Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar's New Book

Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar's New Book - Perilous Power: "Achcar agrees with Chomsky and stresses oil's strategic importance in solidifying alliances with key allies like Japan and checking rivals like China and Russia (which has its own large hydrocarbon reserves). It's economic value is also immense both to US Big Oil but also to the US economy. Those factors are now playing out on a worldwide chessboard with two organizations coalescing to compete with the US for control of Central Asia's reserves - the Asian Energy Security Grid composed of China and Russia mainly and possibly India, South Korea and even Japan joining and the more significant Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) formed in 2001 for political, diplomatic, economic and security reasons as a counterweight to NATO the US dominates. It has a core China-Russia alliance in it along with most of the former Soviet republics plus Iran, Pakistan and India as observers that may lead to their eventual membership. As world powers jockey with the US for control of vital oil reserves, these alliances may figure prominently in how things eventually play out."