"In my estimation the US has already decided how it will handle resource constraints. The one area that hasn't been spared is the development of the military means of international intimidation. The goal is to turn most of the world into a resource supplier. This explains the continuing rise in military spending, the existing plans for dealing with China and Russia militarily and the development of space-based weaponry."

Yes.
I've been dodging brickbats (and thinly concealed sniggers) around here for maintaining the same thing for about two years.

I claim no prescience or predictive acumen--just the ability to "Know a hawk from a hacksaw".

Rub, rub. (Rubbing it in).

Iraq was a testbed for phase two of "resource theft as a national strategy", phase one being using the economic weapons of neoliberal BS, market theology and stuff addiction. Problem is--they became so effective at parasiting the real economy--they nigh unto kilt it. As a weapon, neoliberal economic orthodoxy is damaged goods.
Thanks to brave and bright people like Jerome, more and more people will see this.
Time to loose the dogs of war.

But the Iraq test case is, so far, an incredible failure as a tool of empire. Conventional weapons and military tactics have failed for many reasons, but firstly because they are inappropriate weapons for urban warfare, and because their cost far exceeds their value as tools of resource capture. So far.

--Will this equation change with, for example, oil at Euro100?

I don't think so. I don't think conventional weapons and tactics will ever again be able to effectively supply the Empire. At least for this purpose, their day is over, rdf. This is why:

--An entire spectrum of improvised and very deadly weapons have emerged in the last five years. Our attack
-our Iraqi test case- has fueled a technological explosion in guerrilla tools and tactics, not the least has been the huge proliferation of the most intelligent and deadly bomb in existence- the suicide bomber.
There is no reason to expect this technological development to stop. A handful of box knives in fanatically brave hands have brought the empire to it's knees, and caused it to turn on itself.

--A quarter of US troops manage their day medicated.

--A fifth of them are psychologically broken. 20%-- that the DOD's tame scientists will admit to. What's the real number? Who in their right mind will enlist for--that? And word's getting out.

--Real US military budget, 95% of it for conventional weapons and empire maintenance is already more than all the rest of the world's military expenditures combined.
Balance of payments, deficit issues, the unavoidable costs to patch together neglected and collapsing infrastructure, and a crash in tax revenues will, like the concatenation of the elements Jerome enumerates, brutally limit new expenditures for mass arms buys.  

What will happen-- the only option left to the empire-, is the nuclear one.
What's the biggest bang for the dollar?
What do we already own in huge numbers?

Project ahead for the web of processes that already roll on over the landscape--policy, political and fiscal realities- and what does the future hold?
Before the fog of uncertainty sets in, I see deterioration in about every area, a closing off of alternatives for the empireists. Leaving that one.

From the point of view of the empireists, we need an event that will put the nuke back on the table as a tactical weapon, as well as a strategic one.
I rejoiced at the NIE that stalled the drive to blast Iran.
But the events of yesterday suggest a crisis point is coming, and soon.
Monday will be interesting.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.