Michael T. Klare is a
Five Colleges professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
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 an American liberal biweekly 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 tha ...
'' 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 liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
,
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. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
,
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
...
and the
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...
.
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 th ...
. He is a regular contributor to many publications including ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly 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 tha ...
'', ''
TomDispatch
Thomas M. Engelhardt (born 1944) is an American writer and editor. He is the creator of Type Media Center's tomdispatch.com, an online blog. He is also the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of the 1998 book, ''The End of V ...
'' and ''
Mother Jones
Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...
'', and is a frequent columnist for
Foreign Policy In Focus
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
. 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, cla ...
.
He lives in
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571.
Northampton is known as an acade ...
. Klare is a graduate of
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and the
Union Institute & University
Union Institute & University (UI&U) is a private university in Cincinnati, Ohio. It specializes in limited residence and distance learning programs. The university is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and operates satellite campuses ...
.
Analysis of US threats against Iraq
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 a narrow victory over Democratic ...
to attack
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
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
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
and only dropped back to its previous level several months later.
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, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...
,
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 petroleum-bearing formations of low permeability, often shale or tight sandstone.
Economic production from ...
(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 ca ...
(oil from
oil shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitute ...
),
deepwater drilling
Deepwater drilling, or deep well drilling, is the process of creating holes in the Earth's crust using a drilling rig for oil extraction under the deep sea. There are approximately 3400 deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico with depths greater ...
,
hydraulic fracturing
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...
,
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
The exploration of the Arctic for petroleum is considered to be quite technically challenging. However, recent technological developments, the melting of Arctic permafrost, as well as relatively high oil prices, have allowed for exploration. As a ...
, and
natural gas hydrates.
Oil as an instrument of national policy
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 is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a Orders of magnitude (time), human timescale. It includes sources such as Solar power, sunlight, wind power, wind, the movement of Hydropo ...
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 a ...
after another as the global hunt for diminishing world petroleum supplies accelerates.
The future of oil
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 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 following its inva ...
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 ( fa, تنگه هرمز ''Tangeh-ye Hormoz'' ar, مَضيق هُرمُز ''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 ...
, the
East
East or Orient 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 fa ...
and
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...
s, the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
basin, and the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...
polar region. In another article in 2011, Klare expanded his thesis to something more radical. He noted that America and oil were falling together.
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
Peter Kornbluh (born 1956) is the director of the National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project and Cuba Documentation Project.
He played a large role in the campaign to declassify government documents, via the Freedom of Information ...
) ''
Low Intensity Warfare
A low-intensity conflict (LIC) is a military conflict, usually localised, between two or more state or non-state groups which is below the intensity of conventional war. It involves the state's use of military forces applied selectively and with ...
: 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 an American liberal biweekly 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 tha ...
'' (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 inWhole Terrain
''Whole Terrain: Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice'' is an environmentally-themed literary journal that is published approximately once a year by Antioch University New England (ANE). Each volume explores emerging ecological and social ...
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
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