CHAPTER 4
There Will Be Blood: Political Violence, Regional Warfare, and the Risk of Great-Power Conflict
over Contested Energy Sources
Michael T. Klare
"Until such time as new technologies, barely on the horizon, can wean us from our dependence on oil and gas, we shall continue to be plagued by energy insecurity," James R. Schlesinger, former secretary of both Defense and Energy, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 16, 2005. "Instead of energy security, we shall have to acknowledge and live with various degrees oj insecurity."1 Although Schlesinger did not spell out what he meant by "varying degrees of insecurity," he indicated they would include assorted types of conflict in the major oil-producing regions. Such instability, he suggested, has become an inescapable feature of the current world energy equation and will not disappear any time soon. With this in mind, it is essential to better understand the link between global reliance on oil and natural gas—together, the source of approximately 61 percent of the world's primary energy supply—and the varieties of violence with which it is associated. As will be shown, these range from localized insurgency and separatist warfare to regional conflict and, potentially, great-power war.
Insurgency and Separatist Warfare
On March 6, 2008, Nigeria's director of Public Prosecution filed charges of treason, terrorism, and gun-running in Abuja's Federal High Court against two detained leaders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Henry Okah and Edward Atatah. Among the charges brought against Okah and Atatah were that they had provided as many as 250,000 assault rifles to armed militias m the Delta region, along with machine guns, rocked-propelled grenade launchers, bazookas, and large stocks of ammunition These weapons
There Will Be Blood
were used, it was claimed, in attacks on oil installations and government facilities throughout the Delta—the source of most of Nigeria's onshore oil and a very large proportion of government revenues. In addition, the two were said to be on a fresh arms-buying mission when captured in Angola in late 2007. If convicted of all these charges, Okah and Atatah could face the death penalty.2
For the past few years, MEND and a number of other rebel groups with names like the Coalition for Military Action in the Niger Delta (COMA), the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), and the Niger Delta Vigilante, have been kidnapping (and sometimes killing) expatriate oil workers and attacking local offices of the Nigerian federal government in an effort to channel some of the vast oil wealth collected by Abuja to the Delta region, where most of the oil originates. These groups have evolved in a relatively short time from tribal gangs into well-organized militias able to wreak havoc in the swampy morass of the Delta, where roads are few and small boats are often the only viable mode of transport. "From a poorly organized gang fighting with little more than sticks and machetes," the BBC reported in May 2007, "MEND has grown to become a disciplined military machine, using speedboats, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades to carry out precise attacks on oil targets."3
Although numbering probably no more than a few hundred combatants and equipped with light weapons alone, MEND and its sister organizations have had a devastating impact on oil production in the Delta area. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Energy, as much as 587,000 barrels of oil in daily production has been shut in by Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, and EN1, the leading producers in the Delta, representing approximately one-fifth of potential daily Nigerian output of approximately 3 million barrels per day4 (Some experts say that the shut-in capacity is closer to 700,000 barrels per day, or one-fourth of the country's output.5) With violence expected to intensify as a result of the capture and eventual trial of Okah and Atatah, many foreign firms are pulling out of the Delta or confining their operations to far-offshore locations, beyond the reach of MEND's speedboats.6 MEND may have been weakened by the arrest of two its top leaders, but it is no doubt capable of mounting continuing attacks on vulnerable oil facilities in the months and years ahead. And MEND is by no means the only threat to stability: as noted, it is only one of a number of armed bands that have challenged federal authority in the sprawling Delta region. All of these bands draw on historic grievances against the central government in Abuja— notably, its failure to direct little more than a pittance of its annual oil receipts to the Delta region. According to one report, federal authorities collected more than $400 billion in oil revenues between 1960 and 2000, of which $380 billion was lost to corruption or failed mega-projects in areas far beyond the Delta.7 Meanwhile, 70 percent of the country's population lives on $1 or less per day—and that percentage is probably higher in the historically disadvantaged Delta region. For many embittered, unemployed young men, enlisting in MEND—or COMA, the JRC, the Vigilantes, or any one of a number of such groups—is thus an attractive option: an opportunity to express hostility toward both the oil companies
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
and the federal government and also, no doubt, to earn some extra cash through kidnapping, looting, and extortion.8
It is unlikely, then, that there will be any lessening in the armed violence in the Niger Delta region. Nigeria's president, Umaru Yar'Adua, has pledged to channel more of the country's oil wealth to the Delta and to step up development projects there, but few knowledgeable experts expect anything much to come from these efforts—the level of corruption in federal and state bureaucracies is far too great to allow any of the earmarked funds to reach the people most in need.9 As a result, MEND and other groups like it will continue to recruit angry young men and conduct raids on the all-too-conspicuous targets offered by the major international oil companies and their government backers. Nor is the Niger Delta region the only area of the world where oil-related political violence is on the increase. In April 2007, for example, rebel forces of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese-run oil field in eastern Ethiopia, killing 74 people, including 9 Chinese oil workers.10 A militant group seeking to establish an ethnic homeland in the Ogaden region free of Ethiopian government control, the ONLF immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, sending an e-mail message that read, "We will not allow the mineral resources of our people to be exploited by this regime or any firm with which it enters into an illegal contract."11 Following the raid, China's Zhoungyan Petroleum Exploration Bureau withdrew its remaining workers from the oil field and refused to resume operations until the Ethiopian government could guarantee their safety—a condition that appears increasingly remote, given an intensified level of fighting between Ethiopian government forces and the ONLF12 Chinese oil personnel have also come under attack in the Darfur region of Sudan, another site of recurring combat between rebel armies and central government forces. Although Darfur is most widely known for the bitter conflict between government-backed Janjaweed militias and anti-government rebels, the region also harbors a number of oil fields being developed by Chinese companies and their international partners. In October 2007, forces of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked a field in the Kordofan area run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), a consortium headed by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC); on December 11 of that year, forces from JEM overran a field in the Rahaw area operated by Chinas Great Wall Company, killing and wounding several government soldiers posted there; a third attack, on December 18, targeted the Defra oil facility in south Kurdofan.13 Abdel Aziz Nur al-Ashr, military commander of the JEM, said his forces would continue attacking oil facilities until Chinese companies left the country, claiming they provided funds to the Sudanese government used to buy arms and finance the war against the rebels.14
Politically motivated attacks on foreign oil workers are also on the rise in Algeria and Angola. On December 10, 2006, an insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (known by its initials in French, GSPC), attacked a convoy of vehicles transporting employees of Halliburton and the Algerian state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, killing an Algerian driver and
There Will Be Blood
wounding four Britons and one American. The GSPC later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was determined to drive American companies out of Algeria and impose Islamic law on the country.15 Although Algeria nationalized its hydrocarbon reserves in 1972 and Sonatrach is bound by law to assume majority ownership of all oil and gas operations in the country, the government is keen to increase foreign participation in new, technically-challenging projects."' Since the December 2006 attack, however, some foreign firms have grown skittish about investing in Algeria. These fears were rekindled in December 2007 when al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb—the new name for the GSPC—detonated two bombs in a heavily guarded area of Algiers; 26 people were killed and 176 injured in the attacks, according to Interior Ministry officials. Although foreign energy company offices were not directly targeted in the attacks, officials of the Norwegian oil-and-gas giant StatoilHydro—whose Algerian headquarters are located near the bomb blasts—indicated that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had issued specific warnings against Western oil company workers.17
In Angola, a low-level insurgency has long been under way in Cabinda province, a tiny sliver of land separated from the rest of the country by the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the province itself is desperately poor, Cabinda's offshore waters house some of Angola's richest oil fields—and, as in the Delta region of Nigeria, the local people have seen, most of the revenues generated by these fields siphoned off by powerful elites in Luanda, the nation's capital, with very little trickling back home. Not surprisingly, some disgruntled locals have joined the separatist Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC, by its initials in Portuguese) and battled the Angolan army.18 After being offered some concessions by the central government in 2006, most of the rebels gave up their arms; but one faction continued fighting, and on March 3, 2008 it ambushed an army column, killing three soldiers and severely wounding a Portuguese worker.19
The Resource Curse
All of these incidents and upheavals exhibit common features. By and large, they stem from ongoing struggles between minority groups or political factions that dispute the continued legitimacy of the prevailing government or its claim to exercise sovereignty over a particular area of the national territory. Conflicts of these types are not restricted to oil-producing nations, of course; extensive research demonstrates, however, that developing nations that derive a large share of their national income from the extraction of oil or other valuable resources (e.g., copper, gold, or diamonds) are more prone to suffer from internal violence or separatist strife than states that do not.20 Because the government (rather than private interests) usually exercises ownership over underground resources in these countries, control over the government is tantamount to control over the allocation of resource revenues (or rents). It is not unusual, then, for certain powerful families, tribes, or cliques to acquire and retain control over the government and
T
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
to use this power to make themselves extraordinarily wealthy while allowing the majority of their subjects to remain immersed in poverty—a surefire recipe for popular resentment, extremist demagogy, and political unrest. This tendency for resource-rich (or rentier) states to generate great wealth amidst unrelieved poverty is widely known as the resource curse.'1
The mechanisms associated with the resource curse naturally invite political violence, in a number of ways. To begin with, the regime in power—whatever its origins and makeup—has no incentive to hold free and fair elections or to dilute its power in any way; rather, its natural inclination is to cling to power for as long as possible, thereby accumulating more resource wealth and dispensing it among close friends, family members, cronies, and carefully selected members of the national elite. Because governmental income is derived from oil rents rather than taxation, there is no need to placate politically involved taxpayers, as is normally the case in democratic countries. Instead, those in power use a portion of their oil wealth to buy the loyalty of the army and internal security services, and employ these forces as needed to suppress opposition movements. "When governments have an abundance of [resource] revenues they tend to use them to quell dissent— both by dispensing patronage and by building up their domestic security forces," Michael Ross of the University of California at Los Angeles wrote in 2003. "Indeed, oil- and mineral-rich governments generally spend unusually large sums on their military forces."22 Deprived of an opportunity to redress their grievances through the ballot box or other forms of peaceful protest, opposition forces in these countries perceive no viable option but armed revolt. Oil-producing countries that are governed by entrenched petro-regimes are, therefore, likely to encounter periodic attack from disgruntled military cabals, political factions, or ethnic groups. Typically, these groups seek a larger share of the country's oil revenues, as in the case of the fighting in the Niger Delta, or seek to oust the existing regime and replace it with one more to their liking, as in Algeria. And because the prevailing regime obtains most of its wealth—and the funds needed to retain the loyalty of the security services-^from foreign energy firms, these too become targets of the militants' wrath.
The resource curse has also spurred the separatist ambitions of various ethnic groups, especially when valuable oil or mineral reserves are located in their imagined ethnic homeland. In such cases, oil abundance often tends to provoke civil wars "by giving people who live in resource-rich areas an economic incentive to form a separate state," Ross observed. Indeed, the inhabitants of such areas often express "a widespread belief that the central government was unfairly appropriating the wealth that belonged to them and that they would be richer if they were a separate state."23 It is precisely these views that are often cited by groups like the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave to justify their ongoing struggles against the national government in their respective territories.
A form of the oil curse can be seen, moreover, in the virulent hatred directed toward the Saudi royal family by followers of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic
There Will Be Blood
extremists in the Middle East. From a purely domestic perspective, the Saudi royals owe their mandate to rule from their guardianship of the Muslim world's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, and through their patronage of one Islam's most rigid and austere forms of worship, Wahhabism. This religious practice extols piety and scorns conspicuous expressions of wealth and personal consumption. Yet the princes of the realm have become known for their luxurious palaces, Mercedes, frequent trips to fleshpots abroad, and other such indulgences—thereby generating charges of licentious, unlslamic behavior and provoking calls for their forceful removal.24 Adding to the sins of the Royals, in the view of bin Laden and others, is their willingness to allow Western companies to come in and plunder Saudi Arabia's petroleum wealth. In their quest for lucre, then, the Saudi kings and princes have facilitated the West's invasion of the Islamic Holy Land and its subversion of Islam—thus justifying a holy war, or jihad, against both the House of Saud and us American backers.25 "You have to realize that our enemy's biggest incentive in controlling our land is to steal our oil," bin Laden told his sympathizers in a December 2004 videotaped address. "So do not spare any effort to stop the greatest robbery in history."26 Other factors have undoubtedly figured in bin Laden's thinking, but the link between oil, Western economic interests, and the corruption of the royal family is a persistent theme in his fatwas and associated calls for violent attacks on the United States and the House of Saud.27
Although bin Laden himself no longer appears capable of playing a direct role in attacks on U.S. and Saudi interests, shadowy groups that share his extremist views have continued to attack key elements of the Saudi oil infrastructure with the goal of frightening expatriate oil workers and causing them to flee, thus undermining the technical proficiency of the Saudi petroleum industry. In response to these assaults, the Saudis—no doubt in close coordination with American oil-security and counter-terror officials—have bolstered defenses at their major oil installations and stepped up their efforts to crush remnants of al-Qaeda in the kingdom. But while this and other such sweeps may have diminished the immediate threat to Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, it does not eliminate the fundamental dynamic of the oil curse nor the likelihood that the royal family's extravagant wealth—and conspicuous ties to the United States—will provoke future resistance of a violent nature.
Regional Conflict
The resource curse and associated discontent over the nature of rentier states typically leads to internal revolt and separatism, or, as manifested by al-Qaeda, to international terrorism. But these are only a few of the types of conflict that are being sparked by the avid pursuit of energy resources and/or resource wealth in the world today. As doubt increases about the future sufficiency of global stockpiles of key source's of energy, especially oil and natural gas, states seek to maximize their control over—or access to—remaining sources of supply, either to ensure adequate supplies for themselves or to profit from the sale of these
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
supplies to others. The result, is a growing risk of territorial disputes over areas harboring valuable reserves of oil and gas and access conflicts, involving efforts by outside powers to ensure access to their major sources of supply in conflict-prone resource areas.
This is not the place to comment at length on the current status of expert opinion on the future sufficiency of major sources of energy. Suffice it to say that in place of the optimism that prevailed on this topic up until the start of the 21st century, most energy experts now believe that the international energy industry will be very hard pressed to grow world supplies sufficiently to satisfy the much higher levels of demand that are expected for the decades ahead, largely as a result of continuing high levels of demand from the mature industrial powers along with soaring demand from the economic dynamos of Asia, led by China and India. "Energy developments in China and India are transforming the global energy system by dint of their sheer size and their growing weight in international fossil-fuel trade," the International Energy Agency (1EA) wrote in the 2007 edition of its World Energy Outlook. "Although new oil-production capacity additions from greenfield projects [i.e.,-newly-developed fields] are expected to increase over the next five years,, it is very uncertain whether they will be sufficient to compensate for the decline in output at existing fields and keep pace with the projected increase in demand." As a consequence, "a supply-side crunch in the period to 2015, involving an abrupt escalation in oil prices, cannot be ruled out."28 Two other studies released in 2007 lend further weight to this pessimistic outlook. In its Medium-Term Oil Market Report for 2008-2012, the 1EA reported that global oil production capacity could rise sufficiently to satisfy anticipated world demand of approximately 96 million barrels per day in 2012, but would not be able to rise much beyond that level because of declining output in existing fields, a disappointing record of new oil field discoveries, and a forbidding investment climate in many producing areas, such as Russia, Central Asia, and Africa. Hence, "oil looks extremely tight in five years' time."29 A strikingly similar prognosis was offered in Facing the Hard Truths About Energy, a report prepared for the JJ.S. Department of Energy by the National Petroleum Council (NPC), an industry-backed group. Although claiming that the world still possessed ample stocks of oil and natural gas, the NPC report indicated that the actual extraction of those supplies could be hampered by political and geopolitical problems and the reluctance of investors to risk their capital in corrupt or conflict-prone areas. "Many of the expected [geopolitical] changes could heighten risks to U.S. energy security in a world where U.S. influence is likely to decline as economic power shifts to other nations," the report noted. "In years to come, security threats to the worlds mam sources of oil and natural gas may worsen."30 Under such circumstances, it is hard to imagine that the major oil companies and their major lenders will invest hundreds of billions of dollars to develop new fields in troubled areas, no matter how promising the indications of large reserves
Despite these pessimistic assessments—and many others like them—the 1EA and DoE project that world energy demand will continue to climb as a result of
There Will Be Blood
China's rapid economic growth and other built-in pressures, producing inevitable shortages and accompanying price increases for years to come. This means, of course, that states will have an enormous incentive to hold on to or secure control over contested territories that harbor valuable reserves of oil or natural gas, whether on land or in adjacent offshore areas. It also means that states without adequate hydrocarbon supplies of their own will need to ensure safe and uninterrupted access to overseas sources of supply, including sources in chronically troubled areas like the Middle East and Africa. This can—and has—led to a policy of relying on military force to ensure such access, as exemplified by the Carter Doctrine of January 23, 1980."
In the past, most resource-related territorial disputes occurred on land, in contested border regions or ethnic enclaves coveted by two adjoining states. For example, some analysts believe that Saddam Hussein initiated the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 with the intent (among other things) of gaining control over Iran's key oil province of Khuzistan, on the Iran-Iraq border, near the northwest corner of the Persian Gulf. An area that once claimed a majority Arab population and then housed four-fifths of Iran's oil installations, Khuzistan was an attractive prize for Hussein; but despite vigorous Iraqi efforts to win their support, Khuz-istan's Arabs did not rally to the Iraqi side and the Iranians eventually drove Hussein's troops out of the territory.32 Control over oil resources again figured in Hussein's decision to invade Kuwait in August 1990. In this case, the center of controversy was a major oil reservoir, Rumaila, that straddled the border between Iraq and Kuwait. According to Baghdad, the Kuwaitis had installed oil wells on their side of the border and sucked up an estimated $2.4 billion worth of oil from the Iraqi side; when all Iraqi requests for compensation were denied, Hussein ordered an invasion. Here again, other factors undoubtedly entered into Hussein's decision, but with his country impoverished by eight years of war with Iran, he evidently concluded that the theft (as he saw it) of Iraqi oil by Kuwait could not be allowed to continue.33
Territorial disputes like this over contested border regions may well break out again in the future, but it is far more likely that they will occur at sea, where boundaries are harder to define and the international strictures against aggression are less easily applied.
With the coming into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1994, maritime states became eligible to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles from their coastlines in which they enjoyed the right to exploit all undersea resources, including oil and natural gas reserves. However, UNCLOS does not provide formal mechanisms for resolving disputes arising from claims to overlapping EEZs in contained bodies of water, such as the Persian Gulf, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. One provision of UNCLOS calls for dividing such areas along a line equidistant from the shorelines of the contending states; another provision of international law gives coastal states control over undersea resources all the way to the edge of their continental shelf, even if it extends beyond 200 nautical miles. Further complications
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
are posed by the question of whether islands should be factored into any decision regarding the drawing of an "equidistant" line between the coastlines of contending states seeking to define their overlapping EEZs—and, if so, which ones. All of this, needless to say, provides ample fuel for offshore boundary disputes—• especially when ownership of valuable oil and gas reserves is at stake.34
One extremely worrisome example of such a dispute is the contest between China and Japan over ownership of the Chunxiao natural gas field in the East China Sea. Citing conflicting provisions of UNCLOS, Beijing and Tokyo have proclaimed different offshore boundaries in this area. Japan insists that the common offshore border falls along the median line between the two countries; China opts for its outer continental shelf (which lies much closer to Japan than to China). Between the two competing lines, of course, lies an area claimed by both. The Chunxiao field (called Shirakaba by the Japanese) lies partly in this contested area and partly m uncontested Chinese territory. Beijing has, for the time being, pledged to refrain from extracting gas in the disputed zone pending resolution of the issue; it has, however, insisted on its right to drill on the Chinese side of the Japanese-claimed median line, even though Tokyo responds that this will inevitably suck up gas from the disputed region. For its part, Tokyo claims the right to drill for gas in the contested zone, even though Beijing insists that the area is part of its own sovereign territory.35 In 2004, with Chinese firms already probing for gas deposits in places adjacent' to the median line, Japan commenced a suryey of the disputed zone, insisting it was operating in its own national territory. Needless to say, this produced an angry reaction from Beijing and a demand from Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the Japanese ambassador to cease and desist. He specifically characterized the Japanese survey of the disputed zone as an infringement of Chinas sovereignty36—a powerful signal indeed in the Asian historical context. When Tokyo refused to halt the survey, Beijing acted forcefully. In early November, it dispatched a submerged submarine into waters claimed by Japan, prompting the Japanese navy to go on full alert for the first time in five years.37 The Chinese later apologized for the move, saying it was an accident, but the message was clear: Beijing was prepared to, employ force if necessary to defend its claim to the contested area.38 Although several rounds of negotiations were then held in an effort to resolve the boundary dispute, no substantive progress was achieved; and, in early 2005, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) began drilling in the Chunxiao field from a position just a mile or so beyond the median line claimed by Japan. At about this time, protests broke out in Beijing and other Chinese cities against the publication in Japan of new history textbooks that downplayed Japanese atrocities in China during World War II. Soon thereafter, Tokyo announced that it would allow Japanese firms to apply for drilling rights in the contested zone, melding ancient grievances and recent ones.39 In July of 2005, Tokyo raised the ante once again, by actually awarding drilling rights in the contested zone to Teikoku Oil Company. This prompted another sharp protest Írom Beijing and ominous warnings in the Chinese press. "Giving Teikoku the go-ahead to test drill is a move that makes conflict between
There Will Be Blood
the two nations inevitable, though what form this clash will take is hard to tell," declared the government-backed newspaper China Daily.40 Both sides quickly removed any uncertainty as to what form their immediate responses would take. By early September 2005, patrol planes of the Maritime Self-Defense Force—Japans navy—had commenced regular flights over Chinese drilling rigs along the disputed median line. Not long after, there was an unprecedented sight in these waters: the arrival of a Chinese naval squadron of five missile-armed destroyers and frigates.41 Within days of their arrival, a gun turret on one of the Chinese ships was aimed at a circling Japanese patrol plane. No shots were actually fired, but an ominous precedent for a future confrontation over disputed energy resources in the East China Sea had been set.42 Possibly chastened by this incident, Beijing and Tokyo did agree to undertake a new round of negotiations over the disputed boundary. These commenced in January 2006 and proceeded on an irregular basis even as the Chinese continued to pump gas from rigs along the median line under the watchful eyes of Chinese and Japanese air and naval forces. Hopes for an early settlement were raised in October 2006, when Shmzo Abe replaced Junichiro Koizumi as pnme minister and, in a state visit to China, pledged to invigorate the negotiations.43 But Abe resigned in disgrace in September 2007 before any progress had been made.44 Although his successor, Yasuo Fukuda, is thought to be more conciliatory on matters involving China, the dispute remains unresolved and, with both sides building up their naval capabilities, there is every prospect that additional instances of mutual gunboat diplomacy can be expected in the East China Sea.
Gunboat diplomacy of this sort has also occurred in disputed waters of the Caspian Sea claimed by both Azerbaijan and Iran. Although three of the Caspian states—Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan—have now delineated their maritime boundaries in the Sea's northern section, Iran and Turkmenistan have as yet failed to agree on a legal regime that would determine their offshore boundaries in the Caspian's southern reaches, with each asserting a claim to ownership of undersea oil and gas fields also claimed by Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis, for their part, have awarded production-sharing agreements (PSAs) to foreign energy firms to explore for and produce hydrocarbons in the disputed areas—prompting predictable protests from the other two. In July 2001, Iran took its wrath one step further when one of its warships approached an oil-exploration vessel in a field being developed by BP under a PSA granted by Azerbaijan and ordered it out of the area at the risk of being fired upon. The survey ship complied, but Azerbaijan reportedly responded by sending in a patrol boat of its own that chased off the Iranian vessel; warplanes from the two countries may also have been involved.45 (The Azerbaijanis and Iranians provided conflicting accounts of what occurred.)
Conflicts like this over contested maritime resource zones are certain to grow even more heated in the years ahead as onshore energy reserves are depleted and more attention is paid to untapped offshore reserves. The fact that offshore boundaries have proved so difficult to delineate also makes such areas likely sites of future contestation. In fact, even the Arctic Ocean—whose maritime boundaries
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
remain undefined—has been identified as a possible arena of geopolitical friction as a warmer climate makes the area more accessible and its undersea energy reserves become more valuable.46
Military Aid and Access Wars:The Carter Doctrine
Yet another type of conflict over energy arises from the perceived need of oil-and gas-importing states to ensure their continued access to foreign sources of supply—especially when said sources of supply are located in areas that are prone to conflict or political disorder. In such cases, the major importing states may feel inclined to provide military assistance to regimes in the affected areas that can be relied upon to safeguard the export of oil, or provide protection to these regimes with their own forces when such action is deemed necessary. In extreme cases, they may also engage in direct military action to overcome a threat to the continued flow of oil or natural gas from a major foreign supply zone to markets at home.
The United States has long considered it essential to engage in both forms of military activity in order to ensure continued access to overseas sources of energy, especially oil supplies from the Middle East. This link between military action and access to foreign oil was initially established in February 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy at the entrance to the Suez Canal and forged a de facto alliance between the two countries, under which the United States agreed to protect Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil. As part of this agreement, the United States subsequently established an air base at Dhahran and provided substantial arms and technical support to the Saudi Army and the National Guard (which has responsibility for protecting the royal family). This arrangement remains intact today, providing the foundation for U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia's current rulers and the cornerstone of American strategic policy in the greater Gulf area.47 Despite the growing importance of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers in supplying the world's energy needs, however, American policymakers of the early postwar era were largely content to allow Great Britain to shoulder primary responsibility for maintaining regional stability and propping up local regimes. And when London announced that it would withdraw its forces from "East of Suez" by the end of 1971, Washington again looked for someone else to carry the burden of regional security—on this occasion, selecting the Shah of Iran, Reza Mohammed Pahlavi, whom the Americans and British had helped install in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953 48 From 1971 to 1978, the Shah was the leading foreign recipient of U.S. arms aid and technical support, investing his forces with a wide array of advanced military equipment.49 Bui all these arms and advisory services did not enable the Shah to overcome a domestic upheaval led by rebellious Shiite clergy, and in January 1979 he was forced to abdicate-once again forcing Washington to ponder the safety of Americas access to vital Persian Gulf oil supplies. And, just a few months later, the security equation in
There Will Be Blood
the region received a further jolt when the Soviet Union commenced its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
In reviewing the strategic equation in the Gulf, President Jimmy Carter and his top associates concluded that given the magnitude of U.S. interests and the nature of the threats arrayed against them, it was no longer possible to rely on surrogates to guarantee regional security—henceforth, this task would have to be assumed by American forces. "The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the worlds exportable oil," Carter told Congress in his State of the Union address of January 23, 1980. "The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow. The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil." America's response to this threat, he avowed, cannot be equivocal. "Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."50
Again and again, American officials have reaffirmed this basic principle, known ever since as the Carter Doctrine. When Iranian naval forces began attacking Kuwaiti and Saudi oil tankers in the Gulf itself during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88—thus jeopardizing the flow of crude to American refineries—the administration of President Ronald Reagan threatened to employ military force to keep the oil flowing. "We would regard as especially serious any threat by either party to interfere with free navigation or act in any way that would restrict oil exports from the Gulf," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Robert H. Pelle-treau asserted in 1983.51 When the Iranians failed to heed this and subsequent warnings, President Reagan authorized the reflagging of Kuwaiti tankers with the American ensign and ordered U.S. warships to escort them while traversing the Gulf.52
American determination to ensure the safety of Persian Gulf oil supplies in accordance with the Carter Doctrine was next affirmed in 1990, when Iraqi fortes invaded Kuwait and appeared to pose a threat to Saudi Arabia, the world's leading producer. In a nationally televised address on August 8 announcing his decision to employ military force in the Gulf, President George H. W Bush cited America's energy needs as his primary impetus for intervention in the region. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he declared. Hence, "the sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States."53 Only later, when American troops were girding for combat with the Iraqis, did administration officials come up with other justifications for war—the need to liberate Kuwait, to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), to bolster international sanctions against aggression, and so forth. The record makes
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
There Will Be Blood
it clear, however, that the President and his senior associates initially viewed, the invasion of Kuwait through the lens of the Carter Doctrine; as a threat to Saudi Arabia and the free flow of oil from the Gulf.54 Following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the first President Bush considered—but eventually rejected—plans to invade Iraq and eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein once and for all. Instead, he chose to weaken the regime and hopefully spark a military coup d'etat through a punishing system of economic sanctions—a policy subsequently embraced by his successor, President Bill Clinton. Despite ruinous consequences for ordinary Iraqis, however, the sanctions failed to achieve their intended goal of regime change in Baghdad, making U.S. policy look increasingly ineffectual. It was on this basis (among others) that President George W. Bush eventually concluded that direct military action was needed to complete the task left unfinished at the conclusion of the first Gulf War in February 1991." Today, with American forces still occupying Iraq and the task of creating a,stable, self-sustaining regime there far from finished, the United States continues to adhere to the basic premise of the Carter Doctrine—that the application of military force is required to ensure the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil. "If we were to be driven out of Iraq," President Bush told a national television audience on September 13, 2007, "extremists of all strains would be emboldened. [. . .] Iran would benefit from the chaos and be encouraged in its efforts to gam nuclear weapons and dominate the region. Extremists could control a key part of the global energy supply."56 Of all the arguments wielded by Bush to elicit support for his invasion and occupation of Iraq—the presence of WMD, links to al-Qaeda, the promotion of democracy, and so on—this is the only one that appears to have gained any traction with his critics. As suggested by the presidents September 2007 address, this same principle has been extended by the Bush administration to Iran—another perceived threat to the free flow of Persian Gulf oil. Although Washington's chief argument with Tehran has been its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, U.S. officials are also worried that the Iranians are prepared to mine the Strait of Hormuz, fire anti-ship missiles at tankers in the Gulf, and otherwise seek to impede oil shipping in the area in the event of a future confrontation with the United States.57 To deter such action, the Bush administration has conducted highly conspicuous naval maneuvers in the Gulf and issued stern warnings of likely U.S. countermeasures. "With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike," Vice President Cheney declared during one such exercise, in May 2007. "We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. . . . [And] we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."38 And while the risk of an armed encounter with Iran appeared to drop after the release in December 2007 of a National Intelligence Estimate claiming thai Iran had suspended its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, Washington's commitment to the use of military force in the event of any perceived threat to the free flow of Persian Gulf oil remains very much m force.
The Globalized Carter Doctrine
At present, U.S. efforts to defend key foreign providers of energy and to ensure access to overseas sources of supply remain centered on the Persian Gulf, where they have been focused for the past six decades. In recent years, however, this policy has been extended to other regions, including the Caspian Sea basin and West Africa, as U.S. energy policy has come to emphasize the diversification of oil supplies. The first chief executive to stress this approach was President Clinton, who crafted what might be termed a globalized Carter Doctrine and applied it to the Caspian Sea region in the late 1990s.59 Carter viewed this region as a promising new source of oil and as an attractive alternative to the ever-turbulent Middle East. At that time the newly independent states of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were eager to sell their petroleum riches to the West, but lacked an autonomous conduit for exports—all existing pipelines from the land-locked Caspian passed through Russia—and also faced serious challenges from ethnic minorities and internal opposition movements. Clinton agreed to assist in the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and to help these states enhance their military capacity.60 U.S. military aid began flowing to the Caspian Sea states in 1997, at which time U.S. troops also began a series of joint military exercises with forces from the region. Although never formally invoking the Carter Doctrine when announcing these actions, Clinton applied the same national security umbrella to Caspian Sea oil as had Carter to Persian Gulf oil.
The regional security ties President Clinton built were later utilized by President George W Bush to facilitate the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan following 9/11 and to support the ongoing campaign against remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This, in turn, has led to a substantial increase in U.S. military aid to these countries. Although the Global War on Terror is usually cited as the principal justification for these allocations, a close reading of State and Defense Department documents suggests that the protection of oil remains a paramount concern in the Caspian. In requesting $51.2 million in assistance to Azerbaijan for fiscal year 2005, forxxample, the State Department affirmed that "U.S. national interests in Azerbaijan center on the strong bilateral security and counter-terrorism cooperation [and] the advancement of U.S. energy security."61 Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, the United States is helping to refurbish the old Soviet air base at Atyrau, near the giant offshore Kashagan oil field. This base will be used to house a Kazakh "rapid reaction brigade" whose task, according to the Department of State, will be to "enhance Kazakhstan's capability to respond to major terrorist threats to oil platforms or borders."62
If President Clinton was largely responsible for extending the Carter Doctrine to the Caspian region, it is President George W Bush who has extended it to Africa. Although American military involvement in Africa is at a less advanced stage than it is in the Caspian, growing U.S. reliance on African oil has given the continent increased strategic significance from Washington's point of view.63 The growing importance of Africa in satisfying America's energy needs was first highlighted in
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
the National Energy Policy of May 2001;"Sub-Saharan Africa holds 7 percent pf world oil reserves and comprises 11 percent of world oil production. Along with Latin America, West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest growing sources of oil and gas for the American market."6'' This obviously gives Afnca a strategic dimension it did not possess before. "African oil is of national strategic interest to us," Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner observed in 2002, "and it will increase and become more important as we go forward."6' On this basis, African oil is being exposed to the same sort of Carter Doctrine military initiatives, the opening wedge of which is military assistance and training—an approach that facilitates the establishment of close ties with the region's (often dominant) military elites. Military aid to the African oil producers is supplied both in the form of bilateral assistance to individual nations as well as through multilateral security initiatives. Angola and Nigeria have been the principal recipients of bilateral aid, jointly receiving approximately $180 million in Fiscal Years 2004-2006. This has included transfers of arms and military equipment via the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Foreign Military Sales Financing (FMF) programs, along with specialized training given to Angolan and Nigerian military personnel under the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. Other West Afncan recipients of IMET assistance have included such oil-producing states as Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.66
In providing such aid, American officials are well aware of the vicious logic of the resource curse and the discontent this has aroused in the Delta region of Nigeria, America's leading African energy provider. Not surprisingly, then, a major objective of U.S. aid is to enhance the Nigerian government's capacity to address the Dejta insurgency. "Nigeria is the fifth largest source of U.S. oil imports, and disruption of supply from Nigeria would represent a major blow to U.S. oil security strategy," the State Department noted in its Fiscal Year 2006 request for economic and military assistance to Nigeria. It is for this reason, the document asserts, that the United States should help bolster Nigeria's internal security forces and protect its vital oil installations—especially "in the vulnerable oil-producing Niger Delta region."67 For fiscal years 2005 through 2007, this translated into a proposed allocation of $30 million in direct U.S. support to Nigerian security forces along with $50 million in "development aid" pegged to improving the security situation in the Delta and other troubled areas.68 In addition, Nigeria is a participant in several Pentagon-sponsored multinational programs that serve, under the rubric of the Global War on Terror, as additional conduits for American military aid, including the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program and the Trans-SaharaH Counter-Terrorism Initiative 69
To better coordinate all of these aid programs and facilitate any future involvement of American forces in Afncan conflicts, m February 2007 the Bush administration announced the establishment of the U.S. African Command, or AFR1COM. Although oil is rarely mentioned when Pentagon officials seek to justify the formation of AFR1COM—insisting instead that its focus will be on the conduct of humanitarian operations and counter-terrorism—there is no doubt
There Will Be Blood
that senior officers are well aware of the violence in the Niger Delta and the priority placed by Washington on restoring stability to this vital oil-producing area.70 Thus, in a Power Point presentation given at the National Defense University on February 19, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, AFRlCOM's Deputy Commander, noted that among the major challenges facing the new command in West Africa were "illegal arms and drugs; oil disruption; corruption; political instability; and frozen conflicts."71
Few American analysts are prepared to acknowledge that the United States is likely become directly involved in addressing these dangers, though—as part of the programs described above—U.S. military advisers, instructors, technicians, and intelligence officers are indirectly assisting the Nigerian military in efforts to enhance their countermsurgency capabilities.72 It is entirely possible, however, that internal conflicts of this sort could escalate to a higher level of hostilities and prompt some future president to conclude—as Carter did in 1980 with respect to the Persian Gulf area—that vital U.S. interests demanded direct American military involvement. In fact, a senior Pentagon official predicted as much when commenting on his efforts to secure basing rights on the African mainland in 2003. "A key mission for U.S. forces would be to ensure that Nigeria's oil fields, which in the future could account for as much as 25 percent of U.S. oil imports, are secure," he said.73 A similar comment, one might surmise, could likewise be made about the safety of the now-operational BTC pipeline in the Caspian Sea region.
The Risk of Great-Power Competition and Conflict
It is the United States that, until now, has devoted most effort to the protection of foreign oil-producing regimes and that has most vigorously employed military force to ensuns-safe access to overseas sources of energy. As we have seen, moreover, this remains a major aspect of U.S. foreign policy and has been extended from its initial focus on the Persian Gulf area to the Caspian Sea basin and West Africa. But the United States is no longer the only nation that is pursuing such policies: Increasingly, the People's Republic of China is providing military aid to its major foreign energy providers and, though it is not yet capable of engaging in access operations of the sort long conducted by the United States, appears to be acquiring a capacity to do so. There is a growing risk, therefore, that U.S. and Chinese efforts to militarize their foreign energy endeavors will produce a competitive stance between them and someday spark a dangerous confrontation.74 The militarization of China's foreign energy ties is most evident in Africa and Central Asia. China first became involved in the delivery of arms and military services to African oil providers in 1996, when it acquired a majority stake in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operation Company, Sudan's leading producer. At that time, Sudan faced a severe challenge from rebel forces in the south (where most of the country's oil fields were located) and desperately needed a fresh infusion of weapons for its army; when rebuffed by Western powers, the Khartoum regime turned to Beijing, which proved far more accommodating. Eager to ensure
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
There Will Be Blood
the safety of its recently acquired oil assets in southern Sudan, China provided a wide array of modern arms, which were then used to drive the rebels out of the oil-producing region in what many observers termed a scorched-earth campaign.75 The Sudanese government has since reached a cease-fire agreement with the southern rebels, but has stepped up its efforts to suppress insurgents in the Darfur region—again reportedly using weapons supplied by China.76
As China has increased its reliance on other African suppliers, it has increased us military ties with them as well. Thus, when Chinese firms made their first significant bids for oil assets in Nigeria in 2005, Beijing promised to provide— probably at reduced prices and concessional lending rates—twelve F-8IIM multipurpose combat jets to the Nigerian air force, along with numerous light patrol boats for guarding the labyrinthine waterways of the Niger Delta.'7 At the same time, a Chinese munitions firm, China North Industries Corporation, agreed to help remvigorate Nigeria's state-owned arms company, the Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria.78 The Chinese are also supplying arms and ammunition to a number of other African oil suppliers and, like the United States, is supplementing these deliveries with training programs, joint combat exercises, and intelligence-sharing activities.79 There is a danger, then, that China and the United States will spark an arms-supply contest on Africa, with each side trying to outbid the other in their competitive efforts to establish ties with the continent's major energy suppliers.
In the Caspian region and Central Asia, China has been reluctant to play an overly conspicuous role as an arms supplier in its own right, fearful of giving the impression that it has imperial designs on the region, but has instead worked through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the regional body (whose members also include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) it helped launch in 1996. Originally created to enhance counter-terrorism operations and bolster border security in Central Asia, the SCO has evolved into a robust regional security organization with a decidedly anti-American cast.80 (At a 2005 summit meeting, for example, SCO member states called on the United States to vacate its military bases in the region.81) As China has become more reliant on the Central Asian countries for supplies of oil and natural gas, it has increased the importance given to the SCO in its foreign policy and the resources devoted to the organization's growth. This has led to an accelerated tempo of joint military exercises and the delivery—under SCO auspices—of Chinese arms to the Central Asian republics.82
Until now, China's efforts to protect its access to overseas sources of energy have been limited to the delivery of arms and military-support services. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has indicated, however, that the Chinese are beginning to build up a capacity to engage in access operations of the sort long conducted by the United States. "Chinas reliance on foreign energy imports has affected its strategy and policy in significant ways," the DoD reported in the 2008 edition oi its annual report on the Military Power oj the People's Republic of China. Although Chinese officials have considered the need to better protect access to
foreign sources of supply, the report notes, they still lack adequate capabilities to accomplish this. However, "China's leaders may seek to close this gap" by acquiring a broad spectrum of "extended-range power projection" capabilities, including aircraft carriers and associated support vessels, long-range missiles, expeditionary (i.e., interventionist) forces, and overseas bases.83
Should Chinese leaders proceed down this path, one could imagine a situation where efforts by China to secure access to overseas sources of energy would collide with similar efforts by the United States, producing a direct confrontation between the two. This would not be due to a deliberate effort on the part of either country to provoke a conflict, but rather the result of unintended escalation arising out of a regional dispute that imperils the vital interests of both great powers, prompting them to deploy their forces in what quickly—and unexpectedly—erupts into a larger conflagration. As we have seen, there are many conceivable sparks for such a regional conflict, and more are likely to emerge in the years ahead. Add to this the growing resource requirements of the great powers along with their growing inclination to rely on force to secure access to oil in inherently unstable areas, and the potential for unintended clashes of this sort is certain to grow.
Returning, then, to former secretary Schlesingers comments about the "various degrees of insecurity" we can expect from the world's continuing dependence on oil and natural gas, it is evident that these encompass a wide spectrum of conflict types, ranging from internal strife, ethnic separatism, and terrorism to regional warfare and the prospect of all-out war between the major powers. Many of these conflict typks are being practiced today or have been witnessed in the recent past. As the gap between energy demand and supply widens, moreover, the risk of further outbreaks of conflict—all across the spectrum of violence—is bound to increase. The only way to reduce this risk, as Schlesinger made quite clear, is to accelerate the development of alternative sources of energy and reduce the inclination to rely on military means to ensure access to contested sources of supply.
Notes
1. Statement of James Schlesinger before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, November 16, 2005, http://www.planetforlife.corn/oilcrisis/oilschlesinger.html.
2. Funso Muraina, "MEND Chief Charged with Treason," This Day (Lagos), March 6, 2008, allafrica.com.
3. Senan Murray, "The Shadowy Militants in Nigeria's Delta," BBC News, May 10, 2007, http://www.news.bbc.co.
4. U.S. Department of Defense, Energy Information Administration (DoE/ElA), "Nigeria," Country Analysis Brief, April 2007, wwweia.doe.gov.
5. Spencer Schwartz, "Nigeria's Strife Forces Shell to Cut Outlay," Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2007.
6. Jad Mouawad, "Growing Unrest Posing a Threat to Nigerian Oil,'rNew York Times, April 21, 2007.
7. Ibid.
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
8 Murray, "Shadowy Militants in Nigeria's Delta." See also Thomas Catan, Dino Mahtani, and Jimmy Burns, "The Warriors of Warri: How Oil in Nigeria Is Under Siege," Financial Firnes, April 7, 2006; Lydia Polgreen, "Blood Flows With Oil in Poor Nigerian Villages," New York Times, January 1, 2006; Polgreen, "Armed Group Shuts Down Part of Nigeria's Oil Output," New York Times, February 25, 2006.
9. Senan Murray, "Tackling Nigeria's Violent Oil Swamps," BBC News, May 30, 2007, news.bbc.co.uk. For background, see Human Rights Watch (HRW), Criminal Politics: Violence, "Godfathers," and Corruption in Nigeria (New York and Washington, D.C: HRW, October 2007).
10. Jeffrey Gettleman, "Rebels Storm a Chinese-Run Oil Field in Ethiopia, Killing 70," New York Times, April 25, 2007.
11. Cited in Gettleman, "Rebels Storm a Chinese-run Oil Field."
12. Eric Watkms, "China Calls for Oil Worker Safety in Sudan, Ethiopia," Oil & Gas Journal Online, December 13, 2007. www.ogjonline.com; Tsegaye Tadesse, "Ethiopia Rebels Say Killed 43 Soldiers in 2 Weeks," Reuters Africa, February 27, 2008, afnca.reuters.com.
13. Watkins, "China Calls for Oil Worker Safety in Sudan, Ethiopia", Eric Watkins, "Darfur Rebels Halt 50,000 b/d Defra Oil Production," Oil &> Gas journal Online, December 18, 2007, www.ogjonline.com.
14. Cued in Watkins, "China Calls for Oil Worker Safety in Sudan, Ethiopia."
15. Craig S. Smith, "Qaeda-Linked Group Claims Algerian Attack," New York Times, December 13, 2006.
16. DoE/ElA, "Algeria," Country Analysis Brief, March 2007, wwweia doe.gov.
17. Mariam Fam and Guy Chazan, "Algeria Blasts Reverberate Abroad," Wall Street journal, December 12, 2007.
18. For background, see Philippe Le Billon, "Drilling in Deep Water: Oil, Business, and War in Angola," in Mary Kaldor, Terry'Lynn Karl, and Yahia Said, eds., Oil Wars (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 100-129.
19. '"Deadly Attack' in Angola Enclave," BBC News, March 7, 2008, news.bbc.co.uk.
20. See, for example, Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, "On Economic Causes of Civil Wars," Oxford Economic Paper, 50 (1998), 563-573, Collier and Hoeffler, "Greed and Grievance in Civil War," (World Bank, October 21, 2001).
21. For background and discussion, see Michael Ross, "The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make You Poor," in lan Bannon and Paul Collier, eds., Natural Resources and Violent Conflict (Washington, D.C: World Bank, 2003), 17-42. See also the essays in Kaldor, et al, Oil Wars
22. Ibid., 25.
23. Ibid, 27-28.
24. For background and discussion, see Gwenn Okruhlik, "Networks of Dissent: Isla-mism and Reform m Saudi Arabia," Current History (January 2002): 22-25.
25. The author fust made this argument in Klare, "Fueling the Fires. The Oil Factor in Middle Eastern Terrorism," in James J. F. Forest, ed., The Makmgof a Terrorist, 3, Root Causes (Westpon, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 140-159.
26. From an audiotape address released on Islamic websites on December 16, 2004, as transcribed by and posted at wwwjiadunspun.com on December 24, 2004.
27. Klare, "Fueling the Fires," 151-155
28. International Fnergy Agency (1EA), World Energy Outlook 2007 (Paris: 1EA, 2007), 41, 43.
There Will Be Blood
29 As quoted in Javier Bias, "World Will Face Oil Crunch 'in Five Years,'" Financial Times, July 10, 2007. See also James Kanter, "Rise in World Oil Use and a Possible Shortage of Supplies Are Seen in Next 5 Years," New York Times, July 10, 2007.
30. National Petroleum Council (NPC), Facing the Hard Truths About Energy, draft report (Washington. D.C: NPC, July 18, 2007), 26.
31. For background and discussion, see Michael T. Klare, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), esp. 26-55, 74-144.
32. See Anthony H Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 2, The lran-haq War (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990): 12-13, 31-32, 33, 95.
33. See Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 48, 57, 59.
34. For discussion of how this plays out in the South China Sea, see Michael T. Klare, Resource Wars (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001), 109-137.
35. For background on this dispute, see James Brooke, "Drawing the Line on Energy," New York Times, March 29, 2005; Norimitsu Onishi and Howard W. French, "Japan's Rivalry with China is Stirring a Crowded Sea," New York Times, September 11, 2005.
36. As cited in "China Condemns^lapanese Survey," BBC News, July 8, 2004, news. bbc.co.uk.
37. The assertion that Beijing deliberately sent the submarine into Japanese waters to signal Tokyo over the territorial dispute is the author's alone; Japanese authorities did not formally take this position, although they protested the action vigorously. See "japan Protests to China over Sub," BBC News, November 12, 2004, news.bbc.co.uk.
38. Mure Dickie and David Pilling, "Tensions Ease as China Admits Its Submarine Entered Japanese Waters, Financial Times, November 17, 2004.
39. "Japan Risks China Anger over Gas," BBC News, April 13, 2005, news.bbc.co.uk.
40. "Japan's Dangerous Move in E. China Sea," China Daily, July 18, 2005, www.china. org.cn.
41. Onishi and French, "Japan's Rivalry with China is Stirring a Crowded Sea."
42. "Oil and Gas in Troubled Waters," The Economist, October 2005, 52-53.
43. Joseph Kahn, "China and Japan Take Steps to Mend Fences," New York Times, October 9, 2006.
44. Eric Watkins, "China, Japan Postpone Dispute Resolution Talks," Oil 6- Gasjour-nal, October 1, 2007, 26.
45. "Iran is Accused of Threatening Research Vessel in Caspian Sea," New York Times, July 25, 2001.
46. For background and discussion, see Clifford Kraus, et al., "As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound," New York Times, October 10, 2005. - _
47. For background and discussion, see Klare, Blood and Oil, 26-55, 84-94 On the Roosevelt-lbn Saud meeting, see Aaron Dean Miller, Search for Security (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 128-131. For background on U.S. military aid to Saudi Arabia, see David E. Long, The United States and Saudi Arabia (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985).
48. For background on these events, see Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah's Men (Hoboken, N.J.. John Wiley, 2003).
49. " For background and discussion, see Michael T. Klare, American Arms Supermarket (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984), 108-126.
Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century
50. Jimmy Carter, State of the'Union Address, January 23, 1980, www.jimmycarterli brary.org. For background, see Michael A. Palmer, Guardians of the Gulf (New York: Free Press, 1992), 101-111.
51. Statement before the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C., September 26, 1983, as cited in Palmer, Guardians of the Gulf, 118.
52. For background on these events, see Palmer, Guardians of the Gulf, 118-127.
53. As quoted in The New York Times, August 9, 1990.
54. For background, see Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 225-226, 230, 236-237.
55. Klare, Blood and Oil, 94-101. See also Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004).
56. Address by the President to the Nation on the Way Forward in Iraq," the White House, September 13, 2007, www.whitehouse.gov.
57. For an assessment of U.S. security concerns regarding Iran, see Kenneth Katzman, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, CRS Brief for Congress (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, September 25, 2007).
58. As quoted in David E Sanger, "Cheney on Carrier^Wams Iran to Keep Sea Lanes Open," New York Times, May 12, 2007.
59. The author first discussed this concept in Klare, Blood and Oil, 132.
60. The author first discussed these efforts in Klare, Resource Wars, 81-108
61. U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification. Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2004, February 2003, www.fas.org.
62. As paraphrased by Jim Nichol in Central Asia's New States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, December 11, 2002), 3.
63. The author first advanced this argument in Klare, Blood and Oil, 143-145.
64. National Energy Policy Development Group, National Energy Policy (Washington, D.C.: White House, May 17, 2001), chaps. 8, 11.
65. Quoted in Mike Crawley, "With Mideast Uncertainty, U.S. Turns to Africa for Oil," Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 2002.
66. U.S. Department of State (DoS), Congressional Budget Justification, Fiscal Year 2006 (Washington. D.C.: DoS, 2005), 191-198, 287-289, 443, 587-590.
67. U.S. Department of State (DoS), Congressional Budget Justification /or Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2007 (Washington, D.C: DoS, 2006), 307.
68. Ibid., 307-309, 589, 628. The $30 million includes Foreign Military Sales Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET) grants, narcotics and law enforcement assistance, Emergency Support Funds (ESF) assistance, and commercial and Pentagon-managed arms transfers. Due to a Congressional impasse on foreign aid funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, the Congressional Budget Justification for FY 2008 did not include updated information for FY 2007, but included a $5 million request for security aid in FY 2008.
69. On indirect sources of military aid to Nigeria, see Michael Klare and Daniel Vol-man, "The African 'Oil Rush' and U.S. National Security," Thud World Quarterly, 27, no. 4 (2006), 609-628. For background on these multilateral programs, see Lauren Ploch, Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Afnca, CRS Report for Congress (Washington, D.C: Congressional Research Service, U.S Library of Congress, July 6, 2007), 18-21.
There Will Be Blood
70. For background on AFRICOM, see Ploch. Africa Command.
71. "United States Africa Command," Power Point Presentation, February 19, 2008, electronic document, www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/NCW_course/Moeller_08%2002%2014%20 DCMO% 20Brf%20v2 pdf.
72. For background and discussion, see Klare and Volman, "The African 'Oil Rush' and U.S. National Security"; Ploch, Afnca Command, 18-21.
73. Quoted in GregJaffe, "In Massive Shift, U.S. is Planning to Cut Size of Military in Germany," Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2003.
74. The author first wrote of this danger in Klare, Blood and Oil, 146-179.
75. For background and discussion, see Human Rights Watch (HRW), Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights (New York and Washington, D.C: HRW, 2003).
76. See Eric Reeves, Prepared Statement, in U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), China's Role in the World: Is China a Responsible Staheholder? Hearing, 109th Cong., 2nd Sess., August 3, 2006, www.uscc.gov.
77. Dino Mahtani, "Nigeria Shifts to China Anns," Financial Times, February 28, 2006
78. See Ruby Rabiu, "China Donates $3m Military Equipment to Nigeria," Daily Trust (Abuja), October 20,2005, www.dailytrust.com/archives. See also "Nigeria to Mass-Produce Nigerian Version of AK-47 Rifles, Xinhua News Service, October 2, 2006, english.people, com.
79. For background on Chinese arms transfers to Africa, see Amnesty International, "People's Republic of China: Sustaining Conflict and Human Rights Abuses, The Flow of Arms Accelerates," June 11, 2006, www.amnesty.org. See also David H. Shinn, "Africa and China's Activism," paper presented at National Defense University Pacific Symposium, China's Global Activism, Washington, D.C, June 20, 2006. On Chinese training and advisory programs, see Susan Puska, "Resources, Security, and influence: The Role of the Military in China's Africa Strategy," China Brie/, Jamestown Foundation, May 30, 2007, 2-6.
80. For background on the SCO, see Bates Gill and Matthew Oresman, China's New Journey to the West (Washington, D.C: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003), 5-8.
81. See C.J. Olivers, "Central Asians Call on U.S. to Set a Timetable for Closing Bases," New York Times, July 6, 2005.
82. Gill and Oresman, 20.
83. U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2008 (Washington, D.C: DoD, 2008), 10, 13.