WILD CARDS - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 186

to borrow a popular phrase from the 1960s, drilling aggressively in the
United States might “drain America i rst” and argue that the country
should instead save its resources for a possible future conl ict. Partisans
of traditional energy sources could emphasize that the United States is
likely to depend on China for many of the new energy technologies that
people promote, and they may warn that this could become dangerous
in a more antagonistic relationship.
What ultimately mat ers most is the timing of any confrontation.
Intense conl ict with China, if it materializes, will probably not come
out of nowhere but rather emerge over years. h at gradual development
would create time to adjust. U.S. i rms could shit supply chains for
electric cars and wind farms back home or toward friendlier partners.
U.S. oil and gas producers could ramp up output and put the United
States on more solid ground—if they do not deplete U.S. resources
beforehand.

m m m

It might not take a war, though, for geography to become a far more
important force in the energy world. Americans who came of age at er
World War II have witnessed the tide of globalization go in only one
direction. With brief exceptions, U.S. trade with the rest of the world
has climbed year at er year. 15 In 1960, imports and exports combined
totaled $12 billion; by 2011, it had risen to $1.2 trillion. Foreign own-
ership of U.S. assets rarely exceeded one billion dollars prior to 1967.
In 2007, it passed $700 billion.
h is economic integration has been matched by the rise of interna-
tional institutions. In 1946, as the world struggled to emerge from World
War II, the United States led the creation of the General Agreement
on Tarif s and Trade (GAT ), which initially bound twenty-three coun-
tries to forty-i ve thousand tarif reductions af ecting “one i t h of the
world's total” trade. 16 Further rounds of liberalization steadily expanded
trade over the decades that followed. h e culmination was the so-called
Uruguay Round, concluded in 1994, which gave birth to the World
Trade Organization. h e WTO set rules and established a remarkably
powerful judicial system for resolving disputes and enforcing penalties.