Global Oil Demand Will Rise in 2012



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Authoritarianism Turn

High oil price fosters authoritarianism and violence – decrease in oil exports and price promote democracy.


Brynjar and SKJØLBERG 5

(LIA, head of FFI's research on international terrorism and global jihadism, Katja, Assistant Professor at the University of Adger, 2005-06-28, FORSVARETS FORSKNINGSINSTITUTT, “CAUSES OF TERRORISM: An Expanded and Updated Review of the Literature”, http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2004/04307.pdf) CL


Modernisation processes are all very different, but some trajectories of economic development have greater propensity of fostering conflict than others. The literature on modernisation theories, rentier states, and resource conflicts, has highlighted that export of natural resources, especially oil, mineral resources, and diamonds, hampers economic development, impedes the creation of a democratic order, and increases the likelihood of civil war.91 This is first and foremost the case in underdeveloped countries where political institutions are weak, corruption is pervasive, and elite groups fight over the spoils. While resource scarcity previously was believed to be a major conflict-generating factor, it is increasingly acknowledged that the very abundance of certain natural resources is perhaps more dangerous than scarcity.92 Sudden influx of petro-dollars, diamond revenues, or profits from rare timber and gold mines, create dysfunctional economies (‘the Dutch disease’) and foster cleptocratic regimes and authoritarian rentier states.93 Such regimes are associated with a higher likelihood for violent conflict.

Totalitarianism is a threat even greater than nuclear war


Rummel 1

(RJ, Political scientist, University of Hawaii, Death by Government, http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/dbg.chap1.html)


Consider also that library stacks have been written on the possible nature and consequences of nuclear war and how it might be avoided. Yet, in the life of some still living we have experienced in the toll from democide (and related destruction and misery among the survivors) the equivalent of a nuclear war, especially at the high near 360,000,000 end of the estimates. It is as though one had already occurred! Yet to my knowledge, there is only one book dealing with the overall human cost of this "nuclear war."

Internal Link answers

AT: Proliferation/Nuclear War

No impact- Russian economic downturn doesn’t lead to proliferation


RAND 05

(nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world, Diversion of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons Expertise from the Former Soviet Union Understanding an Evolving Problem, http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/2005/RAND_DB457.pdf, CL)


Desire to remain in native land/fear of the unknown. While economic conditions in Russia may be tough, an unfamiliar existence in a foreign land, living far away from one’s community and loved ones, and promises of money and prestige from states and sub-national groups that many Russians consider inferior may provide little incentive for specialists to risk their careers and home life for the sake of profiting from proliferation. Fear of grave consequences. The prospect of being considered a traitor or “enemy of the people” weighs heavily on a specialist who may be deciding to proliferate.

No impact – nuclear deterrence


Brown 7

(Harold, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981 in the cabinet of President Jimmy Carter, The MIT Press, New Nuclear Realities, page 9, Project Muse) CL


During the Cold War, the possession of massive nuclear arsenals by the United States and the Soviet Union worked to deter both sides from using those arsenals against each other in a direct attack, either by surprise or as an extension of conventional war. Paradoxically, perhaps, it also inhibited direct engagement of their conventional forces with each other, because of the concern that such an engagement would escalate to a nuclear conflict that would destroy both sides. Instead, the two superpowers engaged in armed conflict with others, sometimes with clients of the other side. Although not the only factor that kept the two military superpowers from a hot war with each other, nuclear deterrence worked at both levels. It was not a trivial achievement because it is difficult to find other examples during recent centuries of heavily armed, ideologically opposed major powers with conflicting interests that managed to avoid direct armed conflict.

Nuclear war won’t escalate


Quinlan 97

(Michael, Under-Sec Defense, 1997, Thinking about Nuclear Weapons, p 31)


It is entirely possible, for example, that the initial use of nuclear weapons, breaching a barrier that has held since 1945, might so appall both sides in a conflict that they recognized an overwhelming common interest in composing their differences. The human pressures in that direction would be very great. Even if initial nuclear use did not quickly end the fighting, the supposition of inexorable momentum in a developing exchange, with each side rushing to overreaction amid confusion and uncertainty, is implausible; it fails to consider what the decision-makers’ situation would really be. Neither side could want escalation; both would be appalled at what was going on; both would be desperately looking for signs that the other was ready to call a halt; both, given the capacity for evasion or concealment which modern delivery systems can possess, could have in reserve ample forces invulnerable enough not to impose ‘use or lose’ pressures. As a result neither could have any predisposition to suppose, in an ambiguous situation of enormous risk, that the right course when in doubt was to go on copiously launching weapons. And none of this analysis rests on any presumption of highly subtle, pre-concerted or culture-specific rationality; the rationality required is plain and basic.

Proliferation does not escalate to war. It de-escalates conflicts


Tepperman 9

(John , 9-7, journalist based in New York City, Why Obama should learn to love the bomb, Newsweek, lexis)


A growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy. Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely to get far (past presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the effort. There are more important measures the U.S. government can and should take to make the real world safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free planet) that's both unrealistic and possibly undesirable. The argument that nuclear weapons can be agents of peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First, nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even a nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think about that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is, especially given the singular viciousness of the 20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a professor emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima. It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not been any war among nuclear states." To understand why--and why the next 64 years are likely to play out the same way--you need to start by recognizing that all states are rational on some basic level. Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but they tend to do things only when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start a fight only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even Hitler or Saddam waged wars they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has been that leaders often make the wrong gamble and underestimate the other side--and millions of innocents pay the price. Nuclear weapons change all that by making the costs of war obvious, inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn the other to ashes with the push of a button--and everybody knows it--the basic math shifts. Even the craziest tin-pot dictator is forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is unwinnable and thus not worth the effort. As Waltz puts it, "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?" Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction is so compelling, it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch since the end of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows. They did fight proxy wars, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Angola to Latin America. But these never matched the furious destruction of full-on, great-power war (World War II alone was responsible for some 50 million to 70 million deaths). And since the end of the Cold War, such bloodshed has declined precipitously. Meanwhile, the nuclear powers have scrupulously avoided direct combat, and there's very good reason to think they always will. There have been some near misses, but a close look at these cases is fundamentally reassuring--because in each instance, very different leaders all came to the same safe conclusion. Take the mother of all nuclear standoffs: the Cuban missile crisis. For 13 days in October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union each threatened the other with destruction. But both countries soon stepped back from the brink when they recognized that a war would have meant curtains for everyone. As important as the fact that they did is the reason why: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's aide Fyodor Burlatsky said later on, "It is impossible to win a nuclear war, and both sides realized that, maybe for the first time." The record since then shows the same pattern repeating: nuclear-armed enemies slide toward war, then pull back, always for the same reasons. The best recent example is India and Pakistan, which fought three bloody wars after independence before acquiring their own nukes in 1998. Getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction didn't do anything to lessen their animosity. But it did dramatically mellow their behavior. Since acquiring atomic weapons, the two sides have never fought another war, despite severe provocations (like Pakistani-based terrorist attacks on India in 2001 and 2008). They have skirmished once. But during that flare-up, in Kashmir in 1999, both countries were careful to keep the fighting limited and to avoid threatening the other's vital interests. Sumit Ganguly, an Indiana University professor and coauthor of the forthcoming India, Pakistan, and the Bomb, has found that on both sides, officials' thinking was strikingly similar to that of the Russians and Americans in 1962. The prospect of war brought Delhi and Islamabad face to face with a nuclear holocaust, and leaders in each country did what they had to do to avoid it.



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