How Rising Oil Prices Are Obliterating America's Superpower Status

The USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

by Michael T. Klare

Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

That the fall of the Berlin Wall spelled the erasure of the Soviet Union's superpower status was obvious to international observers at the time. After all, the USSR visibly ceased to exercise dominion over an empire (and an associated military-industrial complex) encompassing nearly half of Europe and much of Central Asia. The relationship between rising oil prices and the obliteration of America's superpower status is, however, hardly as self-evident. So let's consider the connection.

Dry Hole Superpower

The fact is, America's wealth and power has long rested on the abundance of cheap petroleum. The United States was, for a long time, the world's leading producer of oil, supplying its own needs while generating a healthy surplus for export.


Oil was the basis for the rise of first giant multinational corporations in the U.S., notably John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company (now reconstituted as Exxon Mobil, the world's wealthiest publicly-traded corporation). Abundant, exceedingly affordable petroleum was also responsible for the emergence of the American automotive and trucking industries, the flourishing of the domestic airline industry, the development of the petrochemical and plastics industries, the suburbanization of America, and the mechanization of its agriculture. Without cheap and abundant oil, the United States would never have experienced the historic economic expansion of the post-World War II era.

No less important was the role of abundant petroleum in fueling the global reach of U.S. military power. For all the talk of America's growing reliance on computers, advanced sensors, and stealth technology to prevail in warfare, it has been oil above all that gave the U.S. military its capacity to "project power" onto distant battlefields like Iraq and Afghanistan. Every Humvee, tank, helicopter, and jet fighter requires its daily ration of petroleum, without which America's technology-driven military would be forced to abandon the battlefield. No surprise, then, that the U.S. Department of Defense is the world's single biggest consumer of petroleum, using more of it every day than the entire nation of Sweden.


---eoe---

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Restore the Republic!

I'd just like to see more bird and butterfly populations return to the way they were when I was a kid.

I always consider my year complete when I see a scarlet tanager, an indigo bunting and a rose-breasted grosbeak in the same year.

Nature beats any other media.

the lack of focus on renewable energy technologies has been a colossal mistake.

Well many are now starting to pay attention...

it takes to run two wars simultaneously? Think of all that jet fuel and all the thousands of miles the supply convoys drive in Iraq? It must me netting the oil companies billions, in that respect alone. What a twisted sick vicious scam they are running. If I start riding my bike I wonder how much demand will drop? The supply-siders have this cash cow all sewn up.

and husband remarked...it's now a dinosaur..
as NPR reported increased fuel surcharges, etc.

And we are surrounded by miles of un-used railroad tracks.
In fact, local community is talking of turning them into bike lanes.
As in NOT using rail to move things...sigh.

:banghead: :banghead:

our economy goes down.

I read recently that there is a Staggering transfer of wealth from the oil-consuming nations to the oil-producing nations.

The amount was amazing; something like $2.6 billion PER DAY going toward a country, as payment for their oil.

Time has run out.

In Jan 2008, the consensus of 2,500 top CEOs, politicians and intellectuals gathered at Davos, the World Economic Forum seems to be that we now live in a "nonpolar" world.