Russia's National Security Strategy

Yesterday I attended a showing of The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. In the following conversation the question was raised as to whether Americans are able and willing to make the changes needed to survive as the Cubans did. Concerns were then raised regarding violence at all levels as resources become more constrained and competition.

Russia was once our biggest competitor in its incarnation as the Soviet Union. It is likely going to continue to be our biggest competitor, and they certainly see issues in the future. They just released their National Security Strategy, which is the overall guidance through 2020. Resource wars along their borders and elsewhere are predicted:

The document said regions including the Middle East, the Barents Sea, the Arctic, the Caspian Sea and Central Asia could all be at the centre of competing claims for resources.

Russia, the world's biggest natural gas producer, has already accused the United States, with which it shares a small sea border, of coveting its mineral wealth.

We cannot control the external actors who drive the international political environment. We can craft a community response to peak oil and climate change and that will have to be our focus.