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Re: David Harvey: It is about oil by Tim Jones 03 November 2003 21:33 UTC |
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From chapter two (All About Oil) in David Harvey's "The New Imperialism", Oxford 2003
I briefly review this history here in order to make two basic points. Since 1945 there has been a steady escalation of US involvement in the region, marked by a significant break after 1980 as the involvement came to depend more and more on a direct military presence. Secondly, the conflict with Iraq is of long standing, and planning for some sort of military denouement was in the works even before the last Gulf War started. The only difference between the Clinton years and now is that the mask has come off and bellicosity has displaced a certain reticence, in part because of the post-9/11 atmosphere within the United States that makes overt and unilateral military action more politically acceptable. Viewed geopolitically and in the long term, some confrontation with Iraq appeared inevitable unless it became a client state of the US, like Saudi Arabia. But why this geopolitical thrust? Again, the answer has everything to do with oil.
At any one time, the status of global oil reserves is a matter of conjecture. Oil companies are notoriously reticent to say what they know and on occasion deliberately mislead. Estimates of reserves often differ wildly. Most accounts suggest, however, that the rate of exploitation of oil reserves has exceeded the rate of discovery since 1980 or so. Oil is slowly becoming increasingly scarce. We do know that many fields are past their peak and that within a decade or so many of the world's present oilfields will be depleted. This is the case for domestic US, North Sea, Canadian, Russian, and (more ominously) Chinese production. While other oilfields have a longer life, the only fields that look set to last fifty years or "more are those in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. While new discoveries could change this picture, most strategic thinkers have to confront the increasing significance of the Middle East as the key provider of oil over time. On the demand side we see that the United States is increasingly dependent upon foreign imports, that the dynamic centres of economic growth in East and South-East Asia are almost bereft of significant oil reserves (with demand in China now escalating at a phenomenal rate), and that Europe (with the exception of Britain and Norway) is likewise totally dependent on imported oil. Alternatives to oil are being explored, but there is very little chance that these will be serious contenders (given the barriers erected by the oil companies and other vested interests) for several decades. Access to Middle Eastern oil is now, therefore, a crucial security issue for the United States, as it is for the global economy as a whole.
This immediately poses the problem of US motivation in seeking tighter military and strategic control, unilaterally if necessary. Thomas Friedman argues, for example, that 'there is nothing illegitimate or immoral about the US being concerned that an evil, megalomaniacal dictator might acquire excessive influence over the natural resource that powers the world's industrial base'. But we have to be careful to convey to the public and reassure the world that the intention is 'to protect the world's right to economic survival' rather than our own right to indulge ourselves, that the US is 'acting for the benefit of the planet, not simply to fuel American excesses. ... If we occupy Iraq and simply install a more pro-US autocrat to run the Iraqi gas station (as we have in other Arab oil states), then this war partly for oil would be immoral.'16 Is the US, in short, exercising leadership and seeking to regulate the use of Middle Eastern oil in everyone's interests through consent? Or is it seeking domination to realize its own far narrower strategic interests? Friedman wishes to believe the former. But what if it is the latter?
If the US successfully engineers the overthrow of both Chavez and Saddam, if it can stabilize or reform an armed-to-the-teeth Saudi regime that is currently based on the shifting sands of authoritarian rule (and in imminent danger of falling into the hands of radicalized Islam), if it can move on (as seems it will likely seek to do) from Iraq to Iran and consolidate a strategic military presence in the central Asian republics and so dominate Caspian Basin oil reserves, then it might, through firm control of the global oil spigot, hope to keep effective control over the global economy for the next fifty years. Europe and Japan, as well as East and South-East Asia (now crucially including China) are heavily dependent on Gulf oil, and these are regional configurations of political-economic power that now pose a challenge to US global hegemony in the worlds of production and finance. What better way for the United States to ward off that competition and secure its own hegemonic position than to control the price, conditions, and distribution of the key economic resource upon which those competitors rely? And what better way to do that than to use the one line of force where the US still remains all-powerful-military might? There is also a military aspect to this argument. The military runs on oil. North Korea may have a sophisticated air-force, but it cannot use it much for lack of fuel. Not only does the US need to ensure its own military supplies, but any future military conflict with, say, China will be lopsided if the US has the power to cut off the oil flow to its opponent. But such lines of argument only make sense if the US has reason to fear that its dominant position within global capitalism is somehow threatened. It is to the economic rather than the military dimension to this question that I turn in Chapter 2 of this enquiry.
Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
-- <http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>
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