(This is Part 4 in a series. Go back to Part 3.)
To a student of history it gradually becomes amazing how many of the world's conflicts and wars can be explained, wholly or partly, in terms of the contest over strategic resources, whether those resources be energy, water or vital minerals.
For instance, let's ask a simple question: Let's go back to December 7, 1941 and the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And let's ask: Why would the Japanese do such a dumb thing?
The Japanese were having tremendous success invading and occupying various countries in Southeast Asia. Why gum things up by bringing into the conflict as an enemy the biggest kid on the block, the most powerful nation on earth? Doesn't really make sense, does it?
It does, though, when we consider strategic resources.
In response to the Japanese invasions in Southeast Asia, President Roosevelt had quietly ordered in 1941 that an embargo be placed on all oil flowing to Japan. This was scarcely reported in world media, but it's a crucial fact.
It goes without saying that the Imperial Japanese war machine—to say nothing of Japan's economy—could not run without oil. Since Japan imports virtually all of its oil, the embargo on Japan's oil was tantamount to a death sentence on Japan. From its point of view, it had to attack the ships at Pearl Harbor, even if that desperate act meant the certainty of the U.S. entering the war.
Or how about the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990? To hear the media at the time, one would think that this was
a reckless and incomprehensible act by a crazy dictator. After all, it risked invoking a war with the U.S. (which did indeed happen). Why do it?
Well of course, Saddam Hussien was reckless, more than a little crazy, and covetous of his neighbors. Nevertheless, that's not the whole story. The Kuwaiti invasion becomes more understandable when we learn that Iraq and Kuwait, before the invasion, had been involved in a bitter drilling conflict over a vast and strategic oil field, the Rumaila.
The gigantic Rumaila oil field, as it happens, sits partly in Iraq and partly in Kuwait. Beginning in the late 1980s, Iraq complained bitterly and repeatedly that Kuwait was pumping more than its fair share from the Rumaila. At least in part, Iraq invaded to protect its vital oil deposits.
How about the Arab-Israeli War of 1967? The underlying trigger of that war, according to analysts, was a fight for control of the fresh water contained in the tributaries of the Jordan River, which the parties had been wrangling bitterly over before the war.
More? Why did Hitler invade Russia in World War II? Another act that seems to make no sense. We tend to put it down to a power-mad dictator, and indeed Hitler was that. But Hitler was also cunning: So why start a second front in the war—bringing in the Soviet Union against him—and have to fight on two fronts?
For one thing, Hitler realized he was eventually going to have a serious deficit of oil. What he was really after in the invasion of the Soviet Union was control of the huge Caspian oil fields.
More yet? How about the U.S. war on drugs in Columbia during the last two decades? Certainly, yes, our military soldiers, advisors and technicians are there to assist in the fight against drug kingpins.
But on a deeper level we can understand that Columbia is the second largest exporter in South Americat of oil to the U.S. At least in part, the U.S. is there to help protect vital oil installations and pipelines from insurgency attacks.
(This is the end of Part 4. Go to Part 5.)
—jim sloman, 12.21.04 for Jan 4
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