Peak Oil is only important when you look at the downstream effect. To me, the real question becomes - who has the oil, who needs the oil and who controls the oil?.

The U.S. has made a habit of equating it's political and economic stability with it's ability to continue pulling in oil at stable prices which, in my opinion, is the reason for many of it's recent wars.

There's is no shortage of oil world wide, but regardless of quantity the price shifts for consumer countries will continue to impact their economy and continue to cause these wars.

It would be nice to see alternative technologies become cheap enough that the US dependency goes away, but then you have another question to ask yourself, what will the countries who currently capitalize on Oil profits do? What will the geopolitical landscape look like then?