It’s the Oil, Stupid! (Hubbert’s Curve and World War III)
© 2003 Joseph George Caldwell.
All rights reserved. Posted at
Internet web sites http://www.foundation.bw
and http://www.foundationwebsite.org
. May be copied or reposted for
non-commercial use, with attribution.
(27 August 2003, updated 16 September 2003, 8 November 2003, graphics
scale corrected 22 February 2004, Table 2 scale corrected 13 May 2004)
Introduction and Summary
I never
cease to be amazed how much time and effort are going into trying to show that
US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair used
subterfuge to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The US and Britain invaded Iraq because the world is running out of oil,
and it was considered extremely important for the very large reserves in Iraq
to be under Anglo-American control in the declining years of the petroleum
age. Most Americans and many Britons
are unaware that global oil production is about to peak, and they are unaware
that this event signals the end of the industrial age and of their high
standard of living. But the populations
of both nations share a high sense of moral propriety, and it would have been
unseemly to state simply that we were invading Iraq to gain unimpeded access to
Iraqi oil. If this had been
acknowledged as the true (main) reason for the invasion, it have flown in the
face of the US’ and Britain’s ostensible moral principles and not have been approved
by the US and British populations. For
this reason, both leaders made a strong case that we were invading Iraq to
further higher ideals – to fight terrorism, to eliminate weapons of mass
destruction, and to free the Iraqi people from the strict dictatorship of
Saddam Hussein. With these high-minded
principles accepted as the basis for invading Iraq, the US and British
populations approved the war. Some
people knew that the real reason for the invasion was to ensure Anglo-American
control of Iraqi oil, but most of them kept silent, knowing that political
realities dictated that other reasons should be represented as the reasons for
the invasion.
So, I would
suggest to the American and British people that, for their continued peace of
mind, they discontinue the inquiry into the real reasons for the Iraqi
invasion. George Bush and Tony Blair
did it for you, and they did not admit to the true reason for the invasion so
that you would not feel uncomfortable about proceeding with it, even though it
was essential to maintaining your high standard of living for a little while
longer. As the petroleum age draws to
an end, America and Britain will take whatever steps are necessary to gain
access to the declining global oil reserves.
In the years to come, there will be more invasions like that of
Iraq. At some point, it will be obvious
to everyone that the reason for these invasions – these resource wars – is
oil. But it will always, and certainly
initially, be easier to justify them when they are wrapped in the swaddling
cloth of national defence (fighting terrorism, eliminating weapons of mass
destruction) and liberty (freeing people from dictators, establishing
democracy, promoting free trade). By
placing Iraqi oil under Anglo-American control, the US and Britain ensure that
Iraqi oil will be available to the US and to Britain, rather than to China (and
India, and Russia, and any other country you wish to mention). From the viewpoint of prolonging the high
Anglo-American standard of living for a few years more, the invasion of Iraq
was absolutely necessary. George Bush
and Tony Blair did a fine job of accomplishing the invasion of Iraq without
requiring Americans and Britons to feel bad about doing so. They have read their Machiavelli well. They told white lies not just to rally
strong emotional support for the invasion, but also so that Americans and
Britons could continue to live at a high standard of living – and in a
fairyland of high-minded principles – for a little while longer.
This
article will summarize why the invasion of Iraq was considered essential to
protecting American and British interests in continuing industrial activity at
a high level in the US and Britain.
Hubbert’s Curve
Dr. Marion
King Hubbert was a geologist who, in 1949, presented a curve predicting the
rise and fall of oil production in the conterminous United States. After the passage of time, this curve proved
to be quite accurate, and it came to be known as “Hubbert’s curve.” It is a “bell-shaped” curve, which rises to a
single peak (highest point) and then declines.
The peak is known as “Hubbert’s peak.”
According to Hubbert’s curve, oil production in a large area increases
very fast initially, when much oil is discovered and is easy to extract. Then, when approximately half of the total
oil reserve has been extracted, production tapers off and then declines as less
and less new oil is discovered, extraction becomes more difficult and costly,
and the initial wells run out. (This
life-cycle of the oil production process is sometimes referred to as “Hubbert’s
cycle.”) Production of a well or field
ends when it ceases to be profitable.
Since oil is used mainly as a source of energy (as opposed to a raw
material for other products), production ceases, independently of economic
considerations (specifically, no how high the price rises), when the amount of
(high grade commercial) energy required to extract the oil exceeds the amount
of energy produced by the oil.
Following
the success of Hubbert’s curve in predicting the year of peak production in the
United States, Hubbert’s methodology (with slight modification over the years)
has been used to predict the rise and fall of global oil production. Figure 1 illustrates two different versions
of Hubbert’s curve for global oil production.
The two curves differ with respect to the estimate of the total global
reserves. For one curve, the estimated
total global oil reserve is 1.35 trillion barrels (bbl), and for the other, it
is 2.1 trillion bbl (the current, widely accepted estimate). The very interesting thing to note about the
peak on Hubbert’s curve is that it does not shift very much, even if the
estimate of total global reserves changes substantially. In the example in Figure 1, for example,
when the estimate of total global reserves almost doubled, from 1.35 trillion
bbl to 2.1 trillion bbl, the peak of the curve shifted only ten years, from
1990 to 2000. This is true for the
following reasons. First, when the
first oil wells are opened in a large oil-bearing region, the “energy return”
of the oil is very high – one barrel of oil can be used to produce many
others. Also, in the initial years of
exploration of a large oil-bearing region, much oil is found. Since oil is so bountiful initially, it is
inexpensive, and, since it is so very useful, demand (consumption) rises very
fast – “exponentially” (or “geometrically”), in mathematical terms. In any finite system, however, exponential
growth never lasts very long, and the time soon arrives when the exponential
growth ceases – discoveries become less frequent and smaller in size, the oil
in older wells becomes more difficult to extract, and the early wells start to
exhaust. From a “mathematical”
viewpoint, the total oil reserve is the area under the curve (the sum, or integral,
of all of the yearly production amounts).
The area under an exponential curve (the early phase of production)
grows exponentially, however, and so very little change in the distance from
the start of the curve to the peak corresponds to a very large change in the
area under the curve. In other words,
the total reserve may vary considerably and yet the time of the peak (from the
initial year of production) hardly changes.
For those who say that we might discover some more massive oil reserves,
and that this would extend the duration of the petroleum age, this means that
such finds will not change the date of the end of the petroleum age at
all. The petroleum age will end by
2050, period.
It should
be recognized that Hubbert’s curve reflects economic, political, physical and
technological phenomena at work.
Without the influence of economics (demand), of course, no exploration
for oil would take place and no production facilities would be developed, and
no oil would be pumped at all. As we
are keenly aware, political influences can certainly restrict production (e.g.,
the OPEC cartel, the Kuwait war). And
the state of our knowledge of engineering and science (physics / geology /
technology) determines how successful we are in locating new reserves and
places restrictions on just how fast oil can be extracted from an oil
field. In the early years of
exploitation (i.e., of “Hubbert’s cycle”), it is possible to produce more oil
than is demanded, and economics and politics may stimulate or retard discovery,
development and production to a considerable extent. Technological considerations (rates of discovery, extraction
technology) may place general limits on just how fast production increases, but
supply and demand are kept in balance mainly by political or economic
considerations (price adjustments, production restrictions). In the later years, demand far outstrips
supply, and discovery and production are pressed to the limit. Near the end of the cycle, production is
constrained by the facts that few producing fields remain and that oil can be
extracted from the ground just so fast.
At this point, economic considerations have little effect on the rate of
production (i.e., the supply (production) is “inelastic” with respect to the
price).
It is noted
that, as time passes and more data become available, Hubbert’s curve, which is
an estimate of future production, is revised.
Figure 1 displayed “early” versions of Hubbert’s curve, based on the
initial years of global oil production.
Figure 2 shows “later” versions of Hubbert’s curve, where actual
production figures are used through the year 2000. Current wisdom is that the total global reserve of oil (that
already pumped plus that still in the ground) is 2.1 trillion bbl, that about
half of the oil had been pumped out by the year 2000, and that the peak in
global oil production will occur sometime in the 2001-2010 decade. Some geologists believe that the peak may
occur this year (2003), many believe that it will occur by 2010, and a few
believe that it might even occur later than 2010. In any event, almost all agree that the peak will occur within
the next few years.
Recall that
the area under the Hubbert’s curve (which shows annual production over the
entire life cycle of a region) is the total global reserve. Since it is estimated that half of the
world’s oil was been extracted by 2000, half of the area under the curves of
Figure 2 occurs up to the year 2000, and half of the area occurs after 2000.
It should
be recognized that the main reason that production peaks and then declines
rapidly is because of the exponential increase in production in the early years
of exploitation. Because oil is so very
useful and so very inexpensive, demand is high, and it continues to stimulate
exploration, development, and production at an exponential (“compound growth”)
rate. At some point, however, global
production starts to decline, and there is very little that can be done to
prevent the decline. It is simply not
possible to extract oil from the declining number of old oil fields at a faster
and faster rate, to keep up with demand.
It is not possible to maintain production at a fixed level until all of
the oil is gone. Once the point is
reached at which supply starts to decline, production falls faster and faster
each year. The fundamental reason
underlying Hubbert’s peak is the fact that extraction of the oil continues to
grow at an exponential rate until all of the “easy” oil (easy to find and
inexpensive to extract) is gone. After
that point is reached, only the “difficult” oil (hard to find and expensive to
extract) remains – and the situation becomes bleaker with each passing
year. The initial growth in production
is “explosive,” and explosions never last very long.
It is
emphasized that the oil does not simply “run out” all of a sudden. Global production simply becomes less and
less, as the last few wells are exhausted (i.e., become commercially
unprofitable, or have a “net energy” return near zero). If we arbitrarily mark the “end” of the petroleum
age as a point in time where production is a particular (small) fraction of
peak production, then the end of the petroleum age occurs at about the same
time, no matter how extraordinary are the efforts made to find new fields. This is partly due to the fact that as time
passes the geology of the planet becomes very well known, so there is simply no
region that has not been thoroughly explored.
No significant new oil fields are discovered, and the existing wells
exhaust. A second reason is that, once
production peaks, demand exceeds supply by a growing – and soon large –
amount. Because of this, as the final
oil discoveries occur, those fields are exploited as fast as possible – there
is no attempt to “stretch out” the duration of production. Each new field discovered after the peak is
passed is exploited as quickly as possible.
Hubbert’s
curve for the United States was somewhat symmetrical, i.e., the decline in oil
production after the peak rather mirrored the rise in production before the peak. For the global Hubbert’s curve, it is
expected that the “peak” region may be a little “flatter,” and that the decline
will occur somewhat more rapidly than the rise. The reason for this is that, as US production declined, oil
companies simply expended more and more effort in exploring for oil and
exploiting new fields abroad (since it was more profitable – more fields to
discover, and a high energy return as they go into production), with no real
incentive to try to press US exploration or production to extreme levels. For the global situation, however, there is
no other region to explore or exploit, and so, as production falls below
demand, the price rises, and the pressure mounts to explore every possible area
and pump all remaining wells at the fastest rate possible. This situation is somewhat different from
the situation that prevailed in the US, and it is expected that it will result
in a global Hubbert’s curve that has a slightly flatter peak region, followed
by a somewhat steeper decline in production, than the US Hubbert’s curve
exhibits. Refer to Figure 2. It is quite possible that we have already
passed the “halfway” point of Hubbert’s curve (i.e., the point at which half of
the total reserve has been extracted), and are now consuming the second half of
the total reserve, even if the peak year has not been reached. In fact, it is more that “quite
possible.” In view of the fact that we
have long passed the initial exponential-growth part of the curve, it is very
likely.
A large
amount of research has gone into the analysis of Hubbert’s curve. A recent book on the subject is Kenneth S.
Deffeyes’ Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending
World Oil Shortage (Princeton University Press, 2001). An article in the popular press is “The End
of Cheap Oil?” by Colin J. Campbell and Jean Laherrère, Scientific American,
March 1998.
What Will Happen Now?
Since the
dawn of the petroleum age, the world has known nothing but growth in energy
production, in industrial production, and in human population. That is about to change. The competition for the shrinking production
will become intense. As has been
discussed in numerous books and articles (e.g., Michael Klare’s Resource
Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflicts (Metropolitan, 2001) or Thomas
F. Homer-Dixon’s Economics, Scarcity and Violence (Princeton University
Press, 2001)), human beings do not simply sit around and collectively starve to
death. They go to war. Initially, there may well be alliances, such
as, to invoke the imagery of Samuel Huntington and Robert Kaplan, “The West”
against “The Rest.” Eventually, it may
well be that anarchy prevails, with every nation for itself – although, as long
as a single global superpower exists, the anarchy will reign in those countries
without oil. Hubbert’s curve offers
some insight into what will happen, and shows how desperate the situation will
become, and how quickly things will change.
In the following, we consider two possible scenarios.
In the
discussion that follows, reference will be made to production, consumption
(“demand”), and reserve amounts of various countries or country groupings. Tables 1-3 present statistics on these
quantities, for the year 2002, for a number of the world’s countries. These statistics were taken from tables
posted at the US Energy Information Administration Internet website, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/petroleu.html
.Table 1 presents consumption (“demand”) figures for the countries that use the
most oil; Table 2 presents production figures for the leading producing
countries; and Table 3 presents reserve estimates for the countries having the
largest estimated reserves. Note that
Table 3 refers to “known” reserves, which total 1.032 trillion barrels of
oil. In addition to these known
reserves, it is estimated that an additional 724 million barrels of oil and 5.2
billion cubic feet of gas, and 215 million barrels of natural gas liquids will
be discovered (Source: World Assessment Summaries by US Geological Survey World
Energy Assessment Team, from Energy Information Administration). The total known reserves, 1.032 trillion
barrels, plus the undiscovered reserves, .721 trillion barrels of oil and .215
trillion barrels of natural gas liquids, is the total estimated global
reserves, 1.968 trillion barrels of oil.
|
Table
1. World Oil Demand, 2002 (million
barrels per day). Source: Energy
Information Administration, Table 2.4. |
|
|
United
States |
19.76 |
|
Canada |
2.1 |
|
Mexico |
1.98 |
|
Australia
& New Zealand |
1.02 |
|
Japan |
5.3 |
|
Korea,
South |
2.18 |
|
France |
1.98 |
|
Germany |
2.72 |
|
Italy |
1.85 |
|
UK |
1.70 |
|
Other
OECD Europe |
6.82 |
|
Total
OECD (incl. above 11 items) |
47.69 |
|
Former
USSR |
3.93 |
|
China |
5.26 |
|
Other
Asia |
7.69 |
|
Total
Non-OECD (incl. above 3 items) |
29.87 |
|
Total World
Demand |
77.56 |
|
Table 2.
World Production of Crude Oil, Natural Gas Plant Liquids, and Other Liquids,
2001 (million barrels per day).
Source: Energy Information Administration, Table G1. |
|
|
Saudi
Arabia |
8.711 |
|
United
States |
8.054 |
|
Russia |
7.286 |
|
Iran |
3.804 |
|
Mexico |
3.590 |
|
Norway |
3.408 |
|
China |
3.300 |
|
Venezuela |
3.080 |
|
Canada |
2.738 |
|
United
Arab Emirates |
2.566 |
|
United
Kingdom |
2.541 |
|
Iraq |
2.452 |
|
Nigeria |
2.256 |
|
Kuwait |
2.117 |
|
Brazil |
1.561 |
|
Algeria |
1.520 |
|
Indonesia |
1.451 |
|
Libya |
1.429 |
|
Oman |
0.964 |
|
Qatar |
0.864 |
|
Argentina |
0.829 |
|
Egypt |
0.817 |
|
Kazakhstan |
0.798 |
|
Angola |
0.742 |
|
India |
0.732 |
|
Australia |
0.731 |
|
World
Total (incl. all above) |
75.461 |
|
Table
3. World Crude Oil and Natural Gas
Reserves, January 1, 2002 (billion barrels).
Source: Energy Information Administration, Table 8.1 (from Oil and Gas
Journal) |
|
|
Saudi
Arabia |
261.8 |
|
Iraq |
112.5 |
|
United
Arab Emirates |
97.8 |
|
Kuwait |
96.5 |
|
Iran |
89.7 |
|
Venezuela |
77.7 |
|
Russia |
48.6 |
|
Libya |
29.5 |
|
Mexico |
26.9 |
|
China |
24.0 |
|
Nigeria |
24.0 |
|
United
States |
22.4 |
|
Qatar |
15.2 |
|
Norway |
9.4 |
|
Algeria |
9.2 |
|
Brazil |
8.5 |
|
Oman |
5.5 |
|
Kazakhstan |
5.4 |
|
Angola |
5.4 |
|
Indonesia |
5.0 |
|
United
Kingdom |
4.9 |
|
Canada |
4.9 |
|
India |
4.8 |
|
Yemen |
4.0 |
|
Australia |
3.5 |
|
Malaysia |
3.0 |
|
Argentina |
3.0 |
|
Egypt |
2.9 |
|
Syria |
2.5 |
|
Gabon |
2.5 |
|
Ecuador |
2.1 |
|
Colombia |
1.8 |
|
Congo
(Brazzaville) |
1.5 |
|
Brunei |
1.4 |
|
Azerbaijan |
1.2 |
|
Denmark |
1.1 |
|
Romania |
1.0 |
|
Other |
10.9 |
|
World
Total |
1,032.0 |
The West against The Rest
Table 1
presents a listing of the demand for oil for a number of the world’s
countries. Let us arbitrarily call the
OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries “The
West,” and the remaining countries “The Rest.”
The OECD countries, which are the world’s industrially developed
nations, account for 47.69 million barrels per day out of 77.56 million barrels
per day, or 61.48 percent, of global demand.
(Note that up to the present time, consumption could be used as a
surrogate, or “proxy,” for demand, since production (“supply”) could be
increased, and would be adjusted to demand by means of price adjustments – this
will no longer be the case, however, once Hubbert’s peak is passed, when
production will no longer be sensitive to price increases and consumption will
fall far below demand.)
Once
Hubbert’s peak is passed and global production starts to fall, it may be
expected that global war will not break out immediately. Instead, powerful countries will require
that production be sent to them, and that countries too small to protest simply
be cut off. Because of the “politics of
envy,” the “have nots” will launch increasingly frequent and destructive acts
of terrorism to destroy oil fields, pipelines, refineries, storage facilities
and oil tankers. Figure 2 shows what
will eventually happen, if supply is not seriously interrupted. It is expected that, initially, despite falling
world production, consumption will not decline much in the OECD countries. Much of our infrastructure is very dependent
on oil, and conservation measures cannot accomplish very much to decrease
demand / consumption. There is no
satisfactory substitute for oil, not simply because it has a high energy
content and is easily transported, but mainly because of its vastness – no
other energy source is available to replace it. Since much of the US’ increasing demand has been because of
immigration (mass immigration, causing growth of population and of energy
consumption of about one percent per year), the US may finally take steps to
curb immigration. But apart from that,
there is really little that can be done, without causing serious negative
economic effects. The US and other OECD
countries are all in a fix.
Since the
OECD countries are essentially in charge of the world, they will, for a while,
be able to continue to keep their consumption at high levels, at the expense of
non-OECD nations. Figure 2 shows what
would happen if OECD nations continue their consumption at high levels at the
expense of other nations. By about the
year 2030, their consumption, if it continues at the present level, would equal
the total world production. By that
point, push would have come to shove, and resource wars would have erupted
among the world’s powerful (industrial, OECD) nations. These will be very destructive wars, since
it will be known that only by destroying the enemy’s industrial production
capacity – or its population – will demand for oil be lessened (and increasing
the global supply will no longer be an option).
The US against the Rest
Since the
US is the world’s sole remaining superpower, it is in a position to keep much
of the world production to itself, for a while. And it is very highly motivated to do so. As President Bush once declared, “The US
lifestyle is not negotiable!” Figure 2
shows what would happen if the US maintains its consumption at the 2003 levels
(19.76 million barrels per day, or 25.47 percent, of current global production)
as long as it can, i.e., until global production falls to that level. Figure 2 shows that by about the year 2040,
the US would be consuming the total world production. At that point, the US would be in competition with all of the
world’s nations for all of the remaining oil.
So what can
be done? Well, as global production
falls, there are basically two approaches to securing sufficient oil. One is to expropriate the production amounts
that were previously being used by other nations. The other is to reduce consumption. But how is this possible?
Well, it is very difficult to decrease the per-capita consumption, so
about the only way to decrease consumption is by decreasing the
population. Now, decreasing the
population of other countries will have little or no effect on the US demand
for (consumption of) oil – the only way to decrease US consumption is to reduce
the US population. And the only
feasible way to accomplish this is by means of war.
Ever since
the Immigration Act of 1965, the US has been allowing many more immigrants into
the country than ever before. As long
as oil was abundant and free (in fact, more than free, since each barrel of oil
pumped out of the ground could be used to pump many more barrels out of the
ground), there was no economic incentive to restrict immigration. In fact, there was an economic incentive to
increase immigration – for every new immigrant, the gross national product
increased by an amount approximately equal to the gross national product per
capita. Getting the energy to “fund”
these new immigrants was not a problem, since global oil production was
increasing every year. Because America
was addicted to growth, immigration soared to very high levels, to the point where
its population was growing by about one percent a year (three million people
per year), almost solely because of immigration. (US population in 1950 was 152 million; today it is almost double
that.)
But all of
a sudden, once global production starts to decline, the situation changes
dramatically. As long as America can
keep its consumption up by taking oil away from other countries, nothing really
changes “at home.” But this can go on
for only so long, and it cannot continue without a fight. Finally, the point is reached where, short
of war, there is no more production to take away from other countries, and
America’s oil supply begins to fall.
With no oil to fuel the economy, however, all of these immigrants – and
the “natives,” as well – represent a cost, not a benefit – they have no energy
with which to produce, all they do is consume.
At this point, it is very much in America’s interest to send its bloated
population – its immigrants as well as its natives – to war. And the more casualties, the better. Each person killed represents a saving of
about 8,000 kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe) per year. If the war effort brings in more oil than
would be consumed by the soldier and the war, then fine, the soldier is “paying
his way.” But finally, the point is
reached where there is simply not enough oil in the world to support America’s
thirst for oil. At this point, the only
way to reduce US demand for oil is by global war involving massive US
casualties, and the only way to reduce global demand for oil is by global war
involving massive casualties in the world’s industrial nations.
But the
President cannot say that he is sending citizens to war simply to eliminate
them, any more than he could say that he was invading Iraq for its oil. Once again, an excuse will be sought. The President will seek excuses to engage in
wars with massive casualties. At the
present time, the US has only 140,000 soldiers in Iraq, and about one soldier a
day is being killed. Eventually, the US
will maintain millions of soldiers around the world, guarding its precious oil
supply (both from use by other competing users and from destruction from
politics-of-envy terrorists). And the
casualty count will not be a cost, it will be a benefit. Eventually, the casualty count will be in
the millions every year for the US, and on the order of a hundred million per
year worldwide. This is easy to see:
Hubbert’s curve falls from its current production level to near zero in about
forty years. This means that global
population will fall from 6.2 billion to about 200 million in forty years. (See Can America Survive? for
discussion of this point, viz., that global population is proportional to
global energy availability.) This means
that, on the average, about (6 billion / 40 years) = 150 million people per
year will die every year, worldwide. In
the US, the population will fall from about 300 million to about 100 thousand,
so that about (300 million / 40 years) = 7.5 million per year. And they will not die of starvation – they
will die by war. (Furthermore, it is
not likely that the population will decline gracefully, like Hubbert’s curve;
as I have discussed elsewhere, the decline is likely to be catastrophic, for a
number of reasons (catastrophe theory, systems dynamics, degradation of our
environment, overshoot and collapse)).
Watch
closely. These dramatic changes are
just around the corner. The first clue
that things are changing will be when the President will press for sending more
troops to Iraq, despite mounting casualties.
And then, he will press to send US troops to any large-oil-producing
state, to protect the oil assets from destruction by terrorists. And then, he will send troops simply to
divert the oil to the US. And perhaps
then, the American and British people will begin to realize that their leaders
are doing it for them, and doing it for the oil. Their high standard of living cannot continue without access to
much – and soon most, and eventually all – of the world’s oil. From the viewpoint of continuing our
industrial society, America and Britain must have access to a greater and
greater portion of the world’s diminishing oil supply. All countries will soon move aggressively to
acquire and or maintain access to the diminishing supply. Soon, American and British leaders will no
longer be able to – and no longer have to – make excuses for American and
British actions to acquire oil to maintain their industrial societies and the
lavish lifestyles of their populations.
For a little while longer, however, Americans and Brits may continue to
live the illusion that we are taking these actions for humanitarian and
altruistic and defensive reasons. Soon,
the only reason will be “defensive.”
And then, there will be no need for reasons at all. As General George S. Patton once remarked,
“You will know what to do.”
From an
astrological viewpoint, it is interesting to note that today, August 27, 2003,
the planet Mars, God of War, is closer to Earth than at any time in the past
60,000 years.
Added
Note (14 September
2003)