Michael T. Klare’s Posts

• The (Re)Making of a Petro-State

  Will Iraq be a global gas pump? 1

  Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago

  In a world of shrinking energy reserves, is Iraq finally fated to become what it was going to be anyway, even before the chaos and catastrophe set in: a giant gas pump for an energy-starved planet?

• Energy Department changes tune on peak oil

  It's official -- the era of cheap oil is over 44

  Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago

  Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO) -- a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation.

• Oil 2009

  Cheap oil: Be careful what you wish for 2

  Posted 10 months ago

  This guest essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom's kind permission.

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  Only yesterday, it seems, we were bemoaning the high price of oil. Under the headline "Oil's Rapid Rise Stirs Talk of $200 a Barrel This Year," the July 7 issue of the Wall Street Journal warned that prices that high would put "extreme strains on large sectors of the U.S. economy." Today, oil, at over $40 a barrel, costs less than one-third what it did in July, and some economists have predicted that it could fall as low as… Read More

• Garrisoning the global gas station

  Challenging the militarization of U.S. energy policy 6

  Posted 1 year, 4 months ago

  This essay originally ran on TomDispatch; it is reprinted here with Tom's kind permission.

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  American policymakers have long viewed the protection of overseas oil supplies as an essential matter of "national security," requiring the threat of -- and sometimes the use of -- military force. This is now an unquestioned part of American foreign policy.

  On this basis, the first Bush administration fought a war against Iraq in 1990-1991 and the second Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. With global oil prices soaring and oil reserves expected to dwindle in the years ahead, military force is sure to… Read More

• Portrait of an oil-addicted former superpower

  How rising oil prices are obliterating America's superpower status 10

  Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

  The following was originally published on Tom's Dispatch, which has graciously permitted us to use it here.

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  Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

  Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the… Read More

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