Peak oil and the fall of the Soviet Union: lessons on the 20th anniversary of the collapse
The causes of the fall of the Soviet Union are thought to be inefficiency and the Soviet response to the Reagan Administration’s military buildup of the early 1980s. However, a more plausible explanation is the decline in Soviet oil production caused by peak oil. This gives the world an example of a modern economy confronted by peak oil and what lessons we can learn from it.
May 27, 2011
Commentary: Peak Oil and the Fall of the Soviet Union
Was the cause of the cataclysmic collapse of the Soviet Union really the result of communist inefficiency and U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s Cold War military build up? Or was there an oil crisis that shocked the Soviet system?
August 30, 2006