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Do you not think that the United States (and any other country for that matter) hasn't progressed down this same path? The competency of any military assessing
by blantonl 16y ago
Do you not think that the United States (and any other country for that matter) hasn't progressed down this same path?
The competency of any military assessing world petroleum reserves and consumption is enormous! Petroleum is the achillies heel of an army. Petroleum is probably the single most valuable commodity for maintaining any army's fighting posture in this day and age. With maybe water and food being a close second.
But remember, petroleum must be continuously and logistically transported to troops fighting on the ground or in the air. You can't just locally procure a sustainable petroleum source for an army on the move.
- zeteo 16y agoYes, modern armies do depend on a good supply of petroleum. That doesn't mean they are fully staffed with geologists, economists, market analysts etc. Pretty much the entire economy is highly dependent on fossil fuels, but the competency to estimate the reserves is concentrated in a narrow field, and estimates of a whole economy's response to oil shock are mostly speculation.
- blantonl 16y agoI'd bet the single largest consumer of intelligence data from the CIA is the US Military, which, is considerably staffed by the US Military. I might be splitting hairs here, but it is a well known fact that a tremendous amount of CIA employees are geologists, economists, and market analysts. Realistically, while the CIA's job is to supply the nation's President and governmental agencies with intelligence, the end result of a lot of work the CIA does is for the US Military. And you can bet a ton of work is done around the Petroleum supply.
- zeteo 16y agoLook, this is not a study by the CIA. It's been prepared by the German military, and the article sources no other primary information. If there is a study done by actual geologists and market analysts, I'll get excited when I see it.
- philwelch 16y agoThanks to history and stupid bureaucratic politics, though, the military has their own intelligence agencies as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Naval_Intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Naval_Intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Intelligence_Agency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Intelligence_Agency
- mchouza 16y agoOne interesting study about this area, done by the JASON group for the DoD, is "Reducing DoD Fossil-Fuel Dependence, JSR-06-135": http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/fossil.pdf http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/fossil.pdf