead. Kissinger allegedly advocated for an explicitly anti-OPEC body, but European countries and Japan demurred in the interest of maintaining relations with Arab countries. For more, see Dries Lesage and Thijs Van de Graaf, Global Energy Governance in a Multipolar World (London: Routledge, 2013), 59–60.
In 2012, China began to clamor: For example, in 2012, at an energy summit in Abu Dhabi, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao advocated that a G20-like body be created to establish “fair, reasonable and binding” global rules to stabilize oil and gas markets; he proposed that stakeholders from consumer, supplier, and transit countries all be involved. David Worthington, “China Proposes Global Energy Governance, Development,” ZDNet, January 16, 2012, http://www.zdnet.com/article/china-proposes-global-energy-governance-development/. Two years later, Chinese leaders were involved in commissioning a study by the Grantham Institute of Imperial College London on whether a new energy order was needed and, if so, how China could advance it. It emphasized the need for new, more inclusive institutions. Neil Hirst et al., Global Energy Governance Reform and China’s Participation (Beijing and London: Energy Research Institute, NDRC and Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, Imperial College London, November 2014), https://workspace.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/Public/publications/Global%20Energy%20Governance%20and%20China’s%20Participation%20-%20Consultation%20report%20(English).pdf.
It was not simply pushing back: For a sense of the myriad of energy governance institutions, see David Goldwyn and Phillip Cornell, Report of the Atlantic Council Task Force on Reform of the Global Energy Architecture (Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, April 2017), http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Reform_of_the_Global_Energy_Architecture_web_0418.pdf.
Most recently, China has focused: Chinese officials were major drivers of the G20 Principles on Energy Collaboration endorsed at the 2014 G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. “G20 Principles on Energy Collaboration,” G20 Australia 2014, November 16, 2014, www.g20australia.org/sites/default/files/g20_resources/library/g20_principles_energy_collaboration.pdf; John J. Kirton, China’s G20 Leadership (London
: Routledge, 2016), 83.
President Xi Jinping has reportedly said: Ibid.
While some believe that China: The U.S. Congress in particular was reluctant to approve governance changes that would have increased China’s influence in the International Monetary Fund to be more in accord with the size of its economy. See Leonid Bershidsky, “IMF Reform is Too Little, Way Too Late,” Bloomberg View, December 18, 2015, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-12-18/imf-reform-is-too-little-way-too-late.
There, he explained that strengthening ties: Dr. Fatih Birol, “Standing Together: A New Era of IEA-China Co-operation,” (speech, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, September 9, 2015), 7, www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/speeches/150909_CASS.pdf.
China and other Asian countries: See “Joint Ministerial Declaration on the Occasion of the 2015 IEA Ministerial Meeting Expressing the Activation of Association,” International Energy Agency, November 18, 2015, www.iea.org/media/news/2015/press/IEA_Association.pdf. For a nod of appreciation for these efforts, see the “G20 Energy Ministerial Meeting Beijing Communiqué,” G20 2016 China, June 29, 2016, https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/Beijing%20Communique.pdf.
Moreover, many of the steps: China has taken advantage of low global oil prices to undertake an aggressive program to build strategic oil reserves. Some estimate these efforts boosted Chinese import demand in 2015 and 2016 by as much as 15%. See “Oil Bulls Beware Because China’s Almost Done Amassing Crude,” Bloomberg News, June 30, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-30/oil-bulls-beware-because-china-s-almost-done-amassing-crude.
In March 2001, with the Bush Administration: Graydon Carter, What We’ve Lost (London: Macmillan, 2004), 143.
Rice didn’t mince her words: Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Broadway Paperbacks, September 4, 2012), 41.
If the reaction at the luncheon: Jeffrey Kluger, “A Climate of Despair,” Time, April 1, 2011, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,104596,00.html.
The French minister for the environment: Edmund L. Andrews, “Bush Angers Europe by Eroding Pact on Warming,” New York Times, April 1, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/01/world/bush-angers-europe-by-eroding-pact-on-warming.html.
Romano Prodi, the former prime minister: “Dead or Comatose?,” The Globalist, July 12, 2001, www.theglobalist.com/dead-or-comatose/.
In her 2011 memoir: Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington, 41–46.
Even though the Bush administration: Bush administration objections were articulated in a presidential statement in June 2001. George W. Bush, “President Bush Discusses Global Climate Change,” The White House Office of the Press Secretary, June 11, 2001, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html. In 1997, in a 95–0 vote, the U.S. Senate made clear the conditions under which it would and would not sign a climate treaty. Byrd-Hagel Resolution, S. RES. 98, 105th Cong. (July 25, 1997), https://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSenate.html.
Speaking in Alaska in August 2015: Colleen McCain Nelson, “Obama Calls for U.S. to Show Leadership in Fighting Climate Change,” Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2015, www.wsj.com/articles/obama-calls-for-u-s-to-show-leadership-in-fighting-climate-change-1441074557?alg=y.
Melanie Nakagawa, a State Department official: Melanie Nakagawa, in-person conversation with author, Washington, DC, July 7, 2016.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator: Jared Gilmour and David J. Unger, “EPA Chief: New Climate Rules Are Safe from Courts, Congress,” Christian Science Monitor, July 7, 2015, www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy/2015/0707/EPA-chief-New-climate-rules-are-safe-from-courts-Congress.
McCarthy pointed to India: Ibid.
In urging China—and eventually others: “US Carbon Emissions Set to Fall to Lowest Level in Two Decades,” Guardian, April 10, 2015, www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/10/us-carbon-emissions-set-to-fall-to-lowest-level-in-two-decades; Christopher Martin, “U.S. Carbon Emissions Falling to Two-Decade Low in Coal Shift,” Bloomberg, April 9, 2015, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-09/u-s-carbon-emissions-falling-to-two-decade-low-in-coal-shift.
In private, administration officials: Kelly Sims Gallagher, professor at Tufts University and former climate negotiator for the Obama Administration, in-person conversation with author, Cambridge, MA, August 4, 2015.
Even in a low-cost-energy environment: See, for instance, William Mauldin, “How Much Will the Paris Climate Deal Cost the U.S.?” Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2015, http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/12/14/how-much-will-the-paris-climate-deal-cost-the-u-s/.
He lamented the costs: Donald J. Trump, “Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord,” The White House Office of the PressSecretary, June 1, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/01/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord.
His administration could—and should: See Meghan L. O’Sullivan, “How Trump Is Surrendering America’s Soft Power,” Bloomberg View, June 2, 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-02/how-trump-is-surrendering-america-s-soft-power.
Not only are sub-state actors: For more on how the gas boom could further undermine coal, see “Future coal production depends on resources and technology, not just policy choices,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, June 26, 2017, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31792.
But lurking behind these more tangible: For a scene-setter memo written before the trip, see David Shambaugh, “The China Awaiting President Obama,” The Brookings Institution, November 10, 2009, www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2009/11/china-shambaugh.
Just as the United States was seeking: Shirley A. Kan, China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues (CRS Report No. RL31555) (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, January 5, 2015), 10, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL31555.pdf; Marybeth Davis et al., China-Iran: A Limited Partnership, US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China-Iran--A%20Limited%20Partnership.pdf.
“The only reason the Chinese had any interest”: David Goldwyn, telephone conversation with author, July 15, 2015.
The U.S. Commerce Department invited: Ibid.
Some received help assessing: See Congressional Budget Justification: Foreign Operations (Washington, D.C.: United States of America Department of State, FY 2015), 234, www.state.gov/documents/organization/224069.pdf.
“These conversations provided the entry point”: David Goldwyn, telephone conversation with author, July 14, 2015.
One cavern alone is easily large enough: “SPR Storage Site,” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, http://energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/spr-storage-sites.
The amount of oil held in them: This ninety-day supply can include commercial stocks, not just government-held ones.
Just as America’s rising import dependence: See “U.S. Ending Stocks of Crude Oil in SPR,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, April 28, 2017, https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCSSTUS1&f=M.
Certainly, this has been the logic: See Javier Blas, “U.S. Plans to Sell Down Strategic Oil Reserve to Raise Cash,” Bloomberg, October 27, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-27/u-s-plans-to-sell-down-strategic-oil-reserve-to-raise-cash. The 2017 budget proposal of the Trump administration also included a proposal to reduce the SPR by half. Chris Mooney and Steven Mufson, “Trump seeks to sell off half of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Washington Post, May 23, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/22/trump-seeks-to-sell-off-half-of-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve/?utm_term=.c7efbb27c01b.
Initially, the president was authorized: Robert Bamberger, “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives, and Issues” (CRS Report No. RL33341) (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, August 18, 2009), 3–4, http
s://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33341.pdf.
In the wake of the 1990 Exxon Valdez spill: Ibid., 3.
Subsequent revisions further loosened the criteria: Ibid., 7–8.
In fact, the SPR has only: While the United States has only released stocks from the SPR in conjunction with others in three circumstances, it has on other occasions released stocks unilaterally. Sometimes, SPR releases occur in non-emergency settings. See “International Energy Agency Members Release Strategic Petroleum Stocks,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, June 24, 2011, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=1950. For records of unilateral releases, see “SPR Quick Facts and FAQs,” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, http://energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/spr-quick-facts-and-faqs.
These arguments deserve deeper examination: There is, in fact, a robust debate about whether the SPR is needed in this era of energy abundance. For varying viewpoints, see David L. Goldwyn and Robert McNally, “Seven Fat Years: The Importance of Preserving the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Brookings, July 17, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2015/07/17/seven-fat-years-the-importance-of-preserving-the-u-s-strategic-petroleum-reserve/; Nicolas Loris, “Why Congress Should Pull the Plug on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Heritage Foundation, August 20, 2015, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/08/why-congress-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve; “Does the U.S. Need a Large Strategic Petroleum Reserve?” Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/does-the-u-s-need-a-large-strategic-petroleum-reserve-1447642801; for the positionof the U.S. Department of Energy, see U.S. Department of Energy, Long-Term Strategic Review of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, August 2016), https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/Long-Term%20Strategic%20Review%20of%20the%20U.%20S.%20Strategic%20Petroleum%20Reserve%20Report%20to%20Congress_0.pdf.