How Much is Military Defense of Fossil Fuels Costing Us? Up to $215 Billion a Year
October 14th, 2008 by Shirley Siluk Gregory
Is the Iraq War all about oil? Maybe not. But even former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has acknowledged the action was “essential” to protect the world’s access to oil. With many of the world’s top-producing oil and gas fields in decline, is it unreasonable to suggest there will be more military action to defend our “right” to fossil fuels?
Not according to the National Priorities Project, which today released a report that finds the U.S. is spending $97 billion to $215 billion a year on military efforts to defend oil and natural gas reserves around the world. That means as much as 30 percent of the U.S.’s military budget is aimed at protecting access to fossil fuels.
“The military budget isn’t broken down by mission or region of the world, so it isn’t obvious at all how many resources are devoted to securing access to and the transport of energy,” says Anita Dancs, a professor of economics and co-author of the report, The Military Cost of Securing Energy. “Because of this, we developed different sets of assumptions and created two methodologies to answer the question.”
Even without the Iraq war ($562 billion and counting so far), the U.S. Department of Defense will spend close to $100 billion next year to secure energy resources, Dancs says.
“We hope that by publishing these preliminary results, we can start a national discussion,” she continues. “Not only about how to calculate these numbers more precisely, but about the implications of this spending when the federal government only spends a few billion on renewable energy and conservation.”
It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out which expenditure makes more sense in a troubled world with growing energy demands and diminishing oil and gas production. Let’s hope the next president realizes that (though one candidate apparently doesn’t (scroll down to the section titled “Oil illiteracy”)).
Visit the National Priorities Project to read more about its latest report.
Keep up to date with all the most interesting green news on the planet by subscribing to our (free) Planetsave newsletter.
About the Author
Shirley Siluk Gregory Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
Related Posts
A Message About Your Water Bottle →
ExxonMobil Says Goodbye To Russian Arctic Oil Well (Part 1) →
What Is Climate Change? (VIDEO) →
