By Strobe Driver Why Oil? The pursuit of oil has a long and tortured history in the Western world, both in terms of gainin...
By Strobe Driver
Why Oil?
The pursuit of oil has a long and tortured history in the
Western world, both in terms of gaining access; the imposition of European
colonialism in order to maintain access; and from the ongoing need to maintain
a constant supply. Crude oil, or more precisely the petrol-oil-lubricants
(POL) that are derived from its numerous post-drill processes have been vital to
the progress of Western nation-states in general. The commensurate knowledge
and understanding that in order to keep Western living standards—through the
industrial and mechanical base that comprises progress— their societies were,
and remain, dependent on oil. In more contemporary times,
these factors are also important for many Asian, Middle Eastern, Eastern and
Eurasian societies although the European West such as Canada, Australia, and
the United States of America and Western ‘offshoots’ such as Japan and
Singapore, would continue to develop and expand upon the base of oil as a
prime driver of their economies. Oil over time became an exponentially
important and vital source for the upward progress of modern nation-states and
to be sure, guaranteed ongoing growth. Notwithstanding, the numerous
factors underlying the importance of POL to the continued advancement of
countries are far too numerous for this essay and only several need to be,
albeit briefly, highlighted to emphasise the standing of POL has within the
realm of domestic and international geo-strategic; and geo-political
influences.
Committing to Oil
The tenet of POL as a resource can be observed in the British
Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill circa-1912
making the decision to produce ‘oil only’ ships, the Queen Elizabeth-class
destroyers that were designed to meet a rising Weimar German Republic
due. The decision was made for tactical-advantage as burning oil produced
greater speed for battleships when compared to the cumbersome and problematic of coal-fired, or ‘coal-oil’ combinations.[1] Churchill’s
pragmatic commitment to oil is able to be observed in the statement ‘… for the
first time, the supreme ships of the navy, on which our life depended, were fed
by oil and could only be fed by oil … .’[2]
This tactical and strategic commitment to POL once made, would have an
incremental and then exponential building capacity for the Royal Navy, and
would go on to influence the machinery-of-war for decades to come. To be
certain, the dedication Britain had to its navy is due to its survival as an
island-nation and therefore had a heavy reliance on its defence through
immediate naval superiority—indeed, Bonaparte circa-1810 would complain of being unable to
invade Britain due to the ‘wooden wall’ of the British Navy[3]—and
due to its ongoing colonisation practices became increasingly dependent on
sea-going capabilities in order to sustain its protectorates and defend
multiple coastlines, which in turn made Britain ever-reliant on having
sea-borne trade to keep its economy robust. The outcome for Britain
would be at the beginning of World War One having the most powerful
‘oil-driven’ navy in the world.[4]
From the early-twentieth century the reliance on POL would only grow.
The total war of World War Two would also thrust the need for
POL into the forefront of operations. Germany would push toward the
Russian (now Azerbaijan) oilfields of Baku where a staggering seventy-two
percent of the Soviet’s oil-needs stemmed from,[5] and
moreover, the urgency of and for POL, in a sense ‘forced’ Nazi Germany to
invade Russia.[6]
The reliance on oil for a nation at war and the desperation for the resource
can also be observed in the push by Japan into Southeast Asia with the taking
of Malaya, and Singapore in World War Two. The push was in part, driven
by an ever-burgeoning necessity as Japan needed oil reserves that would allow
it to wage a successful war; and was constricted as a resource-dependent
island. For instance, the Imperial Japanese Navy required 400 tons of oil
per hour to maintain its ‘war readiness’ and this factor combined with the
refusal of the British, the United States of America (US) and the Netherlands
to restrict market access and oil as Japan became increasingly
cosmopolitan and a regional superpower further reinforced in Japanese military
hierarchies that Southeast Asia had to be conquered in order to maintain
adequate oil supplies,[7] and
moreover Japan understood the geo-strategic and geo-political threats that
powerful nation-states could pose having experienced both at the hands of the
British, Dutch and the US from circa-1900
onwards.[8] From
these experiences, and bearing in mind its geography—that of an island nation
with needs and colonies not dissimilar to Britain’s—Japan from the outset was
desperate to secure a constant supply of oil in order to sustain a war-effort;
and to win a protracted conflict especially if the destruction of the US
Pacific Fleet was incomplete.
In more contemporary times the dependence on oil either as a
fiscal resource or as political leverage can be observed in the US planning to
send troops to a Saudi Arabia in the oil crisis of the early-1970s in order to
secure supply.[9] The
Iran-Iraq War which was largely funded by oil revenues by both belligerents;
the acceptance of the Shah of Iran’s despotic rule in Iran by Western
liberal-democracies in order to retain oil access; and the reflagging of
Kuwaiti tankers in a dispute between several Middle East nations in the Persian
Gulf which was able to legally elicit US military protection (1980-1987),[10] offers
an insight into the fractiousness that oil has formed.
And to mention that the acute pursuit of oil in the twentieth
century has not significantly altered in the twenty-first century per se is an
important yet, germane point to make and moreover, whilst the abovementioned is
not an exhaustive in description with regard to oil, it does offer an insight
into the commitment and desperation that oil, as a commodity, has bedevilled
governments. Oil still retains the ability as a mechanism-for-dispute
amongst nations, however it is a broad yet accurate statement to presume that
as oil declines as a primary source for development and security needs as other
energy resources are incrementally and then exponentially developed oil will
‘shift’ as a prime resource and thus, oil will, in all probability no longer be
a principal source of hostilities. Another commodity is beginning
to develop ‘on the horizon,’ and occupy the mind of governments: fresh water.
Water: The ‘New Oil’?
The importance of water as a method-of-control has recently come
to the fore and been highlighted in the desperation of Iraqi forces as they fought
to regain, and then hold, the Mosul Dam. The strike and counter-strike
components of the battle involved (northern) Kurdish forces, Iraqi forces and
US air-strikes that were combined in order to, in the first instance, retard
the advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the second, to
push ISIS out of the strategic location.[11]
Whilst this remains a fluid situation at the time of writing, it does
illustrate that part of war strategy is to control fresh water supplies.
Control of fresh water in order for human survival directly
through hydration and indirectly via associated health outcomes such as
irrigation for the growing of foodstuffs; and its use for sewage processing
and/or removal is a germane yet necessary point to make. For many
nations, water and the desperation to retain control over it has already gained
some notoriety. A point in case is the control of water, once established
is difficult for countries to relinquish, and this is illustrated by
Israel’s ongoing control of the Golan Heights which was originally won in the
Six-Day War of 1967 as the water therein supplies at times, one-third of
Israel’s water needs.[12] Whilst
the continued unilateral annexing of the Golan Heights by Israel disregards
United Nations protocols—through the prisms of ‘decolonization’[13] and
the ‘right of all people to self-determination’[14]in
their own land—and of occupied land having to be returned to the country
of origin after a conflict is over, or in simpler terms
‘Colonialism/Colonisation and/or prolonged occupation’ since 1990[15] through
mechanisms and processes of the United Nations essentially has no legal status
in the international community. Nevertheless, all offer an insight into
increasing the likelihood of access to water giving rise to continued conflict
and ongoing tensions.
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| ISBN 9781845114640 |
Notwithstanding, the continued and deliberate non-cooperation
and dismissal of internationally recognised conventions by Israel
paradoxically, highlights the strategic importance of water to a nation’s
survival. And it is further prudent to note, ‘a water war was also hidden
in the 1965 fighting between India and Pakistan, in mountainous Jammu and
Kashmir. Pakistan’s military objective was to take an area where three rivers
collected a substantial portion of their flows. In all, the United Nations
counts thirty-seven cases of water-related violence between nations since the
end of the Second World War.’[16] The
issues that drive a crisis of water are multifaceted and too large to
investigate in this essay per se, suffice to state there are two major
components that contribute to water crises. Years of mismanagement
by the domestic government of a nation and/or a state can be observed by simply
highlighting different attitudes to water as a resource: the non-intervention
and therefore a lack of prudent government monitoring of water use by the population
as in the case within India,[17] and
a neglectful attitude to water being a finite resource that has been the case
in California.[18]
Water: The Possibility of Conflict
Underpinning the issue of water for the world in general is
however, that populations and their governments are becoming more politically
astute and cosmopolitan toward the role that water plays in their ongoing
progress and development—as the awareness and state-of-affairs that was once
attributed to oil. Within this continuum governments are now moving to
geo-strategically and geo-politically assert and then hold what they perceive
as ‘their’ water supply. This factor—complete ownership of what is often
a trans-boundary resource—is causing intra-regional tensions, which have the
potential of outright hostility. Egypt and Ethiopia are perhaps the most
likely to clash with regard to the water possession cum ownership issue: Egypt
historically, has threatened to go to war with Ethiopia if it ‘barricaded’ the
Nile, however with the onset of the Arab Spring and at the height of the
chaos—when the Egyptian government was preoccupied with its own
survival—Ethiopia began building the world’s eighth largest hydroelectric dam
which, according to Egypt was essentially, ‘barricading the Nile.’[19]
The above elements being a part of coming frictions
notwithstanding, the core component of impending water wars is population
growth. In 1974 the world’s four-billionth baby was born, in 1987 the
five-billionth, and in October 1999 the six-billionth—by 2050 the estimated
population of the Earth will be a staggering nine-billion people.[20]
The number of people on the Earth is not a problem per se, and neither is the
issue that the World is ‘running out of water,’ as ‘water never technically
disappears. When it leaves one place, it goes somewhere else, and the amount of
fresh water on earth has not changed significantly for millions of years.’[21]
The issue has become one of competition for a finite resource that crosses
borders. In doing so the use of water: whether through damming, lax
environmental or other inputs political tensions are created from the domestic
populace down-river. A brief explanation of the role water plays in the
life of a community is needed here in order to fully grasp the ‘knock on’
effect that water plays in a community’s life blood.
Apart from the germane associations such as people’s general
health and wellbeing and their ongoing investment in the ‘social capital’ of
their community fresh water also allows for ‘mercantilism’ to be abundant; and
robust. Mercantilism is a complex concept and far too in depth to enter
into here, suffice to outline that it allows for fiscal and emotional wealth to
exist—one element reinforcing the other and interchangeable. According to
McNeil, these concepts when becoming a reality within a community
encourages and reinforce a formal ‘centre’ which acts as a motivator for
the populace to embrace cohesiveness, and whilst this may begin with the elite
of a community the commitment, or the act of loyalty to community, allows for
the creation of community-driven ‘social identities’[22] to
become ‘autocatalytic’—a self-sustaining process.[23]
For a country’s ruling elite, whether a democracy or otherwise, there is for
politicians, the ever-present threat of the tensions within the domestic
populace escalating due to their requirements not being met, and a significant
impact on the ability of people to earn a living has in the past had dire
consequences, often ending in ‘violent- or passive-revolution.’[24]
Governments of all persuasions are acutely aware of how critical elements can
provoke immediate reactions in the populace. It is safe to argue water as
a catalyst is no different than what has gone before, and it is at this point
that a modern-day immediate dilemma is able to be introduced, in order to
observe potential nation-state ramifications.
China, Egypt and South Korea: Three Contemporary Examples of the
‘Water Dilemma’
China is aware of the above mentioned and the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) government is attempting balance its available water resources
in order to decrease the threat of intra-regional disputes, especially if a
conflict required the input of the People’s Liberation Army. Hence China
in order to avert future domestic issues has according to Lewis embarked on
dam-building on an unprecedented scale in human history. This can be
summed up thus,
The [PRC] government is now
engaged in a new expansion of dams in great staircases, reservoir upon
reservoir — some 130 in all across China’s Southwest. By 2020 China aims
to generate 120,000 megawatts of renewable energy, most of it from hydroelectric
power. The government declares that such dams are safe, avoid pollution,
address future climate change, control floods and droughts, and enhance human life. [25]
The PRC central government is aware that three hundred million
people in the countryside lack access to safe drinking water and the situation
is set to worsen as China’s cities expand; and more to the point water-stressed
provinces export food products to rainfall-rich areas.[26]
This has the potential to cause a domestic imbalance within China and by
default impact upon the ongoing progress of China internationally.
According to Worldview,
the issue for China is the high probability of domestic conflicts over water.[27]
To wit, the situation will increase in volatility unless water-management
strategies are adopted. The PRC government has a plan to overcome the
current situation as Mao Zedong alerted the country or its water needs fifty
years ago, and although short-term implementation will also be required, lest
the domestic situation become a drag on China’s international ambitions the PRC
has launched the largest water-pipeline project in world history—the first
phase began operation in 2014.[28]
The PRC understands a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario will not suffice for the
future and more pertinent to the ambitions of China, the simple truth of
history, is that a country cannot expand extramural to its own borders unless
there is peace at home. To wit, the PRC has shown that it has enormous
territorial ambitions to reclaim what it believes to be traditionally and
historically ‘their’ territory: the ‘Paracel and Spratly island chains’[29] being
the most recent.
Understanding how water as a resource has now developed into a
commodity that has international repercussions—as oil once did—can be observed
by Patrick in the Journal
of American
Water Works Association (as quoted by Ahmed), which explains
that the grain price spikes contributed to Egypt’s 2011 uprising, were
primarily caused by ‘droughts in major grain-exporting countries like
Australia…’[30].
Moreover, South Korea’s persistent water shortages which had culminated
in reduced harvests led to the toppling of Madagascar’s leader in 2009 due to a
commercially arranged ‘land grab’ that was attempted by South Korea in
Madagascar to ensure its food supply remained stable. However, in the process
arable land for Madagascans was reduced and a water crisis ensued,[31] further
indicating the pursuit of fresh water as a resource, can spread trouble from
one part of the globe to another.[32]
Conclusion
The above mentioned offers an insight into what oil once ‘was’
and how water has now become a most sought after commodity, one that countries
have displayed a renewed interest in and with an increasing amount of
threat-of-force. Whether the frictions over oil will continue at the
current rate is a moot point and does not need defining further here, as what
is of importance in contemporary times is how water has incrementally begun to
override oil as a commodity that is of most benefit to a country—in a sense
water has replaced oil as the resource that nation-states must have if they are
to prosper. Fresh water has now come to the fore as a vital component for
internal political security, extramural expansion and geo-political stability,
and if oil as a commodity, be positioned as a guide to the future, water wars
have transformed into a probability rather than a possibility.
This article was first published at E-International Relation's Website on 22nd JUNE 2105
About Author:
Strobe Driver completed a doctoral thesis in war studies at
Federation University in 2011. Since that time he has been lecturing and
tutoring in the Social Sciences at Federation University and continued with his
research into Security Studies with an emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region, the
nation-state and conflict and terrorism. The views expressed are a
result of his research and are his own.
Notes
[1] Erik
Dahl. ‘Naval Innovation: From Coal to Oil.’ Joint Force Quarterly. Winter,
2000-01, 50-53.
[2] Winston
S. Churchill, The World
Crisis, Vol. 1 New York: Scribner’s, 1923, 133-136.
[3] Philippe-Paul
De Ségur. Defeat.
Napoleon’s Russian Campaign. Translated by David
Townsend. New York: New York Review of Books, 1986, xxiv.
[4] John
Simkin. Royal Navy and the First World War.
[5] Michael
Antonucci. ‘Blood for Oil: The Quest for Fuel Oil
in World War Two.’ Military
History and Espionage.
[6] Hitler
stated, “The most important aim to be reached before the onset of winter is not
to capture Moscow, but to seize the Crimea and the industrial and coal region
on the Donets, and cut off the Russian oil supply from the Caucasus
area.” See: Military History and Espionage.
[7] Peter
Chen. ‘Invasion of Malaya and Singapore.’ World War II Database.
[8] A
deeper insight into the reasons why the Pacific phase of World War II would be
launched by the Japanese can be observed through the prism of a ‘retribution’
for past practices. Chomsky avers, ‘By the 1920s, England could not compete with
more efficient Japanese industry. It therefore called the [Free Market] game
off, returning to the practices that allowed it to develop in the first
place. The empire was effectively closed to Japanese trade; Dutch and
Americans followed suit. These were among the steps on the road to the
Pacific phase of World War II [triggered by the Pearl Harbor attack] and among
those ignored in the 50th anniversary commemorations.’ See: Noam
Chomsky. Power and
Prospects. Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order. Australia:
Allen & Unwin, 1996, 102.
[9] Glenn
Frankel. ‘U.S. Mulled Seizing Oil Fields In
’73. British Memo Cites Notion of Sending Airborne [Troops] to Mideast.’ WashingtonPost.com. The
plan is also referred to as Dhahran
Option Four and is articulated in by Shenkman in Saudi Arabia’s Doomsday Plan as,
‘In 1973 the British were told by American Defense Secretary James Schlesinger
that the United States might use force to maintain open access to the key oil
fields of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Two years later, in 1975,
the Sunday Times of
London published an account of a classified American plan, “Dhahran Option
Four,” which provided for an American invasion to seize the oil wells of Saudi
Arabia. In an interview with the media in 1975, Henry Kissinger publicly
acknowledged that the United States might use force to free up oil supplies in
the Middle East to save the West from strangulation.’ See: Rick Shenkman. ‘Saudi Arabia’s Doomsday Plan.’ HistoryNewsNetwork.
[10] Elizabeth
Gamlin and Paul Rogers. ‘U.S. Reflagging of Kuwaiti Tankers.’ The Iran-Iraq War. The Politics of
Aggression. Edited by Farhang Rajaee. Gainsville:
University Press of Florida,1988, 124 -125.
[11] ‘Battle rages for control of Mosul Dam.’ AlJazeera. 18 Aug, 2014.
[12] Golan Heights profile – Overview. British Broadcasting
Corporation. 15 Feb, 2015.
[13] See:
‘Committee of 24 (Special Committee on
Decolonization).’ The
United Nations and Decolonization.
[14] See: Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the Court of
International Justice. Chapters VI – VII.
[15] See:
‘International Decade for the
Eradication of Colonialism (1990 – 2000). The United Nations and Decolonization.
[16] Gordon
Chang. ‘Blue Gold: The Coming Water Wars.’ World Affairs. 2013.
[17] See:
Sonia Luthra and Amrita Kundu. ‘India’s Water Crisis: Causes and Cures.’ The National Bureau of Asian Research. 13
Aug, 2013. ‘… poor water quality resulting from insufficient and delayed
investment in urban water-treatment facilities. Water in most rivers in India
is largely not fit for drinking, and in many stretches not even fit for
bathing. Despite the Ganga Action Plan, which was launched in 1984 to clean up
the Ganges River in 25 years, much of the river remains polluted with a high
coliform count at many places. The facilities created are also not properly
maintained because adequate fees are not charged for the service. Moreover,
industrial effluent standards are not enforced because the state pollution
control boards have inadequate technical and human resources.’
[18] Jeff
Spross. ‘California has given out rights to
five times more water that it has.’ 20 Aug, 2014.
[19] Fred
Pearce. ‘On the River. A Move to Avert a
Conflict Over Water.’ Yale
Environment 360. 12 Mar, 2015.
[20] ‘Human numbers through time.’ Public Broadcasting Service.
[21] Michael
Specter. ‘A Thirsty Violent World.’
24 Feb, 2015. The New
Yorker.
[22] William
McNiell. The Human
Condition. An Ecological and Historical View. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1980, 65.
[23] The Human Condition, 65 – 66.
[24] A
recent violent revolution can be observed in the revolution that took place in
Romania and was premised on Communist Leader Nicolae Ceausescu not being able
to be protected by the Soviet Union, and the population policies that were in place
and then the State being unable to meet the employment/sustainability
prospects of a young population. See: William Horsely. ‘Romania’s Bloody Revolution.’ BBC News. 22 Dec,
1999. Passive revolutions however are much more ‘streamlined’ and
although they represent change are much more ‘socially-driven’ and is often
attached to a ‘civil disobedience’ campaign. Perhaps the most famous is
that of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi seeking the independence of India.
See: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Passive and Peaceful Revolution.
[25] Charlton
Lewis. ’China’s Great Dam Boom: A Major
Assault on Its Rivers.’ Environment
360. 4 Nov, 2013. Italics mine.
[26] Vaughan
Winterbottom. ‘Water wars; China’s rivers are set to
be a source of conflict.’ 8 Jan, 2015.
[27] See:
Vaughan Winterbottom. ‘Water wars; China’s rivers are set to
be a source of conflict.’ 8 Jan, 2015.
[28] ‘China has Launched the largest
Water-Project in World History.’ The Atlantic. 7 Mar, 2014.
[29] ‘Q&A: South China Sea dispute.’ British Broadcasting Corporation. 17
Apr, 2015.
[30] Nafeez
Ahmed. ‘New Age of water wars portends ‘bleak
future.’ Middle
East Eye.19 Mar, 2015. Robert Patrick Journal of American Water Works Association.
[31] ‘South Korea Food Security Concerns
Prompt Land Grab.’ Strategic
Weekly Analysis.18 Amy, 2011.
[32] See:
Gordon Chang. ‘Blue Gold: The Coming Water Wars.’ World Affairs. 2013.
