著者

ミラー 枝里香

出版者

一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2022, no.207, pp.207_146-207_162, 2022-03-30 (Released:2022-03-31)

参考文献数

96

---

The 1973 energy crisis demonstrated the thriving influence of oil producer countries while also marking the termination of the Anglo-American led oil order. This literature examines the then Prime Minister Edward Heath’s reactions to the crisis, contending that Heath’s government formulated a two-faced oil policy. On the one hand, it supported America’s initiative to form a consumer front in order to confront the producers’ attempt to raise oil prices, while on the other hand, it developed bilateral deals in order to build inter-dependent relationships with the Arab oil producers. This admittedly challenges the accepted views in the literatures in oil history and Anglo-American history. The commentators in the former realm believe that the nature of the relationship between oil majors and the British government had been changing due to their different interests in North Sea Oil, which interrupted the government’s policy-making for the long-term basis. This resulted in Heath’s ad hoc reactions to the crisis, which forced the government to seek bilateral deals with the producers in order to cover the oil loss. In a similar vein, the commentators related to the latter tend to consider that Heath’s attempt to harmonise its Middle East policy to that of the French aggravated the Anglo-American relationship and Britain was not in a position where it took a collaborative action with the United States. This literature, however, points out a distinct chasm between research in the oil history and Anglo-American history during this period. It focuses on viewing both fields not as distinct areas but as part of the whole, thereby exposing subtle nuances in British duplicitous policy during the period. Precisely, by analysing communications between Heath, his advisors and executive members of oil majors before the oil crisis, it clarifies that most of them believed that the British interest in oil market would be aggrandised through collaborative operations with the Untied States, while Heath, seeing the changing balance of power in the oil order, developed bilateral deals with Arab oil producers in cooperation with France. It subsequently examines Heath’s Middle East policy during and after the Yom Kippur War, where the pro-American thinking was buttressed by the FCO’s idea that Britain should support the US peace initiative. Heath finally showed a middle ground based on the policymaking before the crisis, leading Britain to support America’s oil initiative while also finding its position in a new oil order by promoting the relationship with producers, the policy of which was far from extemporaneous. Despite the ambiguousness, the nuanced statecraft was imperative for maintaining British interests between the conflicting agendas of the United States, France and producer countries.