(The article is long and should be read in the original. A central section, reproduced here, discusses peak oil and its ramification for world events.)
Global capitalism runs on fossil energy, but the United States does not have to take oil from anyone. Every oil producing nation, including Iraq, has been perfectly willing to sell oil to the United States. It is cheaper to buy oil that it is to steal it with military action. The issue of oil is an issue not of production but of increasing demand between competitors in a period when we have nearly reached the peak of production output.
Global demand now is at 79.5 million barrels of oil a day. The International Energy Agency and the Department of Energy predict global demand of 115 mbd by 2020, but that is based on demand rising at 1-1.25% per year. In fact, demand is rising at twice that rate. Yet industry experts who are not spinning figures to reassure stockholders tell us that with massive improvements in infrastructure and perfect political stability, the highest output achievable is around 85 mbd. This year, China passed Japan as the world’s second largest importer of crude oil.
If anyone believes that Dick Cheney’s energy task force, on which Dr. Clawson served, did not review these figures as part of their long-term strategic energy assessment and how it related to the continued possibilities for the accumulation of capital, I have a mountaintop retreat to sell you in Miami.
So the question of oil is not a question of taking it. It’s the question of the mathematics of it when global capitalist competition continues to trend toward 100 mbd by the end of the decade, when there’s not adequate flow pressure to meet that demand. Someone gets cut. And someone decides who gets cut. Establishing permanent military bases in the very region where over half the remaining easily accessible reserves exist goes a long way toward putting the power that controls those bases in the driver’s seat. As a friend of mine once said, “Oil is not a normal commodity. No other commodity has five US Navy battle groups patrolling the sea lanes to secure it.”
….
See the original article for complete text.
