The author argues that the policy of non-interference changed when it was suspected that there were oil reserves in the East China Sea. The possible oil reserves under the seabed of the East China Sea indicated in the 1969 Emery report convinced the United States to cooperate with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, but they also led to competition between these countries for ownership of these natural resources. The volatile international situation and the changing nature of great-power politics created a dynamic in maritime East Asia that had far-reaching consequences for both America’s alliance network and Washington’s naval deployment in the western Pacific. The author argues that the United States viewed the sea as a dangerous geographical space that could trigger all-out conflict with China and had thus begun to regard the maritime space of East Asia as a buffer zone that would allow it to maintain a distance from China instead of regarding it as a geostrategic barrier for containment. These political and military contours of maritime East Asia were a product of the interaction between Washington’s domestic and foreign policies and the internal dynamics of the East Asian countries.

Chapter 3 argues that the metamorphosis of the Ecuadorean Amazon started with the successful exploration activities by Texaco between the 1960s and 1980s. Starting from the assumption that oil as a resource does not simply exist out there awaiting its extraction but is the result of a process of social construction, the chapter explores how discourses, policies, technologies, and material infrastructures intersected to transform the Amazon into a “resource environment.” This involved a process of making sense of, systematizing, and appropriating nature – both physically and mentally. The combination of exploration technologies with geophysical knowledge and indigenous guides enabled Texaco to locate oil reserves in its concession area. Exploration changed forever how the region was perceived: the Amazon was reduced to the prospect of oil through different processes of abstraction, such as the issuing of concessions. These early confrontations of the oil business with the rainforest also caused temporary and long-term environmental impacts beyond the conceptual metamorphosis of the Amazon.

Chapter 2 explores the Ecuadorean rainforest landscape, its inhabitants, and their first interactions with the oil industry before large-scale oil extraction started in the late 1960s. It starts by looking back at the millennia of gradual changes when the history of crude oil and the tropical rainforest environment started to intersect. An exploration of the geographical properties of the Amazon landscapes, as well as their flora and fauna including human inhabitants, visualizes the lively environment encountered by the first oilmen visiting the area in the period between the 1920s and the 1960s. Two multinational oil companies, the Leonard Exploration Company and Shell, undertook major efforts to discover petroleum reserves in the Ecuadorean Amazon. Even though their exploration programs failed in the end, their pioneering work of mapping and surveying the rainforest and its subsoil laid the foundation for large-scale petroleum extraction decades later.

There would appear to be no controversy that Israel as a belligerent occupier of Sinai was entitled to exploit existing State-owned oil wells, if it was a reasonable use. There does not seem to have been a claim that Israeli use of the wells was wanton or unreasonable. However, there is controversy over the legality of exploring for and exploiting new oil wells. The objection of the United States Department of State to the legality of such exploitation was based, apparently, on the apprehension that it would encourage the longevity of occupation. The issue of new oil wells has not been the subject of any authoritative legal decision and it could be argued that, as a general principle, the onus would be on those wishing to pronounce it as an illegal action. As part of the Egypt Israel Treaty of Peace, “The Parties agree to establish a claims commission for the mutual settlement of all financial claims.” This commission has never met and no claims have been submitted to it.