Preface. This is a book review of Howard Bucknell’s Energy and the National Defense. University of Kentucky Press.
Bucknell was amazingly prescient as you’ll see in this review, especially about why democracy might not survive the energy crisis.
Though it turns out the U.S. may not need an energy crisis to descend into totalitarianism. It’s been coming for a long time, the evolution began with the first cult religious settlers, “white trash“, Pat Robertson, Reagan, Phyllis Shafly, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, evangelism, FOX news and so on (for details read Dean’s “Conservatives without Conscience”, review here). But because of that, perhaps an authoritarian is even more likely to appear during an energy crisis, which in the U.S. means crony corruption rather than fair rationing for all…
Bucknell was once the director of the energy and national security project at Ohio State University. He graduated in 1944 from the U.S. Naval Academy and commanded a number of ships, including nuclear-powered submarines. He has a doctorate in political science from the University of Georgia.
This book is also about the energy crises of the 1970s. At the time, President Carter, Kissinger, Bucknell, and others thought this was the start of energy descent. It’s interesting to see what actions were taken, how energy was dealt with politically, the institutions created to solve the energy crisis, and the issues, failures, and problems encountered when trying to take action in what turned out to be the “dress rehearsal”.
Bucknell’s wrote this book partly to warn military planners that lightning raids on oil fields in the Middle East would be a bad idea, and to get two main efforts started: liquefied synthetic fuels to solve the transportation problem, and energy conservation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
