Oil Wars
By Michael T.
Klare
09 October, 2004
TomDispatch.com
In
the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy commandos stormed
an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping silently out of the
Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter for the New York Times
wrote on March 22, "Navy Seals seized two Iraqi oil terminals in
bold raids that ended early this morning, overwhelming lightly-armed
Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq's
vast oil empire."
A year and a half
later, American soldiers are still struggling to maintain control over
these vital petroleum facilities -- and the fighting is no longer bloodless.
On April 24, two American sailors and a coastguardsman were killed when
a boat they sought to intercept, presumably carrying suicide bombers,
exploded near the Khor al-Amaya loading platform. Other Americans have
come under fire while protecting some of the many installations in Iraq's
"oil empire."
Indeed, Iraq has
developed into a two-front war: the battles for control over Iraq's
cities and the constant struggle to protect its far-flung petroleum
infrastructure against sabotage and attack. The first contest has been
widely reported in the American press; the second has received far less
attention. Yet the fate of Iraq's oil infrastructure could prove no
less significant than that of its embattled cities. A failure to prevail
in this contest would eliminate the economic basis upon which a stable
Iraqi government could someday emerge. "In the grand scheme of
things," a senior officer told the New York Times, "there
may be no other place where our armed forces are deployed that has a
greater strategic importance." In recognition of this, significant
numbers of U.S. soldiers have been assigned to oil-security functions.
Top officials insist
that these duties will eventually be taken over by Iraqi forces, but
day by day this glorious moment seems to recede ever further into the
distance. So long as American forces remain in Iraq, a significant number
of them will undoubtedly spend their time guarding highly vulnerable
pipelines, refineries, loading facilities, and other petroleum installations.
With thousands of miles of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities
at risk, this task will prove endlessly demanding and unrelievedly
hazardous. At the moment, the guerrillas seem capable of striking the
country's oil lines at times and places of their choosing, their attacks
often sparking massive explosions and fires.
Guarding the
pipelines
It has been argued
that our oil-protection role is a peculiar feature of the war in Iraq,
where petroleum installations are strewn about and the national economy
is largely dependent on oil revenues. But Iraq is hardly the only country
where American troops are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect
the flow of petroleum. In Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and the Republic of
Georgia, U.S. personnel are also spending their days and nights protecting
pipelines and refineries, or supervising the local forces assigned to
this mission. American sailors are now on oil-protection patrol in the
Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and along other
sea routes that deliver oil to the United States and its allies. In
fact, the American military is increasingly being converted into a global
oil-protection service.
The situation in
the Republic of Georgia is a perfect example of this trend. Ever since
the Soviet Union broke apart in 1992, American oil companies and government
officials have sought to gain access to the huge oil and natural gas
reserves of the Caspian Sea basin -- especially in Azerbaijan, Iran,
Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Some experts believe that as many as 200
billion barrels of untapped oil lie ready to be discovered in the Caspian
area, about seven times the amount left in the United States. But the
Caspian itself is landlocked and so the only way to transport its oil
to market in the West is by pipelines crossing the Caucasus region --
the area encompassing Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the war-torn
Russian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia.
American firms are
now building a major pipeline through this volatile area. Stretching
a perilous 1,000 miles from Baku in Azerbaijan through Tbilisi in Georgia
to Ceyhan in Turkey, it is eventually slated to carry one million barrels
of oil a day to the West; but will face the constant threat of sabotage
by Islamic militants and ethnic separatists along its entire length.
The United States has already assumed significant responsibility for
its protection, providing millions of dollars in arms and equipment
to the Georgian military and deploying military specialists in Tbilisi
to train and advise the Georgian troops assigned to protect this vital
conduit. This American presence is only likely to expand in 2005 or
2006 when the pipeline begins to transport oil and fighting in the area
intensifies.
Or take embattled
Colombia, where U.S. forces are increasingly assuming responsibility
for the protection of that country's vulnerable oil pipelines. These
vital conduits carry crude petroleum from fields in the interior, where
a guerrilla war boils, to ports on the Caribbean coast from which it
can be shipped to buyers in the United States and elsewhere. For years,
left-wing guerrillas have sabotaged the pipelines -- portraying them
as concrete expressions of foreign exploitation and elitist rule in
Bogota, the capital -- to deprive the Colombian government of desperately
needed income. Seeking to prop up the government and enhance its capacity
to fight the guerrillas, Washington is already spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to enhance oil-infrastructure security, beginning
with the Cano-Limon pipeline, the sole conduit connecting Occidental
Petroleum's prolific fields in Arauca province with the Caribbean coast.
As part of this effort, U.S. Army Special Forces personnel from Fort
Bragg, North Carolina are now helping to train, equip, and guide a new
contingent of Colombian forces whose sole mission will be to guard the
pipeline and fight the guerrillas along its 480-mile route.
Oil and Instability
The use of American
military personnel to help protect vulnerable oil installations in conflict-prone,
chronically unstable countries is certain to expand given three critical
factors: America's ever-increasing dependence on imported petroleum,
a global shift in oil production from the developed to the developing
world, and the growing militarization of our foreign energy policy.
America's dependence
on imported petroleum has been growing steadily since 1972, when domestic
output reached its maximum (or "peak") output of 11.6 million
barrels per day (mbd). Domestic production is now running at about 9
mbd and is expected to continue to decline as older fields are depleted.
(Even if some oil is eventually extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge in Alaska, as the Bush administration desires, this downward
trend will not be reversed.) Yet our total oil consumption remains on
an upward course; now approximating 20 mbd, it's projected to reach
29 mbd by 2025. This means ever more of the nation's total petroleum
supply will have to be imported -- 11 mbd today (about 55% of total
U.S. consumption) but 20 mbd in 2025 (69% of consumption).
More significant
than this growing reliance on foreign oil, an increasing share of that
oil will come from hostile, war-torn countries in the developing world,
not from friendly, stable countries like Canada or Norway. This is the
case because the older industrialized countries have already consumed
a large share of their oil inheritance, while many producers in the
developing world still possess vast reserves of untapped petroleum.
As a result, we are seeing a historic shift in the center of gravity
for world oil production -- from the industrialized countries of the
global North to the developing nations of the global South, which are
often politically unstable, torn by ethnic and religious conflicts,
home to extremist organizations, or some combination of all three.
Whatever deeply-rooted
historical antagonisms exist in these countries, oil production itself
usually acts as a further destabilizing influence. Sudden infusions
of petroleum wealth in otherwise poor and underdeveloped countries tend
to deepen divides between rich and poor that often fall along ethnic
or religious lines, leading to persistent conflict over the distribution
of petroleum revenues. To prevent such turbulence, ruling elites like
the royal family in Saudi Arabia or the new oil potentates of Azerbaijan
and Kazakhstan restrict or prohibit public expressions of dissent and
rely on the repressive machinery of state security forces to crush opposition
movements. With legal, peaceful expressions of dissent foreclosed in
this manner, opposition forces soon see no options but to engage in
armed rebellion or terrorism.
There is another
aspect of this situation that bears examination. Many of the emerging
oil producers in the developing world were once colonies of and harbor
deep hostility toward the former imperial powers of Europe. The United
States is seen by many in these countries as the modern inheritor of
this imperial tradition. Growing resentment over social and economic
traumas induced by globalization is aimed at the United States. Because
oil is viewed as the primary motive for American involvement in these
areas, and because the giant U.S. oil corporations are seen as the very
embodiment of American power, anything to do with oil -- pipelines,
wells, refineries, loading platforms -- is seen by insurgents as a legitimate
and attractive target for attack; hence the raids on pipelines in Iraq,
on oil company offices in Saudi Arabia, and on oil tankers in Yemen.
Militarizing
energy policy
American leaders
have responded to this systemic challenge to stability in oil-producing
areas in a consistent fashion: by employing military means to guarantee
the unhindered flow of petroleum. This approach was first adopted by
the Truman and Eisenhower administrations after World War II, when Soviet
adventurism in Iran and pan-Arab upheavals in the Middle East seemed
to threaten the safety of Persian Gulf oil deliveries. It was given
formal expression by President Carter in January 1980, when, in response
to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Islamic revolution in
Iran, he announced that the secure flow of Persian Gulf oil was in "the
vital interests of the United States of America," and that in protecting
this interest we would use "any means necessary, including military
force." Carter's principle of using force to protect the flow of
oil was later cited by President Bush the elder to justify American
intervention in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, and it provided the
underlying strategic rationale for our recent invasion of Iraq.
Originally, this
policy was largely confined to the world's most important oil-producing
region, the Persian Gulf. But given America's ever-growing requirement
for imported petroleum, U.S. officials have begun to extend it to other
major producing zones, including the Caspian Sea basin, Africa, and
Latin America. The initial step in this direction was taken by President
Clinton, who sought to exploit the energy potential of the Caspian basin
and, worrying about instability in the area, established military ties
with future suppliers, including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and with
the pivotal transit state of Georgia. It was Clinton who first championed
the construction of a pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan and who initially
took steps to protect that conduit by boosting the military capabilities
of the countries involved. President Bush junior has built on this effort,
increasing military aid to these states and deploying American combat
advisers in Georgia; Bush is also considering the establishment of permanent
U.S. military bases in the Caspian region.
Typically, such
moves are justified as being crucial to the "war on terror."
A close reading of Pentagon and State Department documents shows, however,
that anti-terrorism and the protection of oil supplies are closely related
in administration thinking. When requesting funds in 2004 to establish
a "rapid-reaction brigade" in Kazakhstan, for example, the
State Department told Congress that such a force is needed to "enhance
Kazakhstan's capability to respond to major terrorist threats to oil
platforms" in the Caspian Sea.
As noted, a very
similar trajectory is now under way in Colombia. The American military
presence in oil-producing areas of Africa, though less conspicuous,
is growing rapidly. The Department of Defense has stepped up its arms
deliveries to military forces in Angola and Nigeria, and is helping
to train their officers and enlisted personnel; meanwhile, Pentagon
officials have begun to look for permanent U.S. bases in the area, focusing
on Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Uganda, and Kenya. Although these officials
tend to talk only about terrorism when explaining the need for such
facilities, one officer told Greg Jaffe of the Wall Street Journal in
June 2003 that "a key mission for U.S. forces [in Africa] would
be to ensure that Nigeria's oil fields, which in the future could account
for as much as 25 percent of all U.S. oil imports, are secure."
An increasing share
of our naval forces is also being committed to the protection of foreign
oil shipments. The Navy's Fifth Fleet, based at the island state of
Bahrain, now spends much of its time patrolling the vital tanker lanes
of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz -- the narrow waterway
connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea and the larger oceans beyond.
The Navy has also beefed up its ability to protect vital sea lanes in
the South China Sea -- the site of promising oil fields claimed by China,
Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia -- and in the Strait of Malacca,
the critical sea-link between the Persian Gulf and America's allies
in East Asia. Even Africa has come in for increased attention from the
Navy. In order to increase the U.S. naval presence in waters adjoining
Nigeria and other key producers, carrier battle groups assigned to the
European Command (which controls the South Atlantic) will shorten their
future visits to the Mediterranean "and spend half the time going
down the west coast of Africa," the command's top officer, General
James Jones, announced in May 2003.
This, then, is the
future of U.S. military involvement abroad. While anti-terrorism and
traditional national security rhetoric will be employed to explain risky
deployments abroad, a growing number of American soldiers and sailors
will be committed to the protection of overseas oil fields, pipeline,
refineries, and tanker routes. And because these facilities are likely
to come under increasing attack from guerrillas and terrorists, the
risk to American lives will grow accordingly. Inevitably, we will pay
a higher price in blood for every additional gallon of oil we obtain
from abroad.
Michael T. Klare
is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College.
This article is based on his new book, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and
Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency.
© 2004 Michael
Klare