Beyond the oil age

The oil age will end in our lifetime. Israeli clean-tech pioneers such as Rachel Bin-Nun (of Organitech), Isaac Berzin (who "struck oil" in algae) and Shai Agassi (of Project Better Place) are hastening that day. In truth, post-oil technologies are not so new. What is new is the convergence of three critical, global vectors that will make turning off the oil tap inevitable, and will change our world - soon and irrevocably. The vectors are environmental, economic and strategic.

A worldwide environmental consensus has formed to stop global warming. Whereas environmentalism was once a fringe movement, today mainstream politicians, evangelicals and any half-conscious 8-year-old in the developed and developing world are all environmentalists.

Climate-change activism, however, could not by itself stop the dependency on oil: A price tag of $145 a barrel makes a stronger case. For decades oil was the lubricant of global trade - of the instant, have-it-your-way culture - but now its price spike is forcing businesses and consumers to see green, not oil, as profitable. Ask Boeing, FedEx and Walmart. Ask Ford and General Motors. Ask a taxi driver. Ask yourself.

But even together, environmental and economic pressure would not be sufficient to end the age of oil, since for the past 100 years oil has been the world's most vital strategic commodity. Most of the 20th century's wars were powered by oil, or were fought to gain or protect oil supplies to ensure military dominance. It was oil that gave 20th-century armies what they wanted: speed and force.

Today's so-called war on terror is an oil war, not only because it is being fought in the petroleum-rich sands of Iraq. It is an oil war because oil constitutes 30 percent of the Pentagon's financial expenditure and 70 percent of its materiel expenditure, and it occupies the attention of 50 percent of personnel on the ground. Ironically, the war in Iraq is helping to end the oil age. The petroleum-funded terrorist adversary is forcing the petroleum-dependent American military to contend with new rules of military engagement, which require redesign for a post-oil army. Counterinsurgency requires flexibility, endurance and self-reliance, not speed and force. It requires reforming local civic institutions and civilian infrastructure.

Counterinsurgency is incompatible with the immense, oil-laden entourage military planners have been deploying since the Nazis conquered Europe. Simply put, asymmetric warfare against a transnational insurgent enemy requires energy independence. The new military vector is green, and the military planners who have not gotten that message will not win.

Around 60 years ago, something monumental and world-changing happened in the Middle East. It brought means to the destitute, made the deserts bloom, and powered a mighty global movement. No, despite what you read in the papers and are told incessantly by petro-dictators and terrorists everywhere - the most important geopolitical event in this region 60 years ago was not the founding of the State of Israel. It was the discovery and cultivation, then, and the commercialization, since then, of the hot ocean of oil beneath the sands of Arabia. That is when Mideast oil began to dominate the world strategic landscape.

Oil accounts for 95 percent of the Arab world's aggregate gross domestic product, a vast store of unearned wealth amassed by the few with minimal effort of the many. (Without oil, the GDP of the Arab world would not be much larger than that of the Nokia phone company.) Oil both lines the pockets of Arab strongmen and enables them to underwrite the indolence and buy the loyalty of the Arab street, thus making unnecessary and even undesirable investment in citizen creativity, education or competitive initiative. Domestically, oil pays for Arabia's police states, dedicated to extinguishing any glimmer of dissent. Globally, oil pays for terror networks, whose spectacular feats release the pent-up rage of the Arab street, redirecting it away from the Arab petro-dictators and toward Israel and the West.

Oil provides the central motivation and then pays for the worldwide propaganda engine that condemns Israel. Oil pays for terrorism and Palestinianism, and the continual focus on the so-called insoluble conflict. Oil is fueling a nuclear Iran, and even rationalizes the genocide in Darfur.

Our Jewish blindness to the meaning of oil has permitted us to project our own, pre-1948 narrative onto the present situation, convincing ourselves that our Middle Eastern neighbors - like the Nazis or the Russian czars or the ancient Egyptian pharaohs - are hell-bent on destroying the Jewish people. In reading our own victimhood into their web of extraction distraction, we have missed the main event of oil.

Turning off the oil tap in the Middle East will be a game-changer for Israel, the region and the world. After oil, the Arab regimes will lack the capacity to vilify and terrorize Israel. Israel (as one of the few non-oil driven economies in the region), will hold the keys to building a post-oil economy. After oil, Arab moderation might become fashionable. The question for those of us who esteem the earned value of creativity - the antithesis of the unearned wealth of extracted oil - and who love Israel, is, how should the Jewish people get ready for the waning of the oil age? How should we position ourselves to be a light unto nearby, and far-flung, nations and lead them out from under the curse of oil? How do we deserve this victory? Israel's clean-tech pioneers provide some of the answers. The rest requires further discussion. The future is bright. Stay tuned.

Sarah Kass is director of strategy and evaluation at the Avi Chai Foundation. This piece is based on a recent talk at the PresenTense Institute (www.presentense.org).