A Conversation with Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet
Resource Info Edit
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Network [Add] · [List] · [Visualize]
Connected with 0 organizations
Connected with 0 people
Connected with 0 resources
Connected with 0 jobs
Connected with 0 events
Connected with 0 wikipages
About [Edit]
Your last book, Blood and Oil, warned of the United States’
growing dependence on imported oil and the dangers it brings to
Americans at home and abroad. Has there been any change in the world’s
resources since that book was published?
Two things have happened: First, the intensity of demand has increased dramatically as China and India (and other rapidly industrializing developing nations) have stepped-up their consumption of oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium to meet the rising energy needs of their booming economies. Second, energy experts have become increasingly pessimistic about the future availability of petroleum, due to an increased rate of decline of many of the world’s existing oil fields and a failure by the major energy firms to discover many new giant fields to replace those in decline.
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet argues that international power will no longer depend solely on a nation’s military might, but instead on its energy reserves. How has this already played out on the international stage? And how will it continue as resources become more scarce?
Surely the most dramatic indication of this trend is the emergence of Russia as an “energy superpower” by dint of its massive reserves of oil and natural gas. Although widely viewed as a marginal world player following the collapse of the USSR in 1992, Russia has emerged as a self-confident world power in the years since Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency and reasserted state control over Russia’s major oil and gas companies. Putin has used this power to influence and intimidate neighboring states such as Ukraine that rely on Russia for vital energy supplies. Now, with his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, ensconced in the Kremlin, he plans to extend Russia’s political sway even further afield, as more and more countries become dependent on Russian oil and gas. In Latin America, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has also sought to exploit his country’s abundance of oil and gas to achieve political objectives, much to the chagrin of Washington. A similar pattern can be expected in other energy-surplus states as global supplies dwindle and consuming countries must compete with one another for access to whatever remains.
more...
Two things have happened: First, the intensity of demand has increased dramatically as China and India (and other rapidly industrializing developing nations) have stepped-up their consumption of oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium to meet the rising energy needs of their booming economies. Second, energy experts have become increasingly pessimistic about the future availability of petroleum, due to an increased rate of decline of many of the world’s existing oil fields and a failure by the major energy firms to discover many new giant fields to replace those in decline.
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet argues that international power will no longer depend solely on a nation’s military might, but instead on its energy reserves. How has this already played out on the international stage? And how will it continue as resources become more scarce?
Surely the most dramatic indication of this trend is the emergence of Russia as an “energy superpower” by dint of its massive reserves of oil and natural gas. Although widely viewed as a marginal world player following the collapse of the USSR in 1992, Russia has emerged as a self-confident world power in the years since Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency and reasserted state control over Russia’s major oil and gas companies. Putin has used this power to influence and intimidate neighboring states such as Ukraine that rely on Russia for vital energy supplies. Now, with his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, ensconced in the Kremlin, he plans to extend Russia’s political sway even further afield, as more and more countries become dependent on Russian oil and gas. In Latin America, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has also sought to exploit his country’s abundance of oil and gas to achieve political objectives, much to the chagrin of Washington. A similar pattern can be expected in other energy-surplus states as global supplies dwindle and consuming countries must compete with one another for access to whatever remains.
more...
Contributors to this Page
