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BOOK REVIEW
The shape of future
warfare
Resource Wars: The
New Landscape of Global Conflict, by
Michael T Klare
Reviewed by Sultan
Shahin
 The end of Cold War has not entirely
brought the expected peace dividend. A unipolar world
dominated by the only superpower, the United States of
America, has been, and continues to be, embroiled in new
conflicts.
But what is the nature of these
conflicts? Why would wars be fought in the future?
Theories abound. US President George W Bush's good
versus evil theory in his famous axis of evil speech has
not cut much ice. In the absence of world-wide
acceptability for the clash of good and evil theory,
Samuel Huntington’s older theory of the clash of
civilizations has received the most publicity, perhaps
because at least that’s how the powers-that-be in our
world want us to see these conflicts, thus putting a
veil over their real nature.
The biggest
casualty of this attempt to gloss over the real causes
of new conflicts is what has been set out in a seminal
work by an American security expert, Michael T Klare,
who considers these wars in the book under review to be
resource wars.
As against Huntington, whose
Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order (1996) maintained that cultural differences,
such as those between Muslim and Christian, for
instance, would drive post-Cold War international
politics, Klare presents a new landscape of global
conflict. He predicts that conflicts will now be fought
over diminishing supplies of our most precious natural
resources. In his view, power struggles over petroleum,
water, gems and timber will be the new engines of war.
In Resource Wars, Klare looks at the
growing impact of resource scarcity on the military
policies of nations, from the barren oil fields of
Central Asia to the lush Nile delta, from the busy
shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the uranium
mines and diamond fields of sub-Saharan Africa. He
contends that in the early decades of the 21st century,
wars will be fought not over ideology but over
resources, as states battle to control dwindling
supplies of precious natural commodities.
The
political divisions of the Cold War, Klare argues, are
giving way to an immense global scramble for essential
materials such as oil, timber, minerals and water. And
as armies throughout the world define resource security
as their primary mission, widespread instability is
bound to follow, especially in those places where
resource competition overlaps with long-standing
disputes over territorial rights.
Klare gives an
overview of the world's future resource crises and
potential for warfare in the first chapter of his book
entitled, "Wealth, Resources, and Power: The Changing
Parameters of Global Security". The second chapter is on
"Oil, Geography, and War: The Competitive Pursuit of
Petroleum Plenty".
In subsequent chapters he
deals with various conflict scenarios, such as oil
conflict in the Persian Gulf, energy conflict in the
Caspian Sea Basin, oil wars in the South China Sea, and
water conflicts in the Nile basin and in Jordan, the
Tigris-Euphrates and the Indus river basins. The book
concludes with a look at what it calls "A New Geography
of Conflict".
Already one can see marked
increases in military activity, as Klare, too, notes,
where oil and water are concentrated in Asia and Africa
- the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and the South China
Sea in the former; the Nile, Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates
and Indus river regions in the latter. Indeed, the US is
geared up for an invasion of Iraq, forcing many,
including Klare, to wonder, "Why is the Bush
administration so determined to topple a government that
has been effectively contained by American power for 11
years?"
Klare's answer to this question explains
the central theme of his thesis as well. He says, "The
White House has offered several reasons to justify an
attack on Iraq - Saddam Hussein is on the verge of
obtaining nuclear weapons; an invasion is needed to
prevent the transfer of nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons to international terrorists, and so on. Another
factor, however, may be of equal importance - oil. Two
key concerns underlie the administration's thinking:
first, the United States is becoming dangerously
dependent on imported petroleum to meet its daily energy
requirements, and, second, Iraq possesses the world's
largest reserves of untapped petroleum after Saudi
Arabia.
"Iraq has yet another key attraction for
US oil strategists: Whereas most of Saudi Arabia's major
fields have already been explored and claimed, Iraq
possesses vast areas of promising but unexplored
hydrocarbon potential. These fields may harbor the
world's largest remaining reservoir of unmapped and
unclaimed petroleum - far exceeding the untapped fields
in Alaska, Africa and the Caspian. Whoever gains
possession of these fields will exercise enormous
influence over the global energy markets of the 21st
century.
"Knowing this, and seeking allies for
his confrontation with Washington, Saddam Hussein has
begun to parcel out concessions to the most promising
fields to oil firms in Europe, Russia and China.
According to the International Energy Agency's World
Energy Outlook for 2001, he has already awarded such
contracts for fields with an estimated potential of 44
billion barrels of oil - an amount equal to the total
reserves of the United States, Canada and Norway (the
number-one European producer) combined. At current rates
of about $25 per barrel, that makes these contracts
worth an estimated $1.1 trillion.
"And here's
the rub: The Iraqi dissidents chosen by Washington to
lead the new regime in Baghdad have threatened to cancel
all contracts awarded to firms in countries that fail to
assist in the overthrow of Saddam ... not surprisingly,
US oil firms are expected to be awarded most of the
Hussein-era contracts voided by the successor regime."
But this is not surprising. The US has made it
clear for long that energy resources are linked to its
security strategy. President Jimmy Carter was the first
to articulate this policy: any move by a hostile power
to gain control of the Persian Gulf area would be
regarded "as an assault on the vital interests of the
United States of America" and would be resisted "by any
means necessary, including military force". This
statement is now known as the "Carter Doctrine". It has
governed US strategy in the Gulf ever since. It was to
implement this new doctrine that Carter established the
Rapid Deployment Force. This policy has been followed by
all subsequent US presidents, though the end of the Cold
War and the terrorist attacks of Sep 11 have added new
dimensions to the energy wars being fought by the US.
While Klare's thesis of resource crunch leading
to conflict and war may be holding as far as the US is
considered, it may not prove correct in the case of
other powers. A case in point, for instance, is the
potential of conflict he talks about in the South China
Sea. Western defense analysts have long argued that
after China has achieved its reunification with Taiwan,
it will push for the full control of the South China
Sea, and after that possibly the control of all of Asia.
This has been so particularly since the Mischief Reef
incident in 1995 when a group of ships sent into the
area by Manila to investigate a suspected Chinese-built
permanent military installation was driven off by
Chinese warships.
But China's recent peace
initiative in regard to its dispute with Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries over the
Spratlys Islands belies this fear. Premier Zhu Rongji,
indeed, signed a landmark agreement in Phnom Penh
recently to avoid conflicts in the area, ownership of
all or parts of which are disputed by China (and
Taiwan), Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Under the agreement, claimants will practice
self-restraint in activities that could spark disputes,
such as inhabiting the islands. The signatories also
agreed to exchange views among defense officials and
give advance warning of military exercises in the
region. "This important advancement of China-ASEAN
relations marks a higher level of political trust
between the two sides and will contribute to regional
peace and stability," the Chinese premier said in a
speech in the Cambodian capital. The Chinese move is
undoubtedly an important step towards peace in the
region and stands in stark contrast with the US attitude
over similar questions.
Similarly, Indian and
Pakistani leaders may have been fighting for decades
with the churlishness of street urchins, as if they have
absolutely nothing else to do, but even during actual
wars they have maintained and fulfilled the obligations
of the Indus Water Treaty signed in the mid-1950s.
As Klare points out, "The Indus Waters Treaty
has been viewed by many experts as a model for the
peaceful resolution of international water disputes. It
should be noted, however, that the treaty does not allow
for the joint development of the Indus basin; nor does
it eliminate the grounds for conflict over water
distribution between India and Pakistan. Rather, it is a
plan for the separate development of the basin, with
India receiving a smaller share of the total water
supply but retaining control of several key Indus
tributaries. This means that the Indians can argue in
the future that they were denied an equitable share of
the combined resources of the river; and, at the same
time, India’s position as the upstream riparian gives it
the capacity to impede the flow of water to Pakistan."
That may be so. But the fact remains that
despite hawkish calls by many defense analysts to
discard the treaty during the recent border stand-off,
India did not make any such move.
Thus it is
possible that the US remains the only country not to
heed Klare's plea for cooperation as the best strategy
for dealing with resource scarcities. He says in the
concluding chapter, "Seen from this perspective, a
strategy based on cooperation has many distinct
advantages. While the use of force by a particular state
may result in the temporary alleviation of a resource
shortage, it will only provoke resentments on the losing
side, leading to further outbreaks of violence in the
future. Furthermore, the daunting task of moving large
amounts of oil or water from one region to another
cannot be performed effectively in an environment of
recurring violence - the risk of sabotage, accident,
spills, and breakdowns is simply too great. And the use
of force will consume resources that can more profitably
be used for the public good.
"By contrast, the
repudiation of violence in favor of cooperative
solutions is more likely to avert painful shortages.
Cooperative solutions are also likely to prove more
durable. By building trust in this manner, moreover, the
partners to a cooperative scheme will be better
positioned to cope with an emergency. The avoidance of
military operations would also permit increased
investment in new materials and technologies."
More than any other country, it is the US, as
the most powerful nation at the present time, that needs
to listen to this American strategist’s appeals for
peace: "As we move deeper into the 21st century, the
global human community faces a momentous choice: we can
either proceed down the path of intensified resource
competition, which will lead to recurring outbreaks of
conflicts throughout the world, or we can choose to
manage global resource stockpiles in a cooperative
fashion. Selecting the latter path will not prove easy:
many states and private interests will resist the
establishment of a system that gives international
agencies a degree of control over the allocation of
valuable materials in times of scarcity. But we must
ask: Would it not be better to share resources equitably
in times of need? Is it not our long term interest to
make every effort to avert future shortages through
collaborative research and action?
"Natural
resources are the building blocks of civilization and an
essential requirement of daily existence. The
inhabitants of planet Earth have been blessed with a
vast supply of most basic materials. But we are placing
increased pressure on these supplies, and in some cases
we face, in our lifetimes, or those of our children, the
prospect of severe resource depletion. If we rely on
warfare to settle disputes over raw materials, the human
toll will be great. To avoid this fate, and to ensure an
adequate supply of essential materials, we must work now
to establish a global system of resource conservation
and collaboration."
Let us hope that a
prediction made by the Publishers Weekly doesn't come
true. It said, "Klare's message is important, but it
probably won't be heard by many beyond readers of the
handful of major newspapers that will review it."
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global
Conflict, by Michael T Klare, Metropolitan Books,
Henry Holt and Company, 2001, New York. ISBN
0-8050-5575-4, US$26, 320 pages.
(©2002 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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