Der Spiegel, the German Magazine, is reporting on a leaked draft German Military study that predicts drastic and near term consequences as a result of Peak Oil, which it acknowledges may occur in 2010.  This German report is another in a series of recent government studies warning on Peak Oil, all of which have received far too little attention from the mainstream media.  The German study is the first I have seen from a government that so starkly lays out the severe political and economic crises that Peak Oil could spark.

The dire highlights of this German government study include:

• warnings about shift in global balance of power and decline in importance of Western power
• potential for a total collapse of markets and serious economic and political crisis
• possibility of Peak Oil in 2010, with significant political, economic and security challenges present within 15 years
• Oil will determine national power even more so than it does now and increase the power oil exporters, who will more aggressively assert national interests
• in the medium term oil shortages could cause the global economic system and every market economy to collapse; relapse into planned (read "socialist") economies (lovely!...Tea Party types will tack it to Obama)
• there will be cascading economic effects from the least prepared countries to those better prepared because of global economic integration; ie. there will be no national Peak Oil safe havens
• potential for collapse of democracy because of general systemic crisis; possibility of rise of ideological and extremist political alternatives

This German report lays out the economic, political and security implications of Peak Oil in starker language than any other government report seen before.  And since government report typically couch their conclusions in rather bland, safe diplomatic language (ie. pull their punches), I see no other way to interpret this report than to take it as a serious warning.  It follows in the footsteps of other significant business and government Peak Oil studies/reports/warnings:

• see this Rogues Gallery of Peak Oil Cassandras which includes Kuwait University and Kuwait Oil Company, the CEO of Petrobras (the Brazilian national oil company), the CEO of Total (the French national oil company), the International Energy Agency, the Welsh National Assembly, a senior executive of Saudi Aramco (the Saudi national oil company), the Government of Sweden, the Government of Ireland, Jeff Rubin (former Chief Economist and Chief Strategist for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Matt Simmons (deceased former Chairman of Simmons and Co, a Houston based energy industry investment bank, former advisor to Dick Cheney's energy task force)
• American Energy Innovation Council report sponsored by, among others, Bill Gates (Microsoft), Jeff Immelt (General Electric) and John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins)
• U.S. Department of Energy Peak Oil report
• U.S. Department of Defense Joint Forces Command report on energy security and the U.K. Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security (sponsored by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and other large British companies), both discussed in National Governments Remain Silent on Peak Oil.

And I don't believe this German report exaggerates the political, economic and security ramifications of Peak Oil.  As this blog has argued before (Post Peak Oil World: A Description and Deflation, Inflation or Hyperinflation in  Peak Oil World?), mild, sustained but increasingly acute oil shortages can have impacts that quickly cascade through the economy and push it over a tipping point towards large-scale collapse of existing political and economic systems.  It doesn't have to turn out this way; collapse it is not a certainty; but, since we are doing almost nothing to officially prepare for a Peak Oil scenario the probability of dire negative systemic crisis is significant.  In hindsight, we may wish we were Soviet!

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