Michael T. Klare is a
Five Colleges professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
emeritus
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
In some c ...
of Peace and World Security Studies, whose department is located at
Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...
(Amherst, Massachusetts, USA), defense correspondent of ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'' magazine and author of ''Resource Wars'' and ''Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency'' (Metropolitan). His 2019 book is, ''All Hell Breaking Loose: the Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change'' (Metropolitan). Klare also teaches at
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...
,
Smith College
Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...
,
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...
and the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...
.
Klare serves on the board of directors of the
Arms Control Association
The Arms Control Association is a United States–based nonpartisan membership organization founded in 1971, with the self-stated mission of "promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies."
The group publishes ...
. He is a regular contributor to many publications including ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'', ''
TomDispatch'' and ''
Mother Jones'', and is a frequent columnist for
Foreign Policy In Focus. He also was the narrator of the movie ''Blood and Oil'', which was produced by the
Media Education Foundation
The Media Education Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1992 that produces and distributes documentary films about the impact of American mass media. Their films focus on topics such as gender, race and representation, health, cl ...
.
He lives in
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence, Massachusetts, Florence and ...
. Klare is a graduate of
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
and the
Union Institute & University
Union Institute & University (UI&U) was a private online university that was headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It also operated satellite campuses in Florida and California.
In early 2023, it began to experience severe financial challenge ...
.
Geopolitics of oil
In November 2005, Klare alleged that a major factor motivating the
George W. Bush administration
George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following his narrow electoral college vict ...
to attack
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
was its desire to distract attention from domestic political difficulties and to increase popularity for the President.
US popular support for Bush increased by about 10% during the
2003 invasion of Iraq and only dropped back to its previous level several months later.
The movie ''Blood and Oil'', which came out before the end of the Bush administration, explains Klare's view on oil as an instrument of national policy. Using sources including statements from official government sources and statements by media commentators, Klare pushes for
alternative energy
Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...
and warns that energy will be hard to get in the next century. The website for the movie describes the movie as follows:
The notion that oil motivates America's military engagements in the Middle East has long been dismissed as nonsense or mere conspiracy theory. Blood and Oil, a new documentary based on the acclaimed work of Nation magazine defense correspondent Michael T. Klare, challenges this conventional wisdom to correct the historical record. The film unearths declassified documents and highlights forgotten passages in prominent presidential doctrines to show how concerns about oil have been at the core of American foreign policy for more than 60 years – rendering our contemporary energy and military policies virtually indistinguishable. In the end, Blood and Oil calls for a radical re-thinking of US energy policy, warning that unless we change direction, we stand to be drawn into one oil war
An oil war is a conflict about petroleum resources, or their transportation, consumption, or regulation. The term may also refer generally to any conflict in a region that contains oil reserves or is geographically positioned in a location where ...
after another as the global hunt for diminishing world petroleum supplies accelerates.
In a number of articles, Klare has commented on the future of oil. In an article published on March 13, 2012, he discussed "the principal cause of higher oil prices", concluding that "a fundamental shift in the structure of the oil industry" has occurred because of "the disappearance of relatively accessible and inexpensive petroleum", and that countries will have to grasp for the harder oil in the future. In another article, he continues this thesis and suggests that
sanctions on Iran
There have been a number of international sanctions against Iran imposed by a number of countries, especially the United States, and international entities. Iran was the most sanctioned country in the world until it was surpassed by Russia, follo ...
make not only Iranians suffer, but also those that buy oil from Iran. That same month, Klare noted the sensitive spots of conflict in the "Geo-energy era". They include the
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz ( ''Tangeh-ye Hormoz'' , ''Maḍīq Hurmuz'') is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategica ...
, the
East
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
and
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...
s, the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...
basin, and the
Arctic
The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
polar region. In another article in 2011, Klare expanded his thesis to something more radical. He noted that America and oil were falling together.
Extreme energy
Klare originated the concept of extreme energy. Extreme energy is a range of techniques for the production of energy from
unconventional resources which share characteristics of being environmentally damaging or risky. Examples include exploitation of
oil sands
Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...
,
tight oil
Tight oil (also known as shale oil, shale-hosted oil or light tight oil, abbreviated LTO) is light crude oil contained in Unconventional (oil & gas) reservoir, unconventional petroleum-bearing formations of low Permeability (earth sciences), perme ...
(shale oil) and
shale oil
Shale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas. The resulting oil c ...
(oil from
oil shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...
),
deepwater drilling,
hydraulic fracturing
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of Formation (geology), formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the ...
,
mountaintop removal mining
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. Thi ...
,
petroleum exploration in the Arctic, and
natural gas hydrates.
Group of Three
Klare argued
Group of Three
The Group of Three (G-3 or G3) is an informal grouping made up of the United States, United States of America, China, People's Republic of China, and Republic of India. List of countries by GDP (PPP), The three largest countries by gross domesti ...
of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, and the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
would increasingly shape the twenty-first century given the weakness of
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
displayed during the
Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
. These comments came in 2023, the same year the President of the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...
Borge Brende promoted the idea of a G-3.
Bibliography
* ''War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams'' (New York: Knopf, 1972). (Translations in Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish.)
* ''Supplying Repression'' (New York: Field Foundation, 1978). (2nd ed., with Cynthia Arnson, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C., 1981.)
* ''Beyond the 'Vietnam Syndrome': U.S. Interventionism in the 1980s'' (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1981).
* ''American Arms Supermarket'' (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984).
* ''Low-Intensity Warfare: Counterinsurgency, Proinsurgency and Anti-terrorism in the Eighties'', co-editor and contributor (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
* ''Peace and World Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide'', 6th ed., editor and contributor (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994). (5th ed., co-editor and contributor, 1991).
* ''Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons'', co-editor and contributor (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1995).
* ''Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America's Search for a New Foreign Policy'' (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995).
* ''A Scourge of Guns: The Diffusion of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Latin America'', with David Andersen (Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, 1996).
* ''World Security: Challenges for a New Century'', 3rd ed., co-editor and contributor (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). (1st ed., co-editor and contributor, 1991; 2nd ed., co-editor and contributor, 1994.)
* ''Light Weapons and Civil Conflict'', co-editor and contributor (Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999).
* ''Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict'' (New York: Owl Books, reprint edition 2002).
* ''Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum'' (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004; paperback, Owl Books, 2005).
*(with
Peter Kornbluh) ''
Low Intensity Warfare: How the USA Fights Wars Without Declaring Them'' (Methuen Publishing Ltd, 1989, ).
*''Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy'' (Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated, 2008, ).
*''The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources'', Metropolitan Books; First Edition (March 13, 2012), hardcover, 320 pages,
* ''All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change'', New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2019, ).
Published articles
Shopaholic China: chinadialogue July 2, 2010*
*
"Michael Klare interviewed by Creel Commission" February 21, 2006.also a
Jackalope Recordings*
*
*
ttp://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/michael_t_klare Archive of Michael Klare's articlesin ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'' (1999–2006).
*
*
*
*
"Rogue States and ‘Peer Competitors' - A New Military Strategy for Washington?" from Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1997.
Notes
External links
*
Klare's articles published in Whole Terrain
Five Colleges Program in Peace and World Security StudiesPulse Berlin / Stone Gossard*
*
''Booknotes'' interview with Klare on ''Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws'', April 30, 1995.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Klare, Michael
American international relations scholars
American foreign policy writers
American male non-fiction writers
American military writers
Peace and conflict scholars
Hampshire College faculty
Writers from Massachusetts
Living people
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty
Smith College faculty
Mount Holyoke College faculty
Amherst College faculty
Union Institute & University alumni
The Nation (U.S. magazine) people