The military lead that the US currently enjoys over the rest of the world is staggering by any strech of the imagination. Thus any restraints on the exercise of American power are largely self-imposed, thus the US can go from seeming a relatively benign superpower under the Clinton administration to a thread to world peace under George Bush. The actions of the Bush administration seem clearly to indicate that they plan to bring the middle east under American dominance. While now, this may only partly be motivated due to energy geopolitics, post peak oil, this could be a dangerous threat to all industrial powers in the world with a single power controlling the flow of oil out of the middle east.
The topic of this post is how US power (for fairness, to a lesser extent Russia and China) can be restrained under an international framework. Only then can any oil depletion protocol be successfully implemented. Some ideas might be
1. Scaling back of military strength and arms control agreements: The United States agrees to scale back its military to a level more realistic to its security needs. Similar agreements could be reached with regard to Russian and Chinese military power.
2. International guarantee to middle eastern countries: The sovereignity and territorial integrity of the major oil producing countries could be guaranteed within an international framework. This could include Israel. Ofcourse, these countries would have to agree to desist from military aggression against their neighbours, curtail the rise of Islamic fundamentalists and gradually move to implement democratic reforms.
3. International frameworks for collective security: This was actually the original purpose of the United Nations post WW II, but good intentions were torn apart by the tensions of the cold war. Now it could be implemented on the lines of an expanded Security council of permanent members namely Germany, Japan, Italy, India, Brazil and perhaps Pakistan. All military action would have to be taken within this framework of this body.
I am writing this thread without a judgemental attitude on the nature of US power in the world. I am more interested in discussing how rather than if the above ideas or others can be implemented. Ofcourse many Americans would see continued US hegemony as the best safeguard of their security. Even others, who are disillusioned with the current system, might be sceptical if an international system can work.
So I think it is unlikely that the United States might be brought into such an order entirely willingly. The question then becomes what leverage, if any, can the rest of world use on the United States? More importantly could the rest of the world even stand together?