Michael T. Klare, Author at Toward Freedom

The Pentagon Is Planning a Three-Front ‘Long War’ Against China and Russia

Michael T. Klare April 9, 2018 Michael T. Klare

The Pentagon headquarters in Washington, DC.

If you thought the “global war on terror” was a significant overreach for a single power, just wait.

Think of it as the most momentous military planning on Earth right now.

Who’s even paying attention, given the eternal changing of the guard at the White House, as well as the latest in tweets, sexual revelations, and investigations of every sort? And yet it increasingly looks as if, thanks to current Pentagon planning, a twenty-first-century version of the Cold War (with dangerous new twists) has begun and hardly anyone has even noticed. read more

Michael Klare: After Paris, There Is Some Room for Hope

Michael T. Klare December 16, 2015 Michael T. Klare

Source: The Nation/Tom Dispatch

Good news and climate change are not normally associated with each other, but let’s give a tentative cheer for COP21.

Historically, the transition from one energy system to another, as from wood to coal or coal to oil, has proven an enormously complicated process, requiring decades to complete. In similar fashion, it will undoubtedly be many years before renewable forms of energy—wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and others still in development—replace fossil fuels as the world’s leading energy providers. Nonetheless, 2015 can be viewed as the year in which the epochal transition from one set of fuels to another took off, with renewables making such significant strides that, for the first time in centuries, the beginning of the end of the Fossil Fuel Era has come into sight. read more

A Presidential Decision That Could Change the World: The Strategic Importance of Keystone XL

Michael T. Klare February 13, 2013 Michael T. Klare

Source: Tom Dispatch

Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. In the near future, President Obama is expected to give its construction a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines. It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet. If that sounds overly dramatic, let me explain. read more

Klare: Energy Wars 2012

Michael T. Klare January 11, 2012 Michael T. Klare

Source: TomDispatch.com

Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy “chokepoint” could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch — the Geo-Energy Era — in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs. In 2012 and beyond, energy and conflict will be bound ever more tightly together, lending increasing importance to the key geographical flashpoints in our resource-constrained world. read more

Iraq and Climate Change

Michael T. Klare December 11, 2007 Michael T. Klare

Michael Klare

When our grandchildren and more distant descendants assemble in such classrooms as may be available and ask their teachers, "Why did our ancestors not take effective action to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change?" one of the answers will surely be, "The war in Iraq."