Power Politics in a World of Flows

Oil whitethorn be black gold, but unlike the yellow kind it is expensive only in bulk. Many thousands of barrels of oil mustiness be sold even to earn one one thousand thousand dollars, and such large bulk quantities are subject to efficacious interdiction. The embargo against most Iraqi oil sales, which has hamstrung the Iraqi administration throughout the 1990s (even if it has failed to topple that regime) would relieve oneself been almost equally effective had Iraq retained control over Kuwaiti reserves. Moreover, the localise at which the potential valuate of oil reserves provide be realized by sales is limited; fling in any case much oil on the market too fast simply depresses the price and may reduce instead than increase the overproducer's income.

In contrast, financial assets are fluid and touchy to embargo. Financial assets, unlike oil, need not be shipped in tankers. Buyers and sellers can be concealed by a host of well-established methods, and painstaking analytical accounting work is required to black-footed ferret out such transactions: they cannot be blocked by a destroyer in the Persian Gulf. Sales from a diversified portfolio such as Kuwait's can be do with much less risk of severely depressing the value of the assets. In all these respects, then, siezure of Kuwait's financial wealth promised a much immediate and flexible source of additional income for Iraq than did siezure of the oilfields.

Unfortunately for the ibn Talal Hussein regime, Kuwait's wealth turned

In medieval as in modern times a distinction must be drawn between juristic opening and actual practice. The principalities and cities that made up the Holy roman Empire enjoyed a status that arose initially out of the multitude weakness of the emperors, and evolved only gradually into effective sanctioned main(a)ty. Likewise, the late-medieval dukedom of Burgundy enjoyed what we would now call Great Power status because it had the legions means of assertion, notwithstanding theoretical subordination to its actual rival, the french crown.

At the same time, improved communications affirm -- paradoxically, it would have the appearance _or_ semblance -- strengthened local place-based identities, a trend given legal acknowledgment in Britain by the establishment of Scottish and welsh sub-theme assemblies. The paradox may be explained by reduced be of communication. In the 19th century, the new technologies of communications were costly and and then had a centralizing effect. Mass-production publishing was centered in national capitals, as were education ministries, and they strengthened ties to the center while change local ties. Newer technologies, however, have made mass communications unattached to local interests on more nearly equal terms. These technologies have also enabled a more rapid spread of what may be called accidental inducements to localism. The movie "Braveheart," a Hollywood production, appears to have lent significant encouragement to Scottish national mentation; this was unlikely to be intended by the producers, and would have been utmost less likely had the film been made a genesis ago, when American films were aimed primarily at the domestic audience and afield marketing was a secondary concern.

The tension between theory and practice inherent in these cases might be compared to french neo-imperialism in francophone Africa in recent decades, or to earlier American neo-imperialism in the Caribbean; in each case theoretically sovereign states were in fact subje
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