DOI: Shell Failed to Finalize Key Components of Alaska Program

Royal Dutch Shell plc's failure to finalize key components of its 2012 Alaska Arctic drilling program, including its oil spill containment system Arctic Challenger, led to Shell's failure in receiving needed permits to drill into oil-bearing zones in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, according to the findings of a U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) review released Thursday.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called for a high-level, expedited review of Shell's program Jan. 8, including Shell's preparations for last year's drilling season and its maritime and emergency response operations – to identify the challenges Shell faced in its Arctic drilling plans and future lessons to be learned from that experience.

The review examined Shell's safety management system and the company's ability to meet the stringent standards set by the Department of the Interior for Arctic development. It focused on Shell's inability to obtain certification for the Arctic Challenger on a timely basis, the difficulty Shell encountered in deploying the vessel, and the marine transport issues Shell faced with the Noble Discoverer (mid-water drillship) and Kulluk drilling rigs, including the Kulluk's grounding offshore Kodiak Island, Alaska while being towed. Both rigs are en route to Asia for repairs.

Shell's failure to monitor contractor progress on key components of its Arctic drilling program, including the Arctic Challenger, was a pervasive theme in the review's findings. The contractor that Shell used to design and build the Arctic Challenger, had extensive experience working in the Gulf of Mexico, but ultimately, Shell ran into problems bringing the containment system online. The vessel failed to receive its U.S. Coast Guard certification, and the deployment of the system itself failed.

"Working in the Arctic requires thorough advanced planning and preparation, rigorous management focus, a close watch over contractors, and reliance on experienced, specialized operators who are familiar with the uniquely challenging conditions of the Alaska offshore," Salazar commented during a conference call Thursday with reporters.

Shell fell short in this area, Salazar noted, which contributed to many of the problems it faced, including the inability to deploy a functioning containment system, as well as the violation of air emissions requirements Shell encountered.

DOI Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes said the review confirmed the importance of strong coordination of among federal agencies in connection with permitting and exploration activities. This coordination has been an initiative through Executive Order 13580. Established in July 2011, the working group was created to coordinate efforts of federal agencies responsible for overseeing safe and responsible development of onshore and offshore energy in Alaska.

These agencies include the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The review also reinforces the Obama administration's commitment to ensuring oil and gas exploration activities maintain safety at all levels, said BSEE Director James Watson.

"We will continue to maintain rigorous oversight of drilling and hold anyone operating in public waters to the highest environmental and safety standards."

Watson noted the administration looks forward to learning more from the findings of the Coast Guard's current investigation into the Kulluk grounding incident.

Shell should submit to DOI a comprehensive, integrated plan describing all phases of operation, from preparations through demobilization, when the company resumes exploratory drilling in Alaska's Arctic offshore region. This plan will go one step beyond the current recommendations for plan submissions, including not only details of drilling plans but for maritime operations as well.

The review also recommended Shell complete a full third party management system audit to confirm the capability of the company's management system, including oversight of key contractors, are tailored for Arctic operations, and that Shell has addressed the issues it faced in the 2012 drilling season.

Additionally, the review findings confirmed the necessity of an Arctic-specific model, and recommends continuing work on safety and environmental practices appropriate for the Arctic.

"We must recognize and account for the unique challenges of this region, which holds significant energy potential, but where issues like environmental and climate conditions, limited infrastructure, and the subsistence needs of North Slope communities demand specialized planning and consideration," said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Tommy Beaudreau, who led the review team.

The review, which involved the efforts of BSEE James Watson and staff, Alaska regional staff for BSEE and the BOEM, as well as input from NOAA and the EPA, which oversaw Shell's Alaska activity. The Coast Guard also provided technical assistance. Additionally, DOI officials met with Alaska state legislators, native Alaskan organizations, and environmental groups, as well as marine contractors and oil and gas companies.

When asked whether Shell's Alaska program highlighted any changes that needed to be made to the government process, Salazar noted government officials had learned a great deal from Shell's 2012 effort and still had a lot to learn.

"The Arctic is a difficult environment, and Shell is one of the most resource-capable companies in the world. Just because Shell encountered problems there doesn't mean that exploration shouldn't occur," Salazar commented, noting that 30 exploration wells have previously been drilled in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. "We allowed Shell to move forward cautiously with limited activity in the Arctic because Shell didn't meet the requisite permit requirements," Salazar said.

Hayes noted that Shell had been cooperative with the review process, and has acknowledged the issues it faced in terms of contractor timing with the Arctic Challenger.

"They put a lot of effort late into the game to get it certified, but not in time for the 2012 season."

Salazar said Shell should use its planned pause of its Alaska drilling plans for 2013 to learn the lessons from its 2012 drilling season. Hayes noted that Shell would use the time to conduct more testing of the Arctic Challenger to ensure all of its systems are in place so they will not be pressed for time the same way they were pressed for time for the 2012 season. 

Karen Boman has more than 10 years of experience covering the upstream oil and gas sector. Email Karen at kboman@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.
For More Information on the Offshore Rig Fleet:
RigLogix can provide the information that you need about the offshore rig fleet, whether you need utilization and industry trends or detailed reports on future rig contracts. Subscribing to RigLogix will allow you to access dozens of prebuilt reports and build your own custom reports using hundreds of available data columns. For more information about a RigLogix subscription, visit http://www.riglogix.com/.

View the original article here

DOI: Shell Failed to Finalize Key Components of Alaska Program

Royal Dutch Shell plc's failure to finalize key components of its 2012 Alaska Arctic drilling program, including its oil spill containment system Arctic Challenger, led to Shell's failure in receiving needed permits to drill into oil-bearing zones in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, according to the findings of a U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) review released Thursday.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called for a high-level, expedited review of Shell's program Jan. 8, including Shell's preparations for last year's drilling season and its maritime and emergency response operations – to identify the challenges Shell faced in its Arctic drilling plans and future lessons to be learned from that experience.

The review examined Shell's safety management system and the company's ability to meet the stringent standards set by the Department of the Interior for Arctic development. It focused on Shell's inability to obtain certification for the Arctic Challenger on a timely basis, the difficulty Shell encountered in deploying the vessel, and the marine transport issues Shell faced with the Noble Discoverer (mid-water drillship) and Kulluk drilling rigs, including the Kulluk's grounding offshore Kodiak Island, Alaska while being towed. Both rigs are en route to Asia for repairs.

Shell's failure to monitor contractor progress on key components of its Arctic drilling program, including the Arctic Challenger, was a pervasive theme in the review's findings. The contractor that Shell used to design and build the Arctic Challenger, had extensive experience working in the Gulf of Mexico, but ultimately, Shell ran into problems bringing the containment system online. The vessel failed to receive its U.S. Coast Guard certification, and the deployment of the system itself failed.

"Working in the Arctic requires thorough advanced planning and preparation, rigorous management focus, a close watch over contractors, and reliance on experienced, specialized operators who are familiar with the uniquely challenging conditions of the Alaska offshore," Salazar commented during a conference call Thursday with reporters.

Shell fell short in this area, Salazar noted, which contributed to many of the problems it faced, including the inability to deploy a functioning containment system, as well as the violation of air emissions requirements Shell encountered.

DOI Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes said the review confirmed the importance of strong coordination of among federal agencies in connection with permitting and exploration activities. This coordination has been an initiative through Executive Order 13580. Established in July 2011, the working group was created to coordinate efforts of federal agencies responsible for overseeing safe and responsible development of onshore and offshore energy in Alaska.

These agencies include the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The review also reinforces the Obama administration's commitment to ensuring oil and gas exploration activities maintain safety at all levels, said BSEE Director James Watson.

"We will continue to maintain rigorous oversight of drilling and hold anyone operating in public waters to the highest environmental and safety standards."

Watson noted the administration looks forward to learning more from the findings of the Coast Guard's current investigation into the Kulluk grounding incident.

Shell should submit to DOI a comprehensive, integrated plan describing all phases of operation, from preparations through demobilization, when the company resumes exploratory drilling in Alaska's Arctic offshore region. This plan will go one step beyond the current recommendations for plan submissions, including not only details of drilling plans but for maritime operations as well.

The review also recommended Shell complete a full third party management system audit to confirm the capability of the company's management system, including oversight of key contractors, are tailored for Arctic operations, and that Shell has addressed the issues it faced in the 2012 drilling season.

Additionally, the review findings confirmed the necessity of an Arctic-specific model, and recommends continuing work on safety and environmental practices appropriate for the Arctic.

"We must recognize and account for the unique challenges of this region, which holds significant energy potential, but where issues like environmental and climate conditions, limited infrastructure, and the subsistence needs of North Slope communities demand specialized planning and consideration," said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Tommy Beaudreau, who led the review team.

The review, which involved the efforts of BSEE James Watson and staff, Alaska regional staff for BSEE and the BOEM, as well as input from NOAA and the EPA, which oversaw Shell's Alaska activity. The Coast Guard also provided technical assistance. Additionally, DOI officials met with Alaska state legislators, native Alaskan organizations, and environmental groups, as well as marine contractors and oil and gas companies.

When asked whether Shell's Alaska program highlighted any changes that needed to be made to the government process, Salazar noted government officials had learned a great deal from Shell's 2012 effort and still had a lot to learn.

"The Arctic is a difficult environment, and Shell is one of the most resource-capable companies in the world. Just because Shell encountered problems there doesn't mean that exploration shouldn't occur," Salazar commented, noting that 30 exploration wells have previously been drilled in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. "We allowed Shell to move forward cautiously with limited activity in the Arctic because Shell didn't meet the requisite permit requirements," Salazar said.

Hayes noted that Shell had been cooperative with the review process, and has acknowledged the issues it faced in terms of contractor timing with the Arctic Challenger.

"They put a lot of effort late into the game to get it certified, but not in time for the 2012 season."

Salazar said Shell should use its planned pause of its Alaska drilling plans for 2013 to learn the lessons from its 2012 drilling season. Hayes noted that Shell would use the time to conduct more testing of the Arctic Challenger to ensure all of its systems are in place so they will not be pressed for time the same way they were pressed for time for the 2012 season. 

Karen Boman has more than 10 years of experience covering the upstream oil and gas sector. Email Karen at kboman@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.
For More Information on the Offshore Rig Fleet:
RigLogix can provide the information that you need about the offshore rig fleet, whether you need utilization and industry trends or detailed reports on future rig contracts. Subscribing to RigLogix will allow you to access dozens of prebuilt reports and build your own custom reports using hundreds of available data columns. For more information about a RigLogix subscription, visit http://www.riglogix.com/.

View the original article here

DOI: Shell Failed to Finalize Key Components of Alaska Program

Royal Dutch Shell plc's failure to finalize key components of its 2012 Alaska Arctic drilling program, including its oil spill containment system Arctic Challenger, led to Shell's failure in receiving needed permits to drill into oil-bearing zones in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, according to the findings of a U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) review released Thursday.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called for a high-level, expedited review of Shell's program Jan. 8, including Shell's preparations for last year's drilling season and its maritime and emergency response operations – to identify the challenges Shell faced in its Arctic drilling plans and future lessons to be learned from that experience.

The review examined Shell's safety management system and the company's ability to meet the stringent standards set by the Department of the Interior for Arctic development. It focused on Shell's inability to obtain certification for the Arctic Challenger on a timely basis, the difficulty Shell encountered in deploying the vessel, and the marine transport issues Shell faced with the Noble Discoverer (mid-water drillship) and Kulluk drilling rigs, including the Kulluk's grounding offshore Kodiak Island, Alaska while being towed. Both rigs are en route to Asia for repairs.

Shell's failure to monitor contractor progress on key components of its Arctic drilling program, including the Arctic Challenger, was a pervasive theme in the review's findings. The contractor that Shell used to design and build the Arctic Challenger, had extensive experience working in the Gulf of Mexico, but ultimately, Shell ran into problems bringing the containment system online. The vessel failed to receive its U.S. Coast Guard certification, and the deployment of the system itself failed.

"Working in the Arctic requires thorough advanced planning and preparation, rigorous management focus, a close watch over contractors, and reliance on experienced, specialized operators who are familiar with the uniquely challenging conditions of the Alaska offshore," Salazar commented during a conference call Thursday with reporters.

Shell fell short in this area, Salazar noted, which contributed to many of the problems it faced, including the inability to deploy a functioning containment system, as well as the violation of air emissions requirements Shell encountered.

DOI Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes said the review confirmed the importance of strong coordination of among federal agencies in connection with permitting and exploration activities. This coordination has been an initiative through Executive Order 13580. Established in July 2011, the working group was created to coordinate efforts of federal agencies responsible for overseeing safe and responsible development of onshore and offshore energy in Alaska.

These agencies include the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The review also reinforces the Obama administration's commitment to ensuring oil and gas exploration activities maintain safety at all levels, said BSEE Director James Watson.

"We will continue to maintain rigorous oversight of drilling and hold anyone operating in public waters to the highest environmental and safety standards."

Watson noted the administration looks forward to learning more from the findings of the Coast Guard's current investigation into the Kulluk grounding incident.

Shell should submit to DOI a comprehensive, integrated plan describing all phases of operation, from preparations through demobilization, when the company resumes exploratory drilling in Alaska's Arctic offshore region. This plan will go one step beyond the current recommendations for plan submissions, including not only details of drilling plans but for maritime operations as well.

The review also recommended Shell complete a full third party management system audit to confirm the capability of the company's management system, including oversight of key contractors, are tailored for Arctic operations, and that Shell has addressed the issues it faced in the 2012 drilling season.

Additionally, the review findings confirmed the necessity of an Arctic-specific model, and recommends continuing work on safety and environmental practices appropriate for the Arctic.

"We must recognize and account for the unique challenges of this region, which holds significant energy potential, but where issues like environmental and climate conditions, limited infrastructure, and the subsistence needs of North Slope communities demand specialized planning and consideration," said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Tommy Beaudreau, who led the review team.

The review, which involved the efforts of BSEE James Watson and staff, Alaska regional staff for BSEE and the BOEM, as well as input from NOAA and the EPA, which oversaw Shell's Alaska activity. The Coast Guard also provided technical assistance. Additionally, DOI officials met with Alaska state legislators, native Alaskan organizations, and environmental groups, as well as marine contractors and oil and gas companies.

When asked whether Shell's Alaska program highlighted any changes that needed to be made to the government process, Salazar noted government officials had learned a great deal from Shell's 2012 effort and still had a lot to learn.

"The Arctic is a difficult environment, and Shell is one of the most resource-capable companies in the world. Just because Shell encountered problems there doesn't mean that exploration shouldn't occur," Salazar commented, noting that 30 exploration wells have previously been drilled in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. "We allowed Shell to move forward cautiously with limited activity in the Arctic because Shell didn't meet the requisite permit requirements," Salazar said.

Hayes noted that Shell had been cooperative with the review process, and has acknowledged the issues it faced in terms of contractor timing with the Arctic Challenger.

"They put a lot of effort late into the game to get it certified, but not in time for the 2012 season."

Salazar said Shell should use its planned pause of its Alaska drilling plans for 2013 to learn the lessons from its 2012 drilling season. Hayes noted that Shell would use the time to conduct more testing of the Arctic Challenger to ensure all of its systems are in place so they will not be pressed for time the same way they were pressed for time for the 2012 season. 

Karen Boman has more than 10 years of experience covering the upstream oil and gas sector. Email Karen at kboman@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.
For More Information on the Offshore Rig Fleet:
RigLogix can provide the information that you need about the offshore rig fleet, whether you need utilization and industry trends or detailed reports on future rig contracts. Subscribing to RigLogix will allow you to access dozens of prebuilt reports and build your own custom reports using hundreds of available data columns. For more information about a RigLogix subscription, visit http://www.riglogix.com/.

View the original article here

Lawyer Says Transocean Failed to Train Drilling Rig Crews Properly

NEW ORLEANS - Transocean Ltd. failed to train its drilling rig crews properly and didn't maintain key safety equipment on the doomed Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leading to the deadly 2010 explosion and oil spill, a lawyer representing Gulf Coast businesses said.

During opening statements of a trial over liability, Jim Roy, a lawyer for companies suing BP PLC, Transocean, Halliburton Co. and others, cited a string of prior incidents in Federal District Court that he said showed the rig owner was grossly negligent leading up to the accident.

Information about close calls on other rigs wasn't passed along, Mr. Roy said, adding that just a month before the April 2010 accident, the Transocean crew on the Deepwater Horizon failed to catch a sudden surge of natural gas from the well they were drilling, indicating the company had "a chronic problem."

Mr. Roy was the first lawyer to make an opening statement on the first day of the civil trial aimed at determining the degree of culpability BP and the other companies have for the disaster, which killed 11 workers and unleashed the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. A second trial, scheduled for the fall, will determine how much oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico. Together, these cases will determine the size of fines companies face under the Clean Water Act, which could range as high as $17.6 billion.

BP, which hired Transocean and Halliburton to work on drilling its deep-water oil well, has argued the fines would likely be less than $5 billion. The company will get 90 minutes to put on its opening statement Monday afternoon.

Transocean, which presented its opening statement Monday morning, rebutted the claims against the company's rigs and its crews. The Coast Guard, federal safety regulators and BP's own management considered the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig "what 'good' looked like," said Brad Brian, a lawyer for Transocean. He outlined details of Transocean's safety systems, and emphasized that BP had primary responsibility for the design of the well and for final safety decisions.

"BP took a series of unconscionable risks with what it knew was an exceptionally dangerous well," Mr. Brian said.

Mr. Brian focused on a 10 minute ship-to-shore phone call between two BP engineers, Mark Hafle and Donald Vidrine, less than an hour before the explosion. Mr. Vidrine allegedly talked about odd results from a key safety test, results that Mr. Hafle noted didn't seem to be appropriate.

"In many ways, it's a microcosm of what BP did wrong on this well and why Transocean and its crew truly are victims of BP's misconduct," Mr. Brian said. Instructing the crew to go ahead with its work in the wake of these test results "was reckless, in utter and wholesale disregard of the facts."

Michael Underhill, the Justice Department's lead civil attorney in the case, also focused on that conversation as one of several places where the accident could have been prevented.

"That conversation we will show should have prevented the tragedy, the need for any of us to be in this courtroom today and for the next 3 months," Mr. Underhill said. "They had a conversation that could have saved eleven lives, saved the Gulf, saved the people of the Gulf from a catastrophe."

The government plans to "show that a long series of missteps and reckless decisions by BP taken together demonstrate willful misconduct," he said. "We will show that individual decisions made by BP standing alone constitute gross negligence."

BP has already agreed to pay more than $30 billion in fines, settlements and cleanup costs for the well blowout and the resulting Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including $4 billion to settle criminal charges related to the accident. Transocean has agreed to $1 billion in civil fines and $400 million in criminal penalties.

Witness testimony is expected to begin on the Tuesday, starting with Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He will likely be followed by Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP Americas. A previously taped questioning of former BP chairman, Tony Hayward, will be played Tuesday.

Despite the start of the trial, settlement discussions are continuing, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department and Gulf Coast states have considered offering BP a deal under which the company would pay $16 billion to settle civil claims. The settlement offer would cover potential fines owed by BP under the Clean Water Act, and payments under an environmental evaluation known as the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, these people said.

Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

Police hunt for suspects who failed to rob liquor store

Font ResizeColorado NewsBy Garrison Wells
The Gazettedenverpost.comPosted: 12/22/2012 03:05:26 PM MSTDecember 22, 2012 11:14 PM GMTUpdated: 12/22/2012 04:14:53 PM MST

Police searched for three men who tried to rob a liquor store on north Academy Boulevard on Saturday morning.

Two of the men were heavily armed, one with a pistol-grip shotgun and the second with a long shotgun, said Sgt. Tony Erickson, who responded to the 9:42 a.m. call.

"They were masked and in there with shotguns," Erickson said. "Fortunately, the clerk was not at the counter, she was in the office and locked the door."

Not finding anyone to rob, the pair left Academy Boulevard Liquors, 1210 North Academy Blvd., and got into a dark-colored Toyota Camry behind the store driven by the third suspect and took off.

Read the complete story in The (Colorado Springs) Gazette.

View the Original article

Global Governance at Heart of Failed Foreign Policies

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By William Pfaff

The first time I heard there was a “war” against Westphalia was in a talk given to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2003 by George W. Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. She said that the Westphalian system of sovereign international relations—agreed upon at that German city in 1648, as part of the treaty that ended the terrible and wasteful Thirty Years’ War—was now outdated and should be discarded. Since then, it has more and more been dismissed in academic and policy discussions devoted to new proposals for “global governance.”

The Westphalian agreement was that all nations henceforth were to be considered absolutely sovereign within their own borders. Intervention in the religious or political affairs of another state was forbidden.

This was a reaction to the war that had just concluded—or actually, the series of small wars over a 30-year period that has since been treated as a single great war involving Catholics against Protestants and Hapsburgs against Bourbons. Its best modern historian, C.V. Wedgwood, has justly said that the Thirty Years’ War “need not have happened and it settled nothing worth settling ... an object lesson on the dangers and disasters which can arise when men of narrow hearts and little minds are in high places.” The war in which Rice and President Bush shared responsibility, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and all that followed, was precisely such a war, deserving exactly that judgment.

Rice, though, was claiming that if the Westphalian international system were replaced by an American-led alliance of democracies ruling the world, international peace would prevail. Such a system has in one or another form been America’s foreign policy objective ever since Woodrow Wilson, even while American-instigated small wars of one or another kind, or American interventions in other peoples’ wars, have dominated recent years, intended to promote democratic global governance—all of them unsuccessful in outcome, or inconclusive. Even Kosovo/Serbia remains rife with tension, their frontier policed by foreigners.

Yet “global governance” has been probably the most fashionable subject in academic and professional international relations studies. The reason is simple to identify. “Europe” has been a success. At least a success until now, notwithstanding the economic ravages of the Wall Street crisis and the banking frauds that damaged the City of London and other West European markets and economies. Politically, the EU has been successful. Otherwise, as Thierry de Montbrial, founder of the World Policy Conference—which held its fifth annual session earlier this month in Cannes—wrote in his introduction to the meeting, the past five years have not produced much to support the argument of emerging world democratic convergence.

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The most prominent argument made, above all in Germany, with respect to the crises in the southern EU member economies, has simply proposed still more European economic and monetary unity. This despite the rise in British political and popular anti-European (and anti-euro) sentiments, which have made British withdrawal from the EU a real if still remote possibility.

These days, domestic and international politics mainly concern national issues and clashes of interest. “[R]eal asymmetric economic relations do not look like the perfect markets of text books,” Montbrial writes, adding that, “financial markets are not always rational but can experience stress or even chaos; ... economic cycles are unlikely to be abolished anytime soon; ... [and] the era of ideological enthusiasm for globalization is over.”

The most important issues of political “governance” of concern these days are those of the Egyptian constitutional referendum and who will eventually govern Egypt; the civil insurrection in Syria; and the new form taken by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in all of which both the United States and the European Union remain impotent or irresolute observers.

Rice’s vision in 2003 of an American-dominated international democratic hegemony cannot today be taken seriously. The American public is increasingly unwilling to support the kind of large-scale military actions that Barack Obama inherited from George W. Bush. The Obama government is likely to find that world domination through its own drone attacks and “lily-pad” military bases policing the Middle East and Africa unfeasible as well as internationally unacceptable.

State sovereignty in the EU has indeed been weakened but far from replaced by European federation, and that is in a society with 2,000 years of religious and cultural integration. The Middle Eastern societies—despite 13 centuries of religious unity, the great Arab caliphates and the Ottoman experience—are fragile even where state sovereignty exists and can be enforced. The George W. Bush administration idea of a “New Middle East” proved a fantasy. In the Far East, old empires are reasserting their sovereign claims. Global governance has yet to prove its relevance to any civilization except that of the post-Enlightenment West, and one can question its relevance there. Political identity remains bound to national history—the fundament of sovereignty.

Visit William Pfaff’s Web site for more on his latest book, “The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy” (Walker & Co., $25), at www.williampfaff.com.

© 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

TAGS: barack obama condoleezza rice egypt eu europe foreign policy government history iraq israel military palestine politics syria united states war william pfaff



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