The Arithmetic of Empire

Diesel runs trucks, trains and ships, and jet fuel runs bombers. That is the life blood of global power projection. That is what a global empire must have or it dies.

Thank Larry C. Johnson again for being the one to put this clearly and simply.

The Cushion Ran Out: Bessent’s Oil “Mystery” Isn’t One

https://sonar21.com/the-cushion-ran-out-bessents-oil-mystery-isnt-one/

It’s all about diesel and jet fuel. With it America has wealth and global power. Without it there is no American Empire anymore. Diesel and jet kerosene comes out of heavy sour (high sulphur content) crude oil and 20% of the world’s supply of that special grade of crude comes through the Strait of Hormuz. And the remaining 80% of global oil supply is shared by many nations and America has made an enemy, or a resentful victim, of the majority of those nations.

Since February 28 the Strait of Hormuz has been practically shut. There were hundreds of tankers at sea delivering the oil that had exited the strait already, so refineries did not feel the shortage right away. And since March the International Energy Agency has organized a great drawdown of all counties’ emergency reserves so refineries have not felt so much of a shortage as they would have otherwise. The USA has dipped most heavily into its emergency reserve. But this has only served to make Donald Trump and Scott Bessent imagine that America can weather this storm and outlast Iran.

This is an insane delusion. Thanks to Larry C. Johnson’s clarity the real situation is plainly evident:

On February 27th the US had some 415 million barrels in its Emergency Oil Reserve. This reserve is stored in several natural underground salt caverns. To pump out the oil one must inject water into the caverns to raise the level of oil; but every time you do that the water dissolves more of the salt caverns’ supporting structure. So that there is a limit beyond which you cannot pump in more water without the cavern physically collapsing.

So there is a low point of oil supply which cannot be pumped out. Distributed unevenly among the five major caverns there must be a total of about 103.75 million barrels that you dare not try to extract. So those of us who passed grade four arithmetic (Hey Scott, and Donald. Did you?) can subtract 103.25 from the 415 million barrels. Leaving 311.25 million barrels of possible reserve. Since February 28 the US has pumped out 243 million barrels from the reserve.

Rally every brain cell, Scott, and pencil at the ready. Time for that old time arithmetic. I’m terrible at arithmetic but I get 68.25 million barrels left. That’s my cheap dollar store calculator talking and I don’t have Scott’s fancy PhD in economics so I must be crazy, right?

The Strait is OPEN and it’s American Territory. It’s OPEN because America is Blockading it. Blockades make strait’s open!

Huston, we have a problem. The internationally publicly available satellite data that every marine insurance company must consult and does consult tells the world of people who are not Scott Bessent or Donald Trump that there are NO ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. And that isn’t because of the American so-called blockade.

And it’s almost September and America has NO oil reserve left to speak of. So the price of oil is going up faster than a PAC-3 Patriot missile. And that means the diesel and the jet fuel that the American Hegemonic power projection needs to keep on being real, let alone believable, is just not going to be there much longer at the quantity needed by the Pentagon at the price America can afford to pay. It’s not arriving at American refineries. It’s not going to be arriving in former quantities for the foreseeable future.

This old man has two old jokes in mind:

“My boyfriend is from Texas. He’s light, sweet and crude. He’s got a smile like a Texas river, a mile wide and an inch deep.”

I love things that are a bit crude but sweet and light. Who doesn’t? How it came about that American refineries are optimized for refining oil that Texas was never famous for is no doubt a deep historical study. So all the oil that makes the USA one of the world’s top producers and exporters of crude oil is exported because the refineries clustered on the Texas coast can’t really use it? Sounds like the logical conclusion. If only the US refineries could process light, sweet crude they could at least make the gasoline to keep the voters mollified, but that’s a silly dream it seems.

The US oil refineries were built to supply the wealth and the literal fuel of Empire: diesel and jet fuel. To make that precious juice of global hegemony and naval and air power projection the USA must import heavy, sour crude oil. That means the USA must hold the whip hand over the Persian Gulf and, secondarily, over all other producers of heavy sour crude.

These are, in order of estimated barrels in the ground:

1. Canada. Our Alberta tar sands are estimated to hold a huge comforting volume of heavy sour crude. But that’s potential. Our government hasn’t been “conservative” enough to care about nasty old industrial things that aren’t ENVIRONMENTAL. So pipelines and money and prosperity for us lowly, restive Canadian farmers and mothers and fathers and truckers and workers and other annoying peasants has been a botheration for our Ruling Liberals. Klaus Schwab “penetrated ze Canadian cabinet” by that sweet Trudeau back door. So we’re scheduled to de-emphasize nasty old oil and dirty old farming and all those bothersome protesters who don’t want to Act Globally.

So though Canada is ever ready to service the American/Ukrainian/Israeli war machine politically speaking, our crude oil is not going to replace the Persian Gulf supply. All those factors also operate to limit what Mexico can supply; politically it’s there, practically it just isn’t.

2. Venezuela. “We” stole their oil! Because it was OURS anyway. Whoo Hoo! Potentially, in a few years, in quite a few years. When Shell and BP and all of them are somehow tempted to pony up the billions in development money to get Venezuela’s antiquated, damaged production facilities up to snuff. Immediately following Trump’s gangster-type rape of Venezuela – which markedly exhausted and used up the naval power, ships and personnel and oil which would have come in handy in the tussle with Iran – immediately upon Trump announcing that “We have Venezuela’s oil” the oil companies expressed some doubts about putting up the development money to actually use that oil. They could have used a nice, even, profitable flow from the Persian Gulf … OOPS!

3. Saudi Arabia produces lots of heavy sour crude … ah… Huston, we have a problem.

4. Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Russia. OOPSY!!! They all seem to be on the other side, the down side. It must be so surprising to Scott Bessent and Donald Trump that Russia and China are all mad about silly little things like American “Intelligence” trying to destroy them. Don’t they know that that’s all COVERT? And the Iraqis and Iranians are not bowing down and kissing American ass anymore. What the hell happened?!

I keep remembering that great old 1990s thriller “True Lies” wherein the villain was a sort of joke. He was an Arab terrorist who stole five American nuclear warheads and threatened to blow up American cities if the United States wouldn’t immediately vacate all its military bases in the entire Persian Gulf area. What a joke! AS IF!!! As if some Arab terrorist could eliminate all of the many large and powerful American military bases in the Persian Gulf!!

In 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger made short work of him. In the mind of Donald Trump it must still be 1994 and James Cameron must be still producing reality. That’s what we learn from Trump’s Truth Social posts. Iran and Russia and China are all weak and ready to just go away and reality is rolling back the millage indicator to 1994.

But in actual present-day reality it’s actually like this: here we are at the end of August 2026 and since February 28, 2026, every American military base in the Persian Gulf area has been destroyed so thoroughly by Iranian missiles and drones, which Iran can and does manufacture almost as fast as they use them, that the possibility of American bases ever being rebuilt is nil.

I’ve had fun rewatching my DVD of True Lies so many times I can recite the dialogue. The villain says,”You have killed our women and our children, bombed our cities from afar like cowards and you dare to call US terrorists?!” Then the villain’s cameraman says his camera’s battery has died because he and the villain are a bunch of feckless, useless Arabs who are no match for Arnold Schwarzenegger and American Intelligence and technical brilliance. It’s so entertaining. You never want it to end.