Journal of International Studies

Meet America's Unlikeliest Gas Mogul By  Gregory Zuckerman NOVEMBER 8, 2013 A long-haul truck with LNG tank.  (TruckPR / Flickr) It was 2002, and the race to find natural gas in the United States was on. Oilmen and businessmen were making massive bets on overlooked U.S. fields. Charif Souki was just as sure the United States needed new energy supplies. And he was certain he had a way to get his hands on enough natural gas to change his country’s fortunes, as well as his own. Souki was a rank outsider to the oil patch. He hadn’t taken a single geology or engineering course -- or even worked a day in an oil or gas field. He had no business imagining himself as any kind of energy player. But Souki had an audacious plan. BIG MAN ON CAMPUS Souki was born in Cairo in 1953, a year after a coup d’état led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser. His father, Samyr, a Greek Orthodox Christian, moved the family to Beirut when Charif was four, after Samyr realiz...

President Barack Obama listens to Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman The Russia Left Behind By Ellen Barry The New York Times Through a string of narratives about towns and villages stretching between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Barry captures the deterioration of small-town Russia and explores how these towns — while not very far from the Kremlin’s reach — are worryingly far from modernity. The War For Nigeria By James Verini National Geographic In what ought to be “God’s own country in Africa,” a brutal conflict is tearing apart the north. James Verini explores the Boko Haram, the extremist group behind the chaos, and the Nigerians enduring its terror. My Year with Malala By Christina Lamb The Sunday Times From social activism to nominations for the Nobel peace prize, Malala Yousafzai’s accomplishments are unique for a sixteen year old girl. Christina Lamb highlights an equally intriguing personal account of the Pakistani girl’s story. ...

Forty years after the Arab oil embargo, new technologies are dramatically reshaping the geopolitics of the Middle East. BY AMY MYERS JAFFE, ED MORSE Forty years have passed since the Arab oil embargo went into effect on Oct. 16, 1973, triggering a period of incredible change and turmoil. After the United States provided support to Israel during the Yom Kippur War, a cartel of developing-world countries (via the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC) banned the sale of their oil to Israel's allies and thereby set in motion geopolitical circumstances that eventually allowed them to wrest control over global oil production and pricing from the giant international oil companies -- ushering in an era of significantly higher oil prices. The event was hailed at the time as the first major victory of "Third World" powers to bring the West to its knees. Designed in part to bring Arab populations their due after decades of colonialism, the embargo open...

What We Got Wrong About OPEC's Oil Embargo A worker turns a valve to release drilled oil near the Dead Sea, October 9, 2006.  (Eliana Aponte / Courtesy Reuters) T he first U.S. energy secretary, James Schlesinger, observed in 1977 that when it comes to energy, the United States has “only two modes -- complacency and panic.” Today, with the country in the middle of an oil and gas boom that could one day crown it the world’s largest oil producer, the pendulum has swung toward complacency. But 40 years ago this week, panic ruled the day, as petroleum prices quadrupled in a matter of months and Americans endured a traumatic gasoline shortage, waiting for hours in long lines only to be greeted by signs reading “Sorry, no gas.” The cause of these ills, Americans explained to themselves, was the Arab oil embargo -- the decision by Iran and the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut off oil exports to the United States and its allies as puni...

OPEC Gave the Rest of the World a Head Start Against Climate Change Gas station attendants in Portland, Oregon, November 1973.  (David Falconer / EPA / U.S. National Archives) F orty years ago this week, six Persian Gulf oil producers voted to raise their benchmark oil price by 70 percent. Over the next two months, the Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut production and stopped oil shipments to the United States and other countries that were backing Israel in the Yom Kippur War. By the time the embargo was lifted in March 1974, oil prices had stabilized at around $12 a barrel -- almost four times the pre-crisis price. In 1973, that oil shock looked like a triumph for OPEC and a calamity for the rest of the world. The OPEC states enjoyed enormous windfalls and new geopolitical influence, whereas the United States and other oil importers were hit by unprecedented fuel costs and painful recessions. But over the last four decades, tho...