The Cold War never ended

US "ineptitude and arrogance created so much of what we're facing today."

The quote is from a Democracy Now! interview with Jeffrey Sachs two weeks ago.  It's practically a rant, but Sachs tells it like it happened, and how it is today.  

Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Policy & "West's False Narrative" Stoking Tensions with Russia, China - YouTube

One caveat:  It wasn't all ineptitude and arrogance. In 2010 I intimated that much of the Cold War was "Soviet oil" spelled backward.  As I noted in my 2010 post a small window on this aspect of the war opened as early as 1962 with the publication of The Threat Of Soviet Oil; Saudi Aramco World, Volume 13, Number 3; March 1962. The window opened a little wider with the 1982 publication of a paper for the Heritage Foundation titled Is Soviet Gas Pipeline a Steel Noose? 

Then came 1996 -- and then 2016: 

[...]

The CIA’s oil denial policy is a snippet of a Cold War history that is finally giving up more of its secrets. In 1996, a brief description of the plan emerged after the Truman Presidential Library mistakenly declassified it—a security breach the National Archives deemed the worst in its history—and some additional details have trickled out over the years. But a recently discovered trove of documents stashed in Britain’s National Archives, along with some key American documents, now declassified, provide a more complete and more revelatory account—published here for the first time.

[...] 

From The Top-Secret Cold War Plan to Keep Soviet Hands Off Middle Eastern Oil - POLITICO Magazine - June 23, 2016

Again, a caveat:  I don't think it's just a "snippet" of Cold War history; I'd say it is the history, much of it, although when if ever this will be made explicit by scholars and investigative journalists is anyone's guess. 

In any case, I think it's clear that the aim of the Western allies during the Cold War was not only to deny the Soviets Middle Eastern oil but also to gain control of Soviet oil.  The same goal is still in force today so in effect the Cold War never ended.

However, times have changed:

Ostracized by the West, Russia Finds a Partner in Saudi Arabia – DNyuz

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