Oil and the American Empire

More on the rise and fall of the American Empire:

Phillips draws from the experience of empires past, including — as Sumner did — the Spanish empire. He also draws insights from the Dutch, British, Hapsburg, and Roman empires. His book has many threads that show how America is well along the familiar life cycle of empires. But I want to focus on just two: the rise of finance and America’s oil dependency.

Empires get hooked on certain fuel sources like dope addicts. The Dutch were masters of wind and water. But their commercial dominance faltered with the rise of coal. Coal fed the British Empire. But it eventually gave way to the oil-powered might of the United States. Phillips maintains that the inevitable transition to a post-oil global economy — whether it is based on natural gas, hydrogen, greater nuclear reliance, renewable energy, or whatever — “could see the United States displaced by a new leading economic power, probably an Asian one.” The history of modern empires is one in which transitions to new fuel sources are just not successful.

Instead, the fading empire fights it out. Not surprising that natural resources fueled many conflicts in earlier centuries. North American fisheries. Baltic timber. East Indian spices. Caribbean sugar and salt. The gold and silver of the New World. The powers of empire hinged on the command of valuable natural resources such as these. More