After reading in the Boston Globe about a Pentagon study showing military over-dependence on oil, I’m left with a little bit of hope and quite a few questions.

What’s hopeful is that the military is talking about peak oil. Finally it’s not just the environmentalists and the conspiracy theorists. It seems we can now agree that the supply of fossil fuel is diminishing. What remains will come out of the earth more slowly and with greater cost in dollars, conscience and lives.

Here are the first few questions that come to mind:

1) The study acknowledges the need to develop alternative fuels but suggests that saving on travel costs by deploying our troops all around the planet is part of the solution. Do we need more than the 750 bases we already maintain in over 100 countries?

2) If we wage war to ensure our economic superiority (see Vision for 2020, U.S. Space Command) and if those wars require vast quantities of oil, doesn’t it make sense to plan fewer wars? Or cut out war altogether? The time for a sustainable energy policy was at least 50 years ago. Can we develop sufficient alternative fuel for continuing our current pattern of war making? Maybe developing alternative fuels can show us a wiser path toward sharing this planet?

3) Given the Pentagon’s questioning of the serious matter of dominating other nations for our economic benefit, what can be the possible merit of using precious fuel to fly high speed loops over Brunswick as part of glamorizing the military and thrilling onlookers with the danger of it all? Doesn’t it follow from the Pentagon’s own study that the Blue Angels show set for early September should be cancelled?

Maybe there is another ray of hope in all this? Perhaps peak oil will force us to develop our powers of imagination and strengthen our moral compass in setting national policies, rather than continuing to depend on muscle?