Geopolitics & Military

The world’s oil giants may shy away from open book-keeping, but when national governments take the lead they have little choice but to fall into line.

A bevy of scholars and policy analysts have seized this important moment of high prices and oil-related war to write about petroleum. Three new titles focus on the evocative political implications of our national chemical dependence.

The Bush Administration’s struggle to keep secret the workings of Cheney’s Energy Task Force has been ongoing since early in the President’s tenure. What has been released reveals plans to occupy the Middle East which predate 9/11.

For two years, the U.S. has pursued war with a vengeance that has shocked and awed ally and enemy alike. But even the devastating attacks on the Afghan and Iraqi regimes don’t illustrate the true scope of the campaign. While everyone was preoccupied with the fireworks, Washington has quietly deployed thousands of agents in a secretive struggle that may last a lifetime.

The Bush Administration in a second term may have a strategy for itself and its powered elite: to be the “last man standing,” adopting the strategy author Richard Heinberg describes as the worst possible reaction to global oil peak.

Soaring oil prices have raised the stakes in China’s game of brinkmanship over the hotly disputed Spratly Islands, with the Philippines this week becoming the first rival claimant to break ranks.

Extra troops are deploying to the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt in support of police battling armed gangs linked to local political groups and an illicit trade in stolen crude.