A Green Marshall Plan: A Green Foreign Policy for the United States

The Green Marshall Plan is based on the idea of building and selling US renewable energy technology as a means of destroying the value of oil and gas in the international system. It will tie together American’s interest in renewable energy leadership and climate change mitigation with the desire to reduce American security exposure abroad, while weakening American enemies like Russia and Iran and creating conditions for increasing peace and democracy. At the same time it will provide jobs for Americans, reestablish American international leadership, and provide the Biden Administration with a strong liberal-internationalist foreign policy doctrine to recover American influence and initiative after the disaster of the Trump Administration.

A Summary

The Green Marshall Plan is built on four pillars

1) Climate Change is an existential threat

2) Renewable Energy is popular in America, but sacrifice for international goals is often not

3) Oil and gas not only poison our environment, but our politics and foreign policy

4) The technology for decarbonizing our energy and transportation economy already exists

The Green Marshall plan proposes a massive investment in renewable energy in the US and abroad as providing a unique benefit to Americans in foreign policy

Climate Change is a Collective Action Problem

1) Americans believe in Climate Change but are reluctant to be the ones to pay the costs of change because everyone in the world will benefit and/or the fear other countries will undercut American efforts

2) However, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy is popular

3) To solve this conundrum, the goal should be to make it clear that the end of fossil fuels in the world will provide a unique benefit for Americas

Oil and gas poison the environment, but also democracy, peace, and development

1) Oil and gas rentier states are less democratic, less developed, more repressive, more corrupt, and likely worse for women’s and minority rights than similar states without oil

2) Oil and gas causes conflict over fields, pipelines, and shipping routes

3) Authoritarian oil states like Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia have larger militaries, more allies, and more influence than they would without oil, and may be more likely to have disruptive and aggressive foreign policies

4) Oil price fluctuations have independent negative effects on the world economy

The US would uniquely benefit from a world without oil or gas

1) The US remains the sole superpower and, despite recent events, guardian of the world system; any changes that reduce causes of conflict will benefit the US

2) The US invests heavily in protecting oil routes and oil producers; without oil, the US could pull back from some military commitments, particularly in the Middle East

3) Outside of East Asia, most US rivals and many dubious allies are empowered by oil wealth

4) China’s intervention in Africa and the tension in the South China Sea are at least partially caused by need for reliable oil and gas supplies

5) Oil money poisons American politics and drives Republican foreign policy

6) Because of the Democratic Peace, the US benefits from a more democratic world

The US has a unique ability to drive a renewable energy transformation on its own

1) American renewable energy technology is right now competitive with fossil fuels

2) A massive investment in building more renewable energy will continue to drive prices lower because of the Industrial Learning Curve, rapidly making oil and gas obsolete

3) The US already needs massive investment in the infrastructure that can drive this change

The Green Marshall Plan is based on the original Marshall Plan goal not only of rebuilding Europe and helping American industry, but to undermine the influence of Communism and support democracy, and that this was not only good for Europe but good for America.

The Green Marshall Plan

1) Announce a plan to end the use of oil in the international economy, not only for climate change but to increase peace and democracy

· This will lead to immediate behavior change as countries and companies will see the end of the value of their resource approaching

2) Announce a $1 Trillion+ infrastructure project to build a new, national smart grid; this is already necessary, but also needed to balance intermittent renewable energy sources

· Make clear regional job losses will be taken into account when choosing sites

· Other smaller programs should go along with this, including committing the government to only buying electric cars, subsidies and mandates to put car charging plugs in corporate parking structures and near apartment buildings. Many of these programs can be adopted from existing plans and other sources

3) Announce a commitment to work with allies in Europe and East Asia to build their own renewable energy grids, to help them break free of Russia and Middle East oil and gas

4) Announce grants and loans for developing countries to buy American renewable technology, this is how you tie it to the original Marshall Plan

5) Commit to working with the WTO to begin developing international standards and agreements that make it possible to put trade controls on countries and companies that do not reduce fossil fuel use

6) It can be filled out with further details

What follows is a in-depth argument for Biden Administration foreign policy platform built around a Green Marshall Plan that will attempt to destroy the value of oil and gas in the international system, not only as a means of fighting climate change, but as a way to reduce the power of authoritarian regimes, reduce conflict flashpoints, increase democracy and development, bolster American technology exports, and create a more peaceful international system.

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The Green Marshall Plan: An Anti-Oil Foreign Policy for the United States

Renewable Energy as an Environmental and Peace Technology

Climate change is the most important challenge of our times. It requires a drastic reshaping of our energy system and our economy. Some of those changes will require lifestyle changes while others will require just technological fixes, and removing fossil fuels and carbon-based fuels for our energy mix will not solve all our problems. Long range plans will require additional changes, many that are at this moment unpopular but will likely be necessary in the future. This proposal is focused entirely on the issue of fossil fuels, the first and most essential change to solve the climate crisis, and something that is extremely popular with voters.[1]

The key to this proposal is that it argues that ending the use of oil and gas in the international system will provide benefits far beyond limiting climate change. Making oil and gas fuels obsolete will reshape international politics by removing oil prices, access, transportation, and wealth as an issue in the international system, bolster democracy and US influence, undercut rival regimes like Russia and Iran as well as dubious allies like Saudi Arabia, increase democratization, development, women’s rights, and human welfare, and allow the US to pull back on certain foreign policy commitments in a constructive way. Finally, it provides a distinct national-interest rationale for a renewable energy transformation that can overcome the psychology of the collective action problem and may even convince some national-security-focused Republicans to embrace a radical plan for decarbonization.

This is a positive, liberal foreign policy based on the idea that oil and gas themselves, not only their emissions, are poison to the world. Destroying the value of oil will provide an opportunity to change the balance of power in the international system, but also to undercut the connections between oil companies and Republican politics and reduce the power of international oligarchs. And by announcing now the explicit goal of ending the value of oil in the international system, the US will begin to see the benefits of the change even before the technology is deployed. It is an aggressive, progressive, and liberal-internationalist foreign policy for removing oil and gas as a source of corruption, conflict, and authoritarianism in both the international system and our own politics, and I believe would serve as a transformative foreign policy platform for the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party.

This is a bold center-left platform that builds on the liberal internationalism of the traditional Democratic Party, while speaking to those parts of the Democratic electorate that want to reduce American military exposure overseas. It is an aggressive attempt to reduce the centrality of the Middle East in American foreign policy and reduce US exposure and commitment there, while spreading peace and democracy not through intervention, but by removing negative incentives and supports for authoritarianism and war, built on a strong foundation of academic research.

The Devil’s Excrement

Oil and gas (though for brevity this argument will use mostly just say oil) cause climate change, but are also poison to politics and the international system. The Venezuelan founder of OPEC called oil, “the Devil’s Excrement.”[2] Studying the negative effects of oil and gas are a central part of Middle East Studies, and oil causes problems in the international system in myriad ways. This is only a brief summary of the main problems, backed by decades of political science research:

1) Oil countries, often called rentier states, are less democratic, less developed, more corrupt, and may be worse for women’s rights than similar countries without oil[3]

· Oil money goes directly to the state, making taxation less common and giving the people less impetus and ability to challenge the government

· Oil price volatility leads to booms and busts that make economic planning almost impossible, and the Dutch Disease makes developing non-oil industries difficult

· Oil countries tend to be distributive and corrupt. With most money flowing to the state, being near the leadership, not producing value, are at the core of success

· Oil countries tend to spend more on security forces and repression

· When oil countries do experience uprisings, they tend to be replaced by new dictatorships, not democracy

· Oil countries may be worse for women’s rights because they do not create the diversified economies that allow women’s entry into work and their distributive models can be patriarchal

2) Oil causes conflict and empowers bad actors[4]

· Oil states are more powerful in the international system than they would be otherwise. Countries like Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia can support larger armies and more foreign alliances than they could without oil; this includes Russian support for separatists and authoritarian regimes and movements in multiple countries, Iranian support for groups like Hezbollah, and Saudi exporting of Wahhabism abroad

· Oil creates sites of conflict. Oil fields are valuable resources that cause contention between states, if not outright conflict. Right now this includes conflict over undersea fields near Turkey and Cyprus, conflict between China and Japan over sea territory that might hold significant deposits, and potential conflict over Arctic undersea oil

· Oil routes create insecurity and conflict, both the pipelines and the sea routes:

i. The US is not particularly dependent on Middle East oil, but oil is a single market and the US has committed itself to the free flow of oil, leading it to make significant commitments to the Persian Gulf and Middle East

ii. China gets much of its oil from Africa and is building influence along the shipping routes, and a blue water navy, in part at least to defend against potential US interdiction in conflict, a classic security dilemma. [5] If China did not need oil, that energy security could lead it to become less expansionist

iii. The siting of pipelines creates international tensions. The US spends significant political capital to influence or block the creation of new pipelines

· Oil, but particularly gas, gives countries strong leverage over neighbors. This is particularly true with gas because it largely comes in dedicated pipelines. Europe’s dependence on Russian gas has been a recurring problem.

· Oil and gas are concentrated in certain areas of most countries, often in areas with minority populations, and this can cause civil conflict. While the question of whether oil states are more prone to civil war is inconclusive, it does seem clear that oil wealth encourages conflicts to last longer.[6]

3) Oil encourages corruption within oil countries and in non-oil countries

· Oil money is largely unaccounted for. Most oil countries are not developed democracies, and oil money flows to corrupt oligarchs and authoritarian leaders who do not accurately report that wealth. That money is then siphoned through the international banking system to feed corruption in the US and abroad. US oil companies take part in this corruption when abroad and, as we saw with recent reporting on Republican efforts in Ukraine, often drive that corruption as well

4) Oil price fluctuations have independent negative effects on the economy

· The oil boom and bust cycle has had negative effects on the world economy since the 1970s, including inflation, debt crises, and deepening recessions

The negative impacts of the value of oil and gas in the international economy are wide-ranging and pernicious. This is even without the problem of climate change, which of course is a civilizational challenge.

Climate Change as a Collective Action Problem

One problem with fighting climate change is that it is, in the language of political science and economics, a collective action problem. Americans know climate change is real, but still many are reluctant to make sacrifices, because ending climate change will benefit everyone, so they do not want to be the ones to pay the cost in increased prices or lifestyle changes. On the other hand, building renewable energy is popular among American voters. The economics literature is clear that one way to solve the collective action problem is if one actor is large enough to solve the problem by itself and expects to gain the majority of the benefit. The goal is to provide a policy platform that makes it clear that a massive investment in renewable energy at home and abroad creates a unique advantage for Americans and provides a reason for them to take the lead in the international transformation away from fossil fuels

The US cannot end climate change alone, but it can unilaterally drive a technological transformation that will make it in almost every country’s best interest to abandon fossil fuels. This is because the technology is already available to decarbonize the energy and transportation sectors, it is simply a matter of increasing deployment. The key concept is the Industrial Learning Curve. The Industrial Learning Curve measures the per-unit price drop per doubling of installed capacity. It is separate from economies of scale, and measures the cost reductions provided by learning through deployment. What the Learning Curve for solar, battery, and wind show is that costs keep dropping as more of the technology is developed, as companies learn lessons about siting, management, financing, and installation, without any major new technological discoveries. Because the learning curve is based on deployment, it can be manipulated.[7] The more solar we build, the cheaper it will get. Solar and wind are already beating prices of gas and coal in many countries and areas of the US, and the evidence suggests that we are nowhere near the bottom of the learning curve on our existing technologies. By investing in deployment both in the US and abroad, we can first prevent the creation of any new gas or coal plants, then begin to undercut the prices of existing gas and coal plants, eventually leading to an oil price spiral that makes oil obsolete in most of the world economy.

Thus, from the perspective of the Collective Action Problem, while the US cannot act alone to stop climate change, it does alone have the power to create the conditions necessary to end the use of fossil fuels internationally, much as the US did when it worked with DuPont to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons and allowed the Montreal Protocols on ozone protection to move forward. On the second part of the Collective Action Problem, would the US benefit the most from ending fossil fuel use in the international system? While ending fossil fuel use for the purpose of fighting climate change will benefit everyone, as a matter of foreign policy, destroying the power of oil will uniquely benefit the US.

1) The United States remains the sole superpower and major guardian of the world system. While this role is contentious and must be discussed, at the moment it encourages US commitments around the globe. The presence of oil and oil markets creates sites and reasons for conflict. Without oil, those reasons for conflict will be reduced and the US will have fewer reasons to commit resources abroad

2) The US, in its better moments, is committed to cooperation and democratization abroad. Democracy is a universal good, it increases human security, and based on the phenomenon of the Democratic Peace[8], democracies do not fight each other. Doing away with the anti-democratic effects of oil will encourage democratization, and a world with more democracies is a safer world, particularly for the US

3) It could also have an effect on nuclear proliferation. The current non-proliferation regime is built around guarantees that countries can build nuclear technology for power generation, but that opens the door for bad actors to build weapons. Renewable energy that drastically undercuts the price of nuclear will make it harder for countries to justify building new nuclear power and make non-proliferation and eventual denuclearization easier

4) Outside of East Asia, most of the United States’ antagonists are either oil states or supported by oil states. Reducing the value of their most important resource will first disempower them internationally and then weaken their regimes internally, with the hope that eventually democracy will follow. This holds for dubious US allies too. Without the perceived need to protect oil routes and supplies, the US could pull back from the Persian Gulf and serve as a more impartial mediator in the region instead of a party to the conflicts.

5) It is also important to note that whatever instability is going to come from a transition to renewable energy in the international system, such as Russian desperation or Saudi fear of abandonment, will have to happen eventually. Fighting climate change requires the end of oil and gas, so these issues are inevitable. The best way to deal with them is to plan for them and use them to American advantage as much as possible.

A foreign policy vision built around a proactive encouragement of decarbonization abroad would weaken US enemies, strengthen allies, undercut authoritarianism and oligarchy, increase democratization, and reduce sites of conflict. It would allow the US to soberly reconsider its security commitments abroad, particularly in the Persian Gulf. It would create the conditions for a productive withdrawal, changing the conditions on the ground in the Middle East by removing the destabilizing influence of oil and encouraging other regional powers to draw back as well, as the Persian Gulf will no longer be so central to international power calculations. It reclaims a positive vision of American power in the world, while weakening American enemies and reducing American exposure abroad.

This foreign policy vision exists fully within the American realist and liberal foreign policy traditions, thus it would likely find significant support among the US foreign policy establishment. This could be important for implementation. It also may find support among some small number of Republicans with a more traditional, realist view of American foreign policy, providing limited but important bipartisan support. Most importantly, it would frame the push for the rapid transformation to renewable energy as a positive change for the unique benefit of Americans, rather than only as a sacrifice required to benefit the world. This is not to claim that this is the superior moral framing, but a useful political framing that could be used alongside the more traditional arguments for fighting climate change. Attacking the value of oil not as a collective good, but as a selfish good for Americans, should motivate voters who are concerned with American deployments in the Middle East, those concerned with Russian influence in our elections and abroad, and those who object to the way oil wealth and oligarchy corrupt our economic and political system.

A Green Marshall Plan for Democracy

This vision of a Green Marshall Plan builds on other Democratic Party proposals on climate change. Where this plan differs is that it adds an aggressive democratization and peace agenda to the environmental and economic one. This is a Green Marshall Plan fully in line with the original Marshall Plan, which was not only focused on helping countries recover from World War II and finding markets for American goods, but was about bolstering democracy and undercutting the attractiveness of communism. This plan should be focused on renewable energy as a means of enhancing peace and democracy as well as economic development and environmental protection, and finally as a means of undercutting the dangerous authoritarian nationalism subsidized in Europe and the US by Russian money and political influence.

These ideas are key and many, though not all, overlap with existing plans.

1) First and foremost, it must be explicit. The Biden Administration should announce that the US is committed to a complete decarbonization of its energy and transportation system by some feasible date, the sooner the better, but also that it is committed to help every other country decarbonize. And it should be clear that it is doing so not only for climate change, but to reduce the power of authoritarianism and oligarchy internationally. In this way, the effects of the policy change can be felt immediately.

2) A US commitment an international energy transformation will send a powerful signal to oil companies and countries that the value of their resources are limited. That should cause them to begin changing their behavior immediately. At first there might be attempts by producers to cut prices, but the US should be prepared for that by setting price floors on oil. The first goal should be to encourage companies to stop exploration and end conflict over new fields. Eventually, the goal should be a price for renewable energy cheap enough that countries begin abandoning existing wells, but the first step is stop them starting any new ones.

· Unlike the most drastic proposals, the plan should not ban oil and gas extraction until the transformation is nearly complete. The oil and gas currently being extracted will be needed to build the renewable technology we need. There should be a commitment to reducing and eventually ending the drilling of new wells as the transformation moves forward, but this will also happen naturally as renewable energy prices drop below fossil fuel prices.

3) On deployment, the first change must come at home. The central project is for the US to build a new, national, smart energy grid that will allow for complete decarbonization of electricity generation. A new grid is necessary anyway to replace our ailing electrical grid, but full decarbonization requires an integrated national grid that can balance solar from the West and South with winds from the East and Plains. A new national smart grid would also be a massive national infrastructure project that would create many jobs. The plan should site key infrastructure in current coal, gas, and oil regions, even if it is not technological ideal, to offset economic losses in these communities. The federal government should also commit to only buying electric vehicles, invest in new technology, end fossil fuel subsides, etc. Many of these ideas are already part of the Biden Administration plans and need not be elaborated here.

4) At the same time, the US should be working with its advanced democratic allies, particularly in Europe and East Asia to eliminate their use of fossil fuels. This will cut off Russian markets and influence in Europe and Middle East influence in East Asia. In Europe, our main partner should be Germany, which has been in the economic doldrums but has a great deal of fiscal capacity. With our technological assistance and diplomatic aid, they could begin the process of building a continental-scale smart grid in Europe that brings wind power from the northern seas to the Mediterranean, and Mediterranean solar power to the north. A US-led collaboration with the EU would also reestablish US cooperative relationships with our core allies that have been damaged by the Trump administration and immediately impact the politics of Russia, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. In East Asia, the focus should be on allies first, like Japan and South Korea, but eventually on some accommodation with China that encourages them to switch from coal and gas to renewable energy.

5) The US should commit to helping developing countries switch to a renewable energy industrialization model. In middle-income countries, the focus can be a top down, centered on large-scale energy infrastructure and transmission, including building smart girds. The US should provide grants and loans to countries that will buy US solar, wind, and battery technology, first to prevent the building of new coal and gas powered energy plants, then to replace the old plants. In the transportation sector, one of the biggest issues is what to do about all the cars already on the road that the relatively-poor people of these countries will not be able to replace for some time. Some sort of kit developed by US companies to turn all the cars in India from combustion to electric, with deployment subsidized by the US, would do a lot of good.

6) In the least developed countries, and the most remote areas of developing countries, the focus should be smaller-scale distributed power, rather than centralized power generation. This includes individual and village level solar and battery technology that will allow people to have lights to read by, water pumps and filtration, and electric cook-stoves that limit the health costs and time consumed by collecting and burning wood and dung. This will have less impact on demand for oil and gas, but it will have impacts for economic development, climate change, and women’s rights. This is less central to the anti-oil push that animates the rest of this program, and will more clearly be a charitable endeavor, but is necessary for economic and social development and democratization.

7) In the longer term, the United States should work with the World Trade Organization to legalize tariffs based on fossil fuel consumption. Once the transformation toward green energy has begun, the US should work with Green Marshall Plan partners to develop tools for measuring carbon costs for exports and WTO agreements allowing tariffs on goods that exceed average carbon costs for similar goods. This will encourage any lagging countries to decarbonize their economies if they want to export goods.

Many of these ideas would mesh well with existing climate change plans, but ads to them. The goal of this proposal is to turn a national climate change plan into a more aggressive, progressive foreign policy framework for the spread of democracy and peace, and a way to increase US influence and security while reducing its overseas commitments. The central assertion of this plan is that oil and gas are bad for the environment, but they are also bad for democracy, development, and peace, and are particularly bad for the US, which has tried to been a supporter of democracy, development, and peace abroad.

This aggressive push for ending fossil fuel use in the international system fits with the historical goals and values of US diplomacy, but does so in a new way. Rather than focusing on different individual conflicts, it does so by addressing a key causal factor of international authoritarianism, oligarchy, and conflict generally, the pernicious influence of oil and gas. And this use of American power, expressed through money, technology, and expertise as opposed to military might, allows for the US to draw back its more intrusive and problematic military commitments.

This theory fits the traditional liberal-international worldview of increasing cooperation, democratization, and development, while fitting with more progressive international relations goals that look for ways to reduce American intervention abroad. It also fits certain realist positions, in that it reduces the power of traditional adversaries like Russia and Iran, and thus could find enough allies among national-security Republicans to potentially make the plan bipartisan.

This proposal argues for a bold, distinctive, proactive foreign policy vision that is fully within the tradition and history of the Democratic Party going back to FDR and Truman, a vision not of management or disengagement, but of positive transformation of the international system in a way that will benefit the US for decades to come. I believe it will provide the Biden Administration with a distinctive and coherent core for a bold and transformative foreign policy, and have a real impact on the planet and US economic recovery and transformation.

Finally, this foreign policy platform is also a direct repudiation of Trumpism and its disastrous results, both in terms of concrete increases in power by American adversaries and reduction in American influence and credibility abroad. It creates a positive vision for American engagement, not just reclaiming what Trump abandoned, but creating a new, activist American vision abroad. It highlights Trump’s corrupt relationships with Russia and Saudi Arabia, as well as the GOP’s corrupt relations with oil companies, such as Rick Perry’s shady dealings in Ukraine, at the same time it reestablishes relations with traditional allies and reclaims American values.

Conclusion

I believe the idea of an aggressive push against fossil fuels in the international economy as a matter of peace and democracy, in addition to its climate benefits, is both the correct American foreign policy and a political winner. I believe it will reshape the discussion around American force abroad and, in the medium to long term, create a more peaceful and democratic world. I believe it provides another argument for a Green national policy that will speak to Americans who may ask why they should be required to make sacrifices when other countries may not. I also believe it fits well enough within the mainstream of American international relations thinking that it could gain a significant amount of support from the foreign policy community and even some Republicans. I offer it for discussion and comment and would be glad to speak to anyone interested in pursuing it.

Dr. Sean Burns, PhD is a political scientist and researcher in Virginia with a focus on democratization, revolution and Middle East politics. His first book, Revolts and the Military in the Arab Spring: Popular Uprisings and the Politics of Repression, was published in 2018 by IB Tauris. He is currently writing his second book, Rising Up: Democratization and Utopian Revolution in the Developing World.

[1] “Americans really want the US to adopt renewable energy,” BusinessInsider.com (October 1, 2019) https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-really-want-the-us-adopt-renewable-energy-sources-2019-10

[2] Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States, (University of California Press, 1997)

[3] Michael L. Ross, The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, (Princeton University Press, 2012)

[4] Charles L. Glaser, “How Oil Influences US National Security,” International Security, Vo 38, N 2, (Fall 2013), 112–146

[5] Hongyi Harry Lai, “China’s Oil Diplomacy: Is It a Global Security Threat?” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, №3 (2007), 519–537

[6] James D. Fearon, “Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, №4, (Aug., 2005), 483–507

[7] David Roberts, “What made solar panels so cheap? Thank government policy.” Vox.com, (December 18, 2018) https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/20/18104206/solar-panels-cost-cheap-mit-clean-energy-policy

[8] https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0014.xml