Andrew Korybko — America’s About to Unleash Its NOPEC Superweapon Against the Russians & Saudis

The US Congress has revived the so-called “NOPEC” bill for countering OPEC and OPEC+.

Officially called the “No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act”, NOPEC is the definition of so-called “lawfare” because it enables the US to extraterritorially impose its domestic legislation on others by giving the government the right to sue OPEC and OPEC+ countries like Russia because of their coordinated efforts to control oil prices.

Lawsuits, however, are unenforceable, which is why the targeted states’ refusal to abide by the US courts’ likely predetermined judgement against them will probably be used to trigger sanctions under the worst-case scenario, with this chain of events being catalyzed in order to achieve several strategic objectives....

Whoever controls energy controls the world.

The purpose behind this approach is to intimidate the US’ European vassals into complying with its demands so as to make as much of the continent as possible a captive market of America’s energy exporters, which explains why Trump also wants to scrap LNG export licenses to the EU. If successful, this could further erode Europe’s shrinking strategic independence and also inflict long-term economic damage on the US’ energy rivals that could then be exploited for political purposes. At the same time, America’s recently unveiled “Power Africa” initiative to invest $175 billion in gas projects there could eventually see US companies in the emerging energy frontiers of Tanzania, Mozambique, and elsewhere become important suppliers to their country’s Chinese rival, which could make Beijing’s access to energy even more dependent on American goodwill than ever before.

If looked at as the opening salvo of a global energy war being waged in parallel with the trade one as opposed to being dismissed as the populist piece of legislation that it’s being portrayed as by the media, NOPEC can be seen as the strategic superweapon that it actually is, with its ultimate effectiveness being dependent of course on whether it’s properly wielded by American decision makers. It’s too earlier to call it a game-changer because it hasn’t even been promulgated yet, but in the event that it ever is, then it might go down in history as the most impactful energy-related development since OPEC, LNG, and fracking.

Bold.

Oriental Review
America’s About to Unleash Its NOPEC Superweapon Against the Russians & Saudis
Andrew Korybko

Paul Robinson — legal blowback

Lawfare, according to Wikipedia, is ‘the illegitimate use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent, winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent’s time.’ It is highly questionable what would constitute an ‘illegitimate use of the law’, but what is true is that certain people are turning to the courts as a political tool, and that some courts seem willing to help them by making what seem to be highly politicized judgements.

In March of this year, for instance, a US court ordered Iran to pay $10.5 billion in damages to relatives of victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. And today the US Supreme Court determined that Iran must pay almost $2 billion to relatives of Marines who died in an attack on their base in Beirut in 1983. Yet in an interview this week, US president Barack Obama opposed attempts to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged role in the 9/11 attacks. Obama declared: ‘If we open up the possibility that individuals in the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries.’ Thus it is o.k. for Americans to sue Iran for $10.5 billion for 9/11, even though Iran was not responsible, but not o.k. to sue Saudi Arabia, even though a link is much more likely.…

Irrussianality
legal blowback

Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa