RESOURCE WARS
THE NEW LANDSCAPE OF GLOBAL CONFLICT
MICHAEL T. KLARE
A METROPOLITAN/OWL BOOK 2001
PART II
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Chapter 1: Wealth, Resources, and Power: The Changing Parameters of Global Security (Cont)
Parallel developments elsewhere
· The United States is not the only nation to have assigned greater significance to economic and resource concerns in the post-Cold War era. Since 1990, almost every major government has assigned greater strategic significance to economic and resource concerns.
· With the superpowers no longer willing or able to adjudicate regional disputes or protect the economic interests of their allies, many countries have felt compelled to buttress their own defense capabilities.
- For many states, the protection of oil and gas deposits governs strategic planning. For others, however, it is not oil but water that is of greatest concern.
- Competition for other resources, including minerals, gems, and timber, has also led to conflict in some areas.
The pivotal importance of resources
Ever since the Cold War’s end, political analysts of all persuasions have attempted to identify the central defining principle of the new international environment – what Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has termed “The One Big Thing.” Several authors have attempted to identify this “One Big Thing,” most prominently: Samuel Huntingdon who claims that global dynamics will be governed by a “clash of civilizations”; Robert Kaplan who vividly depicts a world overtaken by population excess and anarchy; and Friedman, himself, who, in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, argues that economic “globalization” has become the world’s dominant feature. Each of these explanations has something to contribute to our understanding of international dynamics, and each has entered into the global policy debate; none, however, provides a fully satisfactory analysis of current world affairs.
Huntington’s thesis of a global clash of civilizations assumes that states will develop their security policies on the basis of loyalty to a particular religious or “civilizational” community – the Christian West, the Orthodox Slavic bloc, the Islamic world, and so on. “Conflict between civilizations,” he explains, “will be the latest phase in the evolution of conflict in the modern world.” But while some recent developments, such as the fighting in Bosnia and Kosovo, appear to confirm this assertion, others do not. Especially noteworthy is the fervent pursuit of resource plenty in total disregard of any “civilizational” loyalties. In the Caspian area, for example, the United States has aligned with three Muslim states – Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan – against two predominantly Christian ones, Armenia and Russia. A similar pattern can be seen in other areas where resource interests outweigh ethnic and religious affiliations.
Similarly, the outbreak of violence and anarchy in Africa, as predicted by Kaplan, has failed to discourage the major energy firms from establishing lucrative oil operations in these areas, or from developing effective security arrangements with local elites and warlords. In 1999, for example, American oil companies announced major new exploration and production ventures in such troubled states as Angola, Chad, and Nigeria. Similarly, while Friedman’s theory of globalization goes a long way toward explaining the current primacy of economic relations in international affairs, it assumes that most major resource disputes will be resolved through market mechanisms – thus ignoring the fact that governments have repeatedly gone to war over what they view as “vital national interests”, including oil and water supplies.
Clearly, it is not possible to explain the dynamics of global security affairs without recognizing the pivotal importance of resource competition. For almost every country in the world, the pursuit or protection of essential materials has become a paramount feature in national security planning.
- Why have resources become so important? The pursuit and protection of critical materials is viewed as one of the state’s primary security functions.
- In addition, certain resources are worth an immense amount of money – the untapped oil of the Caspian Sea basin, for example, was estimated by the Department of State in 1977 to be worth some $4 trillion – and so their possession is widely seen as something worth fighting over.
But these factors alone do not explain the current centrality of resource concerns: several features of resources themselves figure in this equation. These include the escalating worldwide demand for commodities of all types, the likely emergence of resource scarcities, and disputes over the ownership of valuable sources of critical materials.
Insatiable demand
Global demand for many key materials is growing an unsustainable rate. As human population grows, societies require more of everything (food, water, energy, timber, minerals; fibers, and so on) to satisfy the basic material requirements of their individual members. Some nations consume more than others – the United States alone consumes approximately 30% of all raw materials used by the human population in any given year – but almost every society is increasing its utilization of basic raw materials.
- World population grew from 2.6 billion in 1950 to just over 6 billion in 1999, explaining the increase in demand for many materials.
- Of equal importance is the spread of industrialization to more areas of the globe and the increase in personal wealth.
- Between 1950 and 1999, gross world product (GWP) soared by 583% from $6 trillion to $41 trillion in constant 1988 dollars. Per capita GWP jumped from $2,500 to $6,750.
- While many millions remained trapped in poverty, large numbers can now afford items previously inaccessible to them. Private automobile ownership jumped from 53 million in 1950 to 520 million in 1999. Ownership of refrigerators, television sets, air conditioners, personal computers, and other items grew by a similar degree.
- Rising demand in the developing world will be partially offset by declining demand in older industrialized countries switching to more resource-efficient systems. But automobile owners are driving greater distances – up from 1.5 trillion miles in the US in 1982 to 2.5 trillion in 1995 – in larger, less fuel-efficient vehicles.
- It is safe to conclude that the global demand for basic resources will continue. The human community is expanding by 80 million per year, to a projected 8 billion by 2020. On top of this, global per capita income is expected to rise by about 2% per year.
The looming risk of shortages
Growing demand for basic materials is colliding with another key aspect of the global resource equation: the fact that the world supply of some substances is limited.
- The earth lost one-third of its available natural wealth between 1970 and 1995 as a result of human activity.
- When or if particular resources will reach the point of severe exhaustion is not something that can be predicted with certainty as new supplies are discovered; trees can be planted to replace those cut down; and substitutes become available.
The most significant sensitive materials are oil and water. Both are critical for the functioning of modern industrial society, are being used in ever-increasing amounts, and most importantly are likely to be in insufficient supply to meet global requirements by the middle of the 21st century. At the beginning of 2000, the world’s proven reserves of petroleum stood at 1,033 billion barrels, or sufficient to sustain global consumption (at the then-current rate of 73 million barrels per day) for another 40 years. If, however, oil consumption rises by 2% per year – as predicted by the U.S. Department of Energy – the existing supply will disappear in 25 to 30 years, not forty.
The global water equation is roughly similar. Although the earth possesses vast amounts of salt water, the global supply of fresh water is relatively limited: less than 3% of the planet’s total water supply is fresh water, and much of this amount is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Of the amount that is readily available (approximately 12,000 cubic kilometres per year), half is already being appropriated for human use. As in the case of oil, population growth and higher standards of living are constantly boosting the global demand for water. If this pattern persists, total human usage will approach 100% of the available supply by the mid-twenty-first century, producing severe shortages in some areas and intensified competition for access to important sources of supply. (A comprehensive assessment of the world’s freshwater supply appears in Chapter 6).
- Significant shortages of other vital materials can be expected in the decades to come.
- As global consumption rises and environmental conditions deteriorate, the total available supply of key materials will diminish and prices will rise.
Contested sources of supply
The risk of conflict over diminishing supplies of vital materials is all the more worrisome because of another key feature of the global resource equation: the fact that many key sources or deposits of these materials are shared by two or more nations, or lie in contested border areas or offshore economic zones. Normally, states prefer to rely on materials lying entirely within their borders for their requirements of essential materials; as these supplies become exhausted governments will naturally seek to maximize their access to contested and offshore deposits, thereby producing an increased risk of conflict with neighboring states. This situation is potentially disruptive even under the best of circumstances, when the states involved are relatively friendly with one another; when this sort of competition occurs against a backdrop of preexisting hostility, as is the case in many parts of Africa and the Middle East, disputes over contested supplies of vital materials could prove explosive.
- Disputes can arise from several types of resource contests.
- The Nile River carries water through nine countries, the Mekong River through five, and the Euphrates through three.
- The upstream countries in the system are always in a position to control the flow of water to downstream states.
- When the upstream states actually use this power to increase their water allocations at the expense of those lying downstream, conflict can arise. (See chapters 6 and 7 for further discussion of this point.)
- Similarly, when two states sit astride a large underground oil basin and one of the two extracts a disproportionate share of the total petroleum supply, this could diminish the oil revenues of the second state and lead to conflict.
- A second type of conflict arises over contested claims to offshore areas that harbor significant energy or mineral resources.
- Finally, disputes can arise over access to bodies of water essential for the transportation of vital materials, such as the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal.
The emerging landscape of conflict
Each of these three factors – the relentless expansion in world-wide demand, the emergence of significant resource shortages, and the proliferation of ownership contests – is likely to introduce new stresses into the international system. The first two will inevitably intensify competition between states over access to vital materials; the third will generate new sources of friction and conflict. Each factor, moreover, will reinforce the destabilizing tendencies of the others: as resource consumption grows, shortages will emerge more rapidly and governments will come under mounting pressure to solve the problem at any cost; this, in turn, will heighten the tendency of states to seek maximum control over contested sources of supply, thereby increasing the risk of conflict between the countries that share or jointly claim a given resource deposit.
- In most cases, these conflicts will be resolved without recourse to violence, as the nations involved arrive at a negotiated solution to their predicament.
- But negotiations and market forces will not work in every instance. In some cases the materials at stake will be viewed as so essential to national survival or economic well-being that compromise is unthinkable.
- Global market forces can also increase the likelihood of conflict, most notably when a contested resource is seen as being so valuable in monetary terms that none of the claimants involved is willing to accept its loss.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), internal factions and foreign powers have been fighting for control over gold and copper fields – a situation repeated in many other countries with diamonds, minerals or oil.
- The risk of internal conflict is heightened by the growing divide between rich and poor, where those at the top of the economic ladder can procure the basic necessities of life while those at the bottom are barred from access to food, land, shelter, and safe drinking water.
- The poor will find themselves in an increasingly desperate situation and more inclined to heed the exhortations of demagogues, fundamentalists, and extremists.
- Human history has been marked by a long succession of resource wars – stretching back to the earliest agrarian civilizations.
- Ethnic hostility, economic injustice, political competition, and so on will also lead to periodic outbreaks of violence.
Chapter 2: Oil, Geography, and War: The Competitive Pursuit of Petroleum Plenty