By Mike Byron

It is now mid-2010. Global oil production has been essentially flat since mid-2004:

Year after year the U.S. Energy Information Agency has had to downwardly adjust its oil production projections which always initially depict increasing production, and then are “retrodicted” to correspond with reality. It seems that it is vitally important to maintain the belief that ever increasing supplies of oil lie just ahead in our future. Why?

Humanity’s entire global political economy is predicated upon an assumption of endless supplies of cheap fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—most especially oil. The informal, but very real, American Empire is based upon the assumption that the Age of Oil will continue indefinitely and that whoever controls the oil and natural gas sources and their actual and potential pipeline routes, controls the planet.  As to coal, the U.S. possesses the planet’s largest supply within its own borders. With the exception of ally Australia and rival Russia, it is the only significant exporter of this particular resource. Thus imperial strategy is focused upon control over oil and natural gas resources.

Yet, there exists a problem that the Empire cannot overcome:  It is reality. For the Empire’s entire strategy, indeed its entire economic underpinning, is based on the assumption of limitless supplies of oil. Unfortunately, all of the easy to obtain oil (the “low hanging fruit” so to speak), has already been found and exploited. Discovery of new oil reserves peaked in the mid-1960’s and has declined precipitously since then.

Since you must discover oil before you can use it, and since it takes several decades on average to bring new-found oil fields to full production, we can reliably and realistically forecast future production of oil. Today, new discoveries of oil amount to about one-sixth of what we are using. For every six barrels of oil we use, we find one to replace them. And the new barrel is much harder to produce—it’s more expensive and has a lower net energy gain (after subtracting out the energy used to produce it).

Accordingly, Imperial strategy has focused on two fronts:

1)      Military control over the world’s remaining cheap, easy to produce, oil supplies. Sixty percent of the planet’s remaining supplies of oil and natural gas are in the Persian Gulf area. Most states in this region are U.S. vassals: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the U.A.E., Qatar, and so on. Iraq was seized militarily by the U.S. in 2003. Only Iran stubbornly resists U.S. control. Afghanistan is undergoing attempted pacification by the U.S. to facilitate the potential transport via pipeline, of Central Asian oil and natural gas along routes which will bypass rival Russia and intransigent Iran.

2)      Using high technology to access oil from increasingly difficult locations—particularly deep underwater, or diffuse sources such as oil shales. Offshore oil may be obtained in many locations, however, the Gulf of Mexico, within the U.S.’s 200-mile economic exclusion zone is one of the most productive sites. The U.S. Empire’s ally, Canada, possesses the world’s greatest supply of oil shales.

Since the 2^nd World War U.S. Imperial strategy has focused on controlling overseas territory with the assistance of key regional allies. In the Middle East, one such ally has been Israel. Israel possesses a technologically sophisticated economy along with a powerful military which is unequalled in its region. A secondary objective of the U.S.’s invasion and conquest of Iraq was to destroy the military capabilities of that state such that they could never again even potentially threaten Israeli, and by extension, U.S. supremacy in this region.

However, there are several growing problems with this strategy. Israel does not produce oil. Its surrounding neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, do. These states, while vassals of the Empire, are themselves antagonistic towards Israel for religious and ethnic reasons. Essentially this means that so long as Israel occupies the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, along with formerly Arab East Jerusalem, there can be no accommodation between them and Israel.

Looked at from the perspective of Israel, a rational policy would be to achieve peace with its neighbors. A small coastal enclave of about six million Jews, surrounded by about three hundred million antagonistic Moslems, must always feel threatened and insecure. Peace, based upon territorial compromise, would vastly reduce this problem. However, Israel, via its hyper-effective U.S. lobbying organization, AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee), effectively controls the policies of the US government with respect to Israel, or any issue that concerns Israel.

Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967—43 years ago. Over time Israel has annexed formerly Arab East Jerusalem, and had placed numerous settlements there and in the West Bank. Over 500,000 Jewish Israelis now live in these territories. While direct Israeli control over Gaza was ended, it maintains control over land and sea approaches to Gaza (along with the U.S. vassal state, Egypt). Gaza in effect is a large, open air prison camp for 1,500,000 Palestinians. The longer this occupation continues, the greater the pressures within the oil producing Arab vassal states against the U.S., and against the Empire’s local proxy, Israel.

Thus U.S. policy is producing a growing contradiction between unswerving support of Israel and the need to maintain control over the most productive oil reserves on the planet. As U.S. support for Israeli intransigence continues, the difficulty of maintaining control over the Empire’s oil resources increases. This growing stress can only continue until something gives way.

I believe that that something occurred during the first week of June, 2010 with the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Regardless of the actual facts of who did what to whom and when, the reality is that the Empire has suffered a grievous and, for reasons I shall explain shortly, unrecoverable blow in this part of the world.

Turkey, Israel’s long time military ally, is now its declared military and political opponent. Egypt, loyal vassal of the Empire, was forced to lift is part of the Gaza blockade due to overwhelming public pressure. Around the world, sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians has increased dramatically. Concomitantly, respect for Israel, and belief in the legitimacy of its actions, has plummeted. Belief in the very legitimacy of Israel is rapidly decreasing.

Within Israel, several factors seem likely to ensure that it will behave ever more unreasonably, thus accelerating these trends:

1)      The half-million Jewish settlers living in Palestinian territories constitute a formidable voting bloc in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament). This is amplified by the reality that due to the fragmented nature of the Israeli party system, governments there nearly always represent multi-party coalitions. The settler block thus does not have to “win” elections to be represented in governments.

2)      As a consequence of the collapse of the Soviet empire two decades ago, hundreds of thousands of Jews immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This population had never internalized democratic values. Many are not formally religious at all. Most have gravitated to right wing secular parties which favor continued control over Palestinian-occupied territories. Many favor forcible expulsion of the Palestinians residing there. Current Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel is Our Home”) Party exemplify this group.

3)      Within the Israeli Jewish population, Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Jews have much larger families per capita, than do secular Jews. Thus their share of the population has been steadily increasing. This group, while diverse, generally opposes territorial compromise with Palestinians—particularly with respect to East Jerusalem, where many have now settled.

4)      Outside feedback critical of Israeli actions, by the one nation which could actually affect its behavior (i.e., the U.S.), is effectively nullified by AIPAC.

Put everything together and it becomes clear that the Empire is accelerating towards a smash-up of historic proportions. The leaders of Israel would do well to study the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem—particularly how everything was lost in one foolish, and utterly unnecessary battle in 1187 at the Horns of Hattim, near the Sea of Galilee.

Imperial policy is internally inconsistent in trying to both continue its control over Moslem vassal states in the region, while supporting Israeli expansion.

These Imperial policies are also irrational, because oil supplies will soon begin to decline. Therefore, squandering vast quantities of irreplaceable human and petroleum resources to maintain control in the region make no sense. If these resources were instead to be used to transition the U.S. away from hydrocarbon energy, there would be a hopeful future for the U.S. and all of humanity. Instead we can only anticipate the arrival of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, not due to supernatural intervention, but due to the Empire’s own blind folly.

And what of the Imperial citizenry—can’t they act via elections to alter our historical trajectory? In theory,  yes—in reality, no. Most people’s access to information comes via the corporate consolidated media. Here, the pro-Israel story is the only story. Here the pro-Imperial policy is virtually the only story. In the world of the corporatist media, oil production has not flat-lined, and the oil-fueled Imperium stretches ahead endlessly like the ancient Roman concept of “Roma Aeterna” (and history tells the tale of what happened to the Roman self-delusion).

When the Imperial citizenry sees scenes of oil spilling endlessly in the Gulf of Mexico (always carefully balanced by reassuring prognostication from BP spokesmen and their U.S. Coast Guard mouthpieces), they are unable to connect the dots and understand that here too, Imperial strategy is running into impossible contradictions.

Increasing expenditures for ever more remote oil sources results in declining returns, as well as a growing potential for catastrophic failures of ever more complex technology administered by profit-maximizing entities who, faced with declining profit, are compelled by their own flawed internal logic to minimize overhead by “cutting as many corners” with respect to safety as possible. The inevitable result is apocalyptic disaster.

Neither in the Middle-East nor in the Gulf of Mexico, can inherently flawed strategy be sustained beyond the point where it breaks down catastrophically upon its inevitable collision with actual reality.

Media disinformation and pro-imperial propaganda cannot delay the onset of reality for very long. Reality always triumphs in the end.