The peaking of liberal democracy: energy scarcity, food security, and insurgent governance
Peak Oil Policy Response and the Emerging Post-Liberal Order
In the UK, public debate about peak oil is rare. However, since the oil
price spikes of 2007-08, UK energy and national security strategy documents have sounded a more alarmist note. Their titles are simultaneously
reassuring and disquieting: Energy Security: A national challenge in
a changing world (Wicks 2009); A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty (Cabinet Office 2010); Rebuilding Security: Conservative Energy
Policy for an Uncertain World (Conservative Party 2010). Peak oil is
not denied, but alluded to, as one might handle a difficult subject like
cancer or death. We are warned obliquely that “the era of cheap oil is
behind us” (Conservative Party 2010: 22). Alongside more traditional
security threats, such as, terrorist attack, WMD, state-led threats, and
regional conflict, the following have been added: “competition for energy” (Cabinet Office 2008: 2), “resource scarcity” (Cabinet Office 2010:
16), “disruption to oil or gas supplies” and “disruption to international
supplies of resources (e.g. food, minerals)” (Cabinet Office 2010: 27).
This represents a broadening of the security agenda, but these additional
threats are still framed within a traditional national security perspective
that remains disposed towards military solutions, and peak oil is not explicitly acknowledged.
Various factors may explain this lack of candour, including: the reluctance of elected politicians to present bad news and potentially unpopular policies; fear of panicking financial markets; and an endemic culture
of secrecy. A further explanation may be that a strategy for addressing
peak oil exists, but its legitimacy would be challenged if exposed to public debate. The UK, for example, as an ally of the US in the so-called
’War on Terror’, has arguably already embarked on an imperialist energy
security policy. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, commented in his memoir,