Posted on 15th November 202317th October 2023 by jonathanstephanharryriley — Leave a comment

Israel-Hamas War of 2023

On October 7, 2023, at 6:30 AM local time, a Palestinian and Islamic fundamentalist group known as Hamas announced the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, stating that it had fired over 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel within 20 minutes.

Hams launched over 5,000 rockets due to the limitations of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, an ante missile defence system that can stop some missiles but not all due to the number of missiles launched by Hamas into the world’s only Jewish state.

During the attack and its aftermath, a second operation was launched by Hamas with ground, sea and air assaults into Israeli civilian areas to capture civilians for prisoner exchange.

The Palestinian militants also committed atrocities on Jewish civilians. The crimes include rape, murder, executions and taking children, babies and others as prisoners.

A key motivator for Hamas taking civilian prisoners was that in 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged 1000 Hamas prisoners for one Israeli soldier.

This decision has made Israel vulnerable to other bad actors within the Middle East, believing that this kind of exchange is possible again to get financial or prisoner exchanges from the Israeli government.

Once you show your neck to a tiger or present any vulnerability to a mediaeval-based culture, they will keep coming repeatedly because they only understand strength and only show weakness at your peril.

As of writing this on 16 October 2023, Israel has over 5200 prisoners from Palestine and Hamas. The previous and current leadership, Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas, may believe they can secure prisoner release.

Why Hamas Attacked Israel

Hamas is mostly motivated by three factors that contributed to their choice to launch an attack on Israel. The first is the potential threat of normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

With the war between Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas and the majority Muslim state trying to reclaim Muslim holy territory, which is controlled by a non-Jewish state in a region surrounded by Muslims, the governments within Saudi Arabia will feel pressured by their population and the more religious fundamentalism attitudes of the Middle East.

For people living in the Western world, particularly in English-speaking nations or the Anglosphere, our Christianity has been very much neutered, and religion is seen as a force that should not interfere in secular politics.

Unfortunately, religion still plays a critical factor in political and social life in the Middle East, and it is very hard for nonreligious people to understand how that impacts their day-to-day lives.

The second reason Hamas attacked Israel on 6 October 2023 was that it was the same start date of the Yom Kippur War or the fourth Arab-Israeli war (1973), with the primary antagonists against Israel being Egypt and Syria.

This also led to Israel taking the Golan Heights from Syria and securing its northern border, having superior high ground.

Israel’s victory led to the normalisation of relations with Egypt in 1980.

Due to Israel’s diplomatic and military successes, Hamas has become desperate and launched their attack to galvanise support within the Middle East and prevent the normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia if possible.

The final reason Hamas attacked Israel was that Iran allegedly supported Hamas and potentially pushed them to launch their attack on Israel to destabilise the region and prevent Saudi Arabia and Israel from entering an alliance that could threaten Iran’s geopolitical interests.

Furthermore, this could be the last chance in the Palestinian mind to attempt to reclaim the West Bank, which Israeli citizens have increasingly settled and the fear on the part of the Palestinian fundamentalists, and this is the last opportunity they can get to reclaim what they perceive as their homeland.

Posted on 15th August 20237th August 2023 by jonathanstephanharryriley — Leave a comment

US Energy Independence Is It in Danger?

Will America’s energy independence be jeopardised as the Biden administration passes new legislation on more drilling restrictions on public land? Quick backstory on America’s energy journey.

The US was a net energy exporter until 1973. Once we used up all the ‘easy-access’ oil, we became the world’s largest oil importer, peaking in the mid-2000s. Then the Shale Revolution changed everything.

The ‘Shale Revolution’ refers to the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that enabled the United States to significantly increase its oil and natural gas production, particularly from tight oil formations, which now account for 36% of total U.S. crude oil production.

Fracking gave the US access to a boatload of new oil (this technology has been around for a while but was popularised in the early 2000s).

Fast forward to today, and the US is once again energy independent (minus a little COVID hiccup).The first natural gas well in North America was a shale well in Fredonia, NY, developed in 1821–38 years before “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake Drake drilled his famous oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859.

In 1821 in Fredonia, New York, William A. Hart drilled a 27-foot deep well to get a more significant gas flow from a surface seepage of natural gas. This was the first well intentionally drilled to obtain natural gas.

US Energy Independence Is It in Danger — Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Biden Administration New Restrictions

What will this new legislation mean for the United States with Biden administration’s new restrictions on public land drilling set us back again? Oil from public lands accounts for such a marginal amount of the total US output that any of these regulations aren’t going to move the needle much.

Biden administration officials have stressed that new bonding requirements that ensure money is set aside when companies go bust are needed to ensure future oil wells are not abandoned on the taxpayers’ money.

The Biden administration, working with Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill in 2021, passed a $4.7 billion fund to clean up the up to 800,000 orphaned oil wells some estimate exist across the country.

Interior Department raises royalty rates for oil drilling by more than one-third, to 16.67%, per the sweeping climate law approved by Congress last year.

The previous rate of 12.5% paid by oil and gas companies for federal drilling rights had remained unchanged for a century.

The new royalty rate set by the climate law is expected to remain in place until August 2032, after which it can be increased.

According to the Interior Department, the higher rate would increase costs for oil and gas companies by an estimated $1.8 billion in that period.

The rule also would increase the minimum leasing bond paid by energy companies to $150,000, up from the previous $10,000 established in 1960.

The higher bonding requirement is intended to ensure that companies meet their obligations to clean up drilling sites after they are done or cap wells that are abandoned.

The federal rate was significantly lower than many states, and private landowners charged for drilling leases on state or private lands.

This shouldn’t be an issue as long as there’s an incentive for these private landowners to be prosperous.

Offshore drilling is a little different.

The quick and dirty is that short-term market moves aren’t the primary motivator in this space, so more extended approval periods and stricter regulations are of little concern.

American Foreign Policy

As we understand, international trade and globalisation only exist due to the American security blanket and protection of global shipping lanes, which the US is guaranteed in exchange for an alliance and setting their allies’ foreign policy decision-making.

A great example is how the French and the British, in 1956 during the Suez Crisis, tried to take control of the Suez Canal from the Egyptian government.

The United States stepped in and dictated to both great European powers.

They could do this for two reasons: the French and the English needed American support to face off against the Soviet Union, and both nations greatly benefited from the international system that enabled modern-day prosperity.

Also was only three years since the Korean War and 11 years since the end of the Second World War, and neither nation was economically, militarily or socially wanting to return to the bad old days before World War II.

The United States currently, since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, has grown increasingly isolationist and is less interested in global affairs, particularly during America’s longest war from 2001 to 2021, engaged in bloody conflicts in the Middle East, mainly the war on terror and the war in Afghanistan.

Energy Independence and Foreign Policy

The United States has engaged in a proxy war with the Russian Federation in their attempt since 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to gain control over that nation.

The United States is energy independent, therefore not relying on the Russians, which control 13% of global oil/petroleum and Saudi Arabia, which controls 17% of global petroleum.

Saudi Arabia’s oil production amounted to some 12.14 million barrels per day in 2022, up from 10.95 in the previous year.

Between 1998 and 2021, the world’s most important oil-producing country saw its production volume increase by 2.6 million barrels per day and peaked at 12.4 million barrels per day in 2016.

The enemies of the United States and its allies like Saudi Arabia, which it tolerates due to their ability to affect the price of global oil, which will affect inflation should the price of petroleum decrease or increase, which would negatively impact the US allies.

One of the primary reasons why the United States will maintain its energy independence is not wanting Saudi Arabia, and others have influenced the American economy.

So, no matter what laws will be passed, no American president would have their nation dependent on foreign powers is not the political DNA of the United States.

It is why US foreign policy for over 200 years is to be independent of nations outside of the North American continent.

This can be seen with the American Monroe Doctrine.

President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress contained the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.

Understandably, the United States has always taken a particular interest in its closest neighbours — the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

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Posted on 10th August 20232nd August 2023 by jonathanstephanharryriley — 1 Comment

Geopolitics: US and Saudi Arabia Relations

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan went to Saudi Arabia to lay the framework for a new set of relations.

As of late, relations could be better.

The National Security Advisor manages American foreign policy — even though the State Department gets all the credit.

So, seeing the hyper-competent Jake Sullivan leading the charge here indicates how critical this is.

Biden’s push to Greentech has caused riffs in the relationship, but the other side has played a role too. MBS, the crown prince, is — for lack of a better term — an ass.

And as anyone who’s dealt with someone like that knows, you must put up with much crap.

However, with Russia and China making moves against the US, Biden realises that Saudi Arabia is a beneficial partner.

Geopolitics: US and Saudi Arabia Relations — Photo by ekrem osmanoglu on Unsplash

Why Saudi Arabia is so Important

The reason why Saudis Arabia has so much power and influence is due to the control they have over the global oil supply.Saudi Arabia possesses around 17 per cent of the world’s proven petroleum reserves.

This means that if the Saudis wish to increase the global oil supply, it will lower the price of oil that is used as a primary means of fuel for internal combustion engines; alternatively, if they raise the price of oil, inflation will rise in the cost of living will significantly increase due to the effects of a higher oil price.

A famous example of this is the 1970s oil crisis that knocked the wind out of the global economy and … led the price of crude to rise from $3 per barrel to $12 by 1974.One of the long-term global effects of this crisis is that it led to a permanent decline in birth rates in Japan since 1978 due to the effect of this crisis and the cost of living.

Japan’s current birth rate has been a perceptive decline since the oil crisis, and in 2020 the birthrate of woman in Japan was 1.34 births in 2020.Saudi Arabia has an appalling human rights record in the Western world, and most civilised and humane nations would have nothing to do with it were it not for their control of the oil supply.

One of the main reasons the USA and United Nations unanimously voted to intervene in the 1990 to 1991 first Gulf War was that Saddam Hussein attempted to conquer Kuwait and then Saudi Arabia.

The U.N. Security Council declared on August 2, the very day of the invasion, that the Iraqi action of ignoring the basic order of the international community was a violation of international law and adopted Resolution 660, which required the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Iraqi forces.

Ukraine and Saudi Arabia

The United States of America is dealing with many threats to itself and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, with the war in Europe engulfing the priorities of its allies due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The US is also highly concerned about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan’s independent nation, threatening American interests in the Pacific.

This is why the United States is trying to keep Saudi Arabia out of the camps of the Russian Federation and China’s Communist Party.

The Chinese, in particular, need access to oil from the Persian Gulf and particularly Saudi Arabia.

This means that should it come to war, the United States will need to block or transportations of food and oil into China due to that nation not being self-sufficient.

Within six months to a year, China will be out of oil and, within six months, will suffer a population or civilisational collapse without access to food and other global markets.

America’s Enemies that Control Oil

Russia is the third-largest oil producer worldwide, accounting for over 12 per cent of global crude oil production.Rich in natural resources, the country concentrates its energy production in the West Siberia and Volga-Ural oil and gas provinces.

According to the 2022 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Venezuela has more proven oil reserves than any other country.

Venezuela’s 304 billion barrels of proved reserves edge Saudi Arabia’s 298 billion barrels. Both are far ahead of U.S. proved reserves of 69 billion barrels.

The United States has to have a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia or, at the very least, keep them outside the Chinese and Russian sphere of influence and networks of alliances due to Saudi’s ability to impact the United States allies that are not energy self-sufficient.