"German military report: Peak oil could lead to collapse of democracy"

German military report: Peak oil could lead to collapse of democracy

Peak oil has happened or will happen some time around this year, and its consequences could threaten the continued survival of democratic governments, says a secret Germany military report that was leaked online.

...the report from a think-tank inside the German military warns that shrinking global oil supplies will threaten the world's economic foundations and possibly lead to mass-scale upheaval within the next 15 to 30 years.

By some estimates there will be an average of 2% annual growth
in global oil demand over the years ahead,
along with conservatively a 3% natural decline in production
from existing reserves.

Richard Bruce Cheney

International trade would suffer as the cost of transporting goods across oceans would soar, resulting in "shortages in the supply of vital goods," the report states, as translated by Der Spiegel.

The result would be the collapse of the industrial supply chain. "In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse," the report states.

That collapse could, in turn, cause many countries to abandon free markets principles...

Deals would be struck between oil-exporting and oil-importing countries that would fix prices and remove large amounts of oil from the global market place.

...the report also warns that the economic crisis caused by shrinking oil supplies and skyrocketing prices could be seen by the general public as a failure of market economics as a whole -- and with it, the political institutions that created those economic systems.

Public anger at the existing system would create "room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government." Populations would fragment along political lines and "in extreme cases" this could "lead to open conflict."

Peak oil -- which refers to the moment when the world's production of oil begins to shrink -- is a controversial concept, but few doubt the basic logic underlying it: That eventually the world's finite supply of oil will run out...

If US mainland oil discovery peaked in the 1930’s,
leading to a production peak in the early 1970’s,
and world discovery peaked in the 1960’s,
when should global oil production peak?

With the report, Germany joins the growing ranks of Western governments apparently alarmed by the prospect of peak oil.

Last Sunday, the UK Observer reported that Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change is refusing to release documents related to peak oil...

...a report from the US Joint Forces Command stated that "by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day."

 

If Iran and India cut a deal to deliver more Iranian oil to India
and reduce exports to China,
should China resort to military action to prevent it?

The report continued, "While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India."

Daniel Tenser
The Raw Story