Blood and Oil (American Empire Project)

Since the tragic events of September 11 and the commencement of the war on terror, the relationship between U.S. policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil has come under close scrutiny. In Blood and Oil, international security expert Michael Klare traces oil's impact on foreign affairs from World War II to the present, delineating, with clarity and urgency, America's current predicament. By 2020, the United States will need to import twice as much fuel per year as it did in 1990. Since most of this oil will come from chronically unstable, strongly anti-American regions - the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, and Africa - violent conflict is sure to follow. It is time, Klare concludes, to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.