While in casual discussions with a retired American who as a young woman, worked at North American Aviation on the Mustang P-51 Fighter doing Defense Work in the early 1940's. She is a lady who had vivid memories about World War II from her viewpoint as the young wife of a soldier who left his job at North American to join the Army; and as the mother of his two children, born during during that war.

We were conversing about some pictures she had of the period and somehow we wandered off topic from the homeland fuel and resource shortages of that era to the fuel shortages and economic meltdown of current affairs. But somehow she did not bridge over to that fact while were talking about the fuel and industrial product embargo's started in the late 1930's which caused the Imperialist Nation of Japan to openly go to war with the United States, Australia and the Colonies of France and the British Empire

I was attempting to define Imperialism for her, using examples of invasion and occupation forces to dominate formerly friendly nations in order to exploit the oil and mineral wealth in those countries and somehow this lady got rather heated and asked, "Are you saying that America is an Imperialist country?" In fact, at that moment, I was dumbfounded. That was because I had had in a heartbeat, a moment of clarity that chilled me to the bones; in that in point of fact that is exactly the case.

In a blink I connected Great Britain's war with Argentina for the Falklands natural gas fields. The U.S./NATO Desert Storm and Desert Shield fights with Iraq over Kuwait. The invasions in the Caucuses and the Balkans for control of the oil and gas production in those regions, by Russia, as well. These were relatively small but escalating skirmishes for control of finite carbon energy reserves, in spite of the rhetoric about human rights, terrorist bases eradication and other rhetoric.

Coupled with this was the fact that for the first time in oil's checkered history, for a short 9 month period, there was a 2% shortfall in oil production. That simple fact drove an economic battle between national consumers for getting enough crude oil for each nation's needs; which drove the price of sweet crude up to a whopping $149.00 a barrel.

During that same period Russia, Qatar and Iran saw an opportunity to get a death grip on the Natural Gas production of which their combined output is 54% of world total production. They are in negotiations as we speak to form ONGEC (Organization of Natural Gas Exporting Countries.). A counterpoint to OPEC (The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.).

If one follows the incredible money trail that is barrels of oil and cubic feet of natural gas and imposes the circumstances of the 1930 layered over present time; it becomes a certainty that those who posses this wealth will become dominant in the world. Countries like North Korea and the current former soviet nation that is now fragmented Russia are already making money on the black market and open market selling arms to countries not know for their tolerance for America. Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently being killed with these weapons in street and mountain skirmishes.

The next level of combat intensity will begin when the next world economic upturn again surpasses the ability of the sources for energy to make up the shortfalls that China and India - who have surpassed the U.S. as consumers of these energy products. The U.S., already embarrassed by the failed Iraqi invasion to secure oil fields will not be able to respond diplomatically to takeover's by Iran and Russia because the U.S. has no moral or economic basis to initiate yet another war with a third, forth or fifth front. Moral wise, we are effectively maxed out. So we will be forced to fight for those energy reserves, just like our invasion of Iraq.

What will happen then are that nuclear weapons will be employed by Iran, Russia, Korea and possibly China and Japan because to not neutralize key city's such as the capital of Iraq and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which are major staging areas for U.S. Military offensives. Not initiating first strikes against them would be to invite those countries to be losers once again to our high technology (which is strangely never characterized as having weapons of mass destruction in them albeit cluster munitions unleashed at 2,000 feet can shred every living thing in a three quarter mile radius. And not to mention our fresh, tested combat expertise which is greatly enhanced by military computer's doing Intelligent Assistance computations via gaming techniques which teach theater commanders the most likely, most effective tactics to use to beat our foes; long before a shot is fired.

We'll be nuked by devices bought from formerly bankrupt Russian military stockpiles sold to loose cannon countries such as Iran, Korea, etc. who are stymied from development of these weapons and who are buying them on the arms black market. Israel is going to catch a number of those nuclear devices as well, because tactically it is a dangerous staging area for counter strikes once Baghdad, and other key U.S. military staging bases in Arabic cities and the Indian Ocean are wiped out.

Make no mistake about this, by definition, the U.S. is now no less an Imperialist Nation than Japan, Germany and Italy during the 1930's and 1940's. And for the very same reasons:
     If the option is removed to get enough energy for our needs our country simply will not survive. Our enemies, who are no less students of history than the Viet Cong in the 60's and 70's already understand there will be no diplomatic solution to energy shortages by the U.S. Only invasion and subjugation before shortages cripple our war fighting ability just like happened with Japan and Germany in years past. THEN there will be diplomatic negotiation and concessions that leave them holding the bag like every conflict and war of the last century that the U.S. has been in.

THIS time WW III will be the result, for absolute control of world energy reserves. It's not a question of whether there will be a war. Rather, it's a question of when the war will begin in earnest, in a way that news and spin control will not be able to cover it up... And this time, I'm sorry to say, the U.S. military will be the recipient of the genie it let out of the bottle over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. And that is because as a nation we have not figured out how to wean off the need for imported energy to continue to maintain and expand our living standards and life style. Nor will China and India, who are modeling their economics on America's system of growth. jwr

End.