With oil prices reaching record high levels recently, many wonder whether we are we potentially headed towards another 1973-style oil shock. The answer is a resounding "no," according to the new book, Crude Awakenings: Global Oil Security and American Foreign Policy. Despite apparent threats from Middle East turmoil and terrorism, global petroleum supplies today are in fact more, not less, stable than they have been in decades, thanks to effective and forward-looking political, technological and market developments that have been implemented throughout the industry.

Conventional wisdom on oil is wrong. So says the author, Steve A. Yetiv, Professor of Political Science at Old Dominion University: "The real story of global oil over the past twenty-five years is not about short run developments with Yukos, Venezuala or Nigeria, nor terrorist attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It is not even about periodic small- and large-scale U.S. attacks on Iraq. Rather, the real story is about longer-term developments that have changed the international relations of the Middle East, politics at the global level, and world oil markets. These developments have increased oil stability."

Although prices continue to remain volatile, Yetiv argues that the world market in petroleum products is far more benign and predictable than what is portrayed to us by the media and lawmakers, a fact that has serious implications for our current domestic and foreign policy decisions.

PRIZE : THE EPIC QUEST FOR OIL, MONEY & POWER by Yergin, Daniel

How we got where we are today in the Persian Gulf
This case study of the comparatively popular 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War examined the domestic pressures which then-President George H.W. Bush had on his foreign policy choices. Interviews conducted during 1996-1999 with former administration officials provide important insights how that Iraq war was fought--and why it was won with relatively little causalities. Needing to deflect citizen attention and scrutiny from his less-than stellar domestic policies, Bush shamelessly and openly promoted Saddam Hussein as a Arabic Adolph Hitler. Because the now dead German dictator remains one of the most loathed figures in world history, the president's label provided an instant rallying point for a majority of Americans and world leaders to act. Since appeasement had failed so miserably the first time, very few people were eager to attempt a reenactment, proactively stopping another Hitler was its own tangible evidence and justification rolled into one. Bush was able to position himself as the commander because he had ample congressional support (from then-Democratic majorities), funding, international coalition allies, and a challenge which itself was not difficult to manage. Critically differing from Hitler, Saddam did not have a coalition of Middle East states openly supporting him and the countries nearest to Iraq ultimately donated space for the allies to stage their own forces. With America currently in a much different Iraq war with another Bush, this book is an essential read. It is important remembering however those international successes could not negate the American people from examining the domestic economy performance.