The End of Imperial Expansion

(The following is a response to an email from my friend, Remo, in Jersey City. His original email is at the end.)

It's wrong to see what is happening today in colonial or cold war terms, because the age of economic expansion is over. Peak oil has ended the conceit of global empire or one-world government. Now begins a global contraction, where no country nor network of corporate elites has enough power or resources to expand their sphere of influence. Today, countries only want to secure energy resources, so they can survive and keep their populations from revolting. The US invaded and occupied Iraq simply to control its oil (Afghanistan is only about drugs, because the amount of oil in the Caspian region proved to be much less than what was believed to be there originally). And this is about all the US can afford militarily. There's not enough money (i.e. energy) around for the US to fight in Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, etc. What money would they use to pay the soldiers, even if they instituted a draft? And besides, the elites in those countries no longer believe the US is their best option. They are allying with Russia and China now. In the past, it was the Soviet threat that persuaded the wealthy in Latin America to join forces with the US. This allowed the CIA to easily recruit agents, foment coups, etc. People hated Soviet-style communism. But that threat is gone now. There is no need anymore to seek protection from the US. Look what happened in Venezuela, for example, the last time the CIA tried to foment a coup. Even the military turned against the coup leaders, and the coup attempt failed.

Today, Russia and China are not attempting to force socialism in Latin America. They are merely solidifying their oil contracts by giving military and other economic assistance to these countries. Latin America only benefits from this. Ideology (capitalism vs. communism) are not driving factors anymore.

And what is happening in this regard cannot be blamed on the Bush Administration. The "military solution" for the middle east has been planned for a long time, at least for two decades in fact. The first Gulf War and the eight years of Clinton-backed sanctions were preparation for 2003 invasion. It was an attempt to weaken Iraqi military capability as much as possible and turn the people against Saddam Hussein in the hopes that when the US does invade, there will be less resistance. (Read Behind the War on Terror by Nafeez Ahmed.) So the US elites are not going to punish the Bush's. They are most likely thanking them right now, because if the US hadn't invaded Iraq, Iraq would have allied with Russia and China. Remember Iraq was going to open a new oil bourse in Euros just prior to the invasion. (Iran just opened one this year.)

In other words, things are still going according to plan. The only difference is that the Iraqi resistance has proved to be much more capable than predicted, and the war is costing a lot more than hoped for. But the US is not going to abandon the oil in Iraq. They cannot do that. So the new plan is to partition Iraq into three countries, and Obama is not going to pull out the troops until this happens. Furthermore, permanent US bases will remain in the oil-rich regions. This is why Biden was chosen for VP. He's a PNAC player. See these two links by Mark Robinowitz.

http://www.oilempire.us/biden.html
http://www.oilempire.us/new-map.html

To summarize... for a long time the powers that be in the US knew the world was going to divide itself up again into nation-state alliances for control of energy. The dream of a corporate-controlled, one-world government (i.e. the "New World Order") ended as soon as the reality of peak oil was understood. As Mike Ruppert explained in a lecture four years ago in Seattle, "Without abundant oil to drive corporate dominance, geography once again defines political power." And the elites understood this decades ago. Remember that US oil production peaked in the 70s, and world discoveries of new oil fields peaked in the 60s. So it did not take a rocket scientist to predict when the global economy was going to collapse (just a few petroleum geologists). The IEA just last week released a report predicting a 9.1% decline in output from existing world oil fields, and new fields being brought online are only expected to increase output by about 3%. This is a 6% decline in overall oil output, beginning right now, and which is predicted to continue year after year, forever. (Read theoildrum.com for the best information and discussion about energy.)

So what we are seeing now is unique. The major world powers are actually narrowing their spheres of influence to only the oil-rich regions. (Watch Obama go into West Africa sometime during his first term--I wonder what the pretext will be). They are neglecting the rest of the world, the places without energy resources. This is how things are very different from the cold war and the days of imperial expansion. We are living in a very significant time in history.

Emanuel


> Central America has been the USA's colonial empire for
> 100 plus years. Now China is moving in and taking over.
> The ruling class is going to shoot all the Bush's for
> fucking things up so bad.
>
> REMO