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.

This is a detective story that gets to the innermost core of the 9/11 attacks. It places 9/11 at the center of a desperate new America, created by specific, named individuals in preparation for Peak Oil: an economic crisis like nothing the world has ever seen.

What’s really behind the recent redeployment of U.S. military forces? Making sure no one messes with American access to global energy resources. An excerpt from “Oil: Anatomy of an Industry.”