Former CIA director speaks out on energy policy.

President Bush's call for America to end its "oil addiction" sparked a debate about whether the goal is attainable — or even desirable.

Some say that policies to promote energy independence would hinder prosperity. They claim that attempts to meet this goal after the 1970s' oil shocks were expensive failures. These assertions are wrong.

Key to long-term success is to shift to plentiful alternative fuels now

Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis – proposed in a 1989 essay, elaborated in a 1992 book – was the most influential attempt to make sense of the post-cold-war world. In a new afterword to "The End of History and the Last Man", Fukuyama reflects on how his ideas have survived the tides of criticism and political change.

It begins:

In the seventeen years that have passed since the original publication of my essay, "The End of History?", my hypothesis has been criticised from every conceivable point of view. Publication of the second paperback edition of the book The End of History and the Last Man gives me an opportunity to restate the original argument, to answer what I regard as the most serious objections that were raised to it, and to reflect on some of the developments in world politics that have occurred since the summer of 1989.

Let me begin with the question: what was the "end of history"?

After the end of history, by Francis Fukuyama

Will the next CIA director be willing to challenge CIA careerists and continue the reforms of the dysfunctional bureaucracy?

The Agency Problem

Sometimes it helps if your foes think you're ready for war.

M.A.D. About You

Did the military really have a better understanding of Iraq?

Rumsfeld and His Critics

This time, let's finish the job.

No More Vietnams

The Iraqi Army versus the Keystone Kops insurgency.

Back to Falluja

Apparently, he reads our blogs.

The Shocking Truth About Osama bin Laden

Is the planet running out of gas? If it is, what should the Bush administration do about it?

It looks like humanity is at least a generation away from peak oil production. Unfortunately, there could be another “oil crisis” any day now.

One day, the oil age will end. As with all resources, there is ultimately a finite supply of oil. So it is not yet clear how the world will power itself for the bulk of the coming century. But we have at least another three decades to find alternatives to petroleum. “Trusting markets is the only way we can assure energy abundance in the future,” notes the University of Houston’s Economides. “It’s also the only way that we will ever transition to something other than oil and gas.”

Reason: Peak Oil Panic: Is the planet running out of gas? If it is, what should the Bush administration do about it? by Ronald Bailey

A Harper's cartoon by Mr. Fish.

Yellow Ribbon