Michael Klare

Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the Pentagon now regards climate change as one of the top threats to American national security and is busy developing strategies to cope with it. Its response makes it clear that where it counts, the immense impact of climate change is not in doubt.

Since September 11th 2001 and the commencement of the 'war on terror', the world's attention has been focused on the relationship between US foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil.Michael Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon and Carter governments. He shows how America's own wells are drying up as demand increases and warns that by 2010 the US will need to import 60% of its oil. And since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, often violently anti-American zones - the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, Latin America and Africa - their dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement.

In this incisive examination of our national security policy, Michael Klare suggests that the Pentagon in effect established a new class of enemies when the Cold War came to an -unpredictable and hostile states in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Klare argues that the containment of these rising Third World powers-Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea, especially-became the centerpiece of American military policy and the justification for near-Cold War levels of military sping.