An ill-equipped military raises doubts about future

…In retrospect, of course, it seems obvious that free market individualism would triumph and because of this we tend to forget some other vital props that helped the US on it’s way.

Perhaps the most vital of these were the raw materials of the American continent particularly oil. It’s easy to forget that easy access to the gushing geysers of a viscous, oozing black liquid were vital in propelling the US to its current position in global hegemony. Unfortunately, over the past decade, that flow has begun to slow. Although there is still quite a bit in the Gulf, and in Alaska, it is increasingly more difficult to get at and it is getting scarcer. Regardless of where you stand on concepts like “peak oil” (the idea that oil is a finite resource and already running out), no one can argue that the US is becoming increasingly reliant on the flow of oil from other parts of the world producer states like Iraq.


China hasn’t been blessed with the sort of geographical luck that helped the US get started. Neither was India. But today, just as the US is increasingly dependent on foreign oil and total supply is shrinking, America finds that it has to compete with other countries for fuel in an environment where demand is rising.

Future conflict over oil is not inevitable, however it is going to be a significant issue in the coming decades. The key point is that any linear projection will be wrong. The world just cannot continue travelling down the path we’re on at the moment; something will have to give. This doesn’t have to lead to conflict. We are just not going to find significant new deposits of oil, so nothing is going to happen to free up the supply side of the equation. However the demand side will, eventually, move. It will have to. Either another form of energy will be used to power our economy or we’ll start doing things differently.

However, if we are going to minimise the problems we are likely to face as this transition takes place, it’s pretty important that we begin to consider these sorts of issues today.

Canberra Times