If you have any doubt that we are fighting in Iraq to control its oil fields -- or that Cheney and Bush want to force Iran into submission for the same reason -- read this book. The "great game" of this new century is war over dwindling oil supplies as industrial growth in countries other than the U.S., particularly China, force conflicts over natural resources.

Just look at China and Sudan -- and Bush's recent interest in Africa. It's about the oil.

Klare believes that only international cooperation can avoid ruinous and disastrous military confrontation.

From the Publisher:

From the author of the now-classic Resource Wars, an indispensable account of how the world�s diminishing sources of energy are radically changing the international balance of power

Recently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was blocked by Congress amidst hysterical warnings of a Communist threat. But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources.

Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments rather than corporations are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world� where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging �Chindia� juggernaut�the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies through international cooperation.

�If you want to understand the future of international relations, worry less about ideology and more about oil reserves. Michael Klare's superb new book explains, in haunting detail, the trends that will lead us into a series of dangerous traps, unless we muster the will to transform the way we use energy in this country. As illuminating as it is unsettling.�

�Bill McKibben, author The Bill McKibben Reader

From an online reviewer:
"Rising Powers Shrinking Planet." should be read by every candidate seeking the Presidency in the 2008 election. It is work not to be dismissed or ignored.

The geopolitical issues of oil in general, and the terrible concept of trading "blood for oil" are matters that should be of the greatest interest to every American. This book is superbly written and researched.