The USA's Global Resource War - "The Epic Struggle for World Hegemony"

The USA's Global Resource War - "The Epic Struggle for World Hegemony"

by Nigel Maund

Overview

The Great (Oil) Game

The war for commodities is central to the scramble for political

hegemony and economic survival of the US as the sole world hyperpower

and determinant of the world to come according to its own model,

rather than face a world where this cultural, economic and political

hegemony is not only challenged but eclipsed by the growing industrial

and geopolitical might of Asia.

As a consumer of 25% of the world's annual oil output, and the world's

largest importer of oil, the US is absolutely central to oil

economics. Furthermore, given the geography and structure of the US

transportation and logistics system, no country's economy is more

vulnerable than the US to any serious dislocation in supplies or

sustained rise in price. Hydrogen or electric powered vehicles and

atomic fusion are years from becoming a commercial and technologically

viable alterative to oil, despite the increasing sums spent on R & D.

Oil is only a part, albeit a big part, of the scramble for resources.

Other strategic minerals are also central to this great economic power

game such as: platinum, nickel, copper, cobalt, uranium, vanadium,

chromium, manganese, iron, molybdenum, tungsten and even such rust

belt metals as lead and zinc. Several vital elements the US has to

import. These are: platinum, nickel, vanadium, uranium, chromium and

iron and manganese. Three are vital for steel making: iron, nickel and

manganese. Vanadium can be added as an also ran to this mix.

China, with a population equal to 4 times that of the US, at 1.2

billion, has a potential demand that will put immense upward pressure

on the prices and demand for all commodities, to feed its unstoppable

growth. India, with a population of 1 billion people, is slowly

joining this race for development. SE Asian nations are already well

advanced along this path with Singapore (4 million); Taiwan (22

million) and Korea (47 million) leading the way, followed by Thailand

(61 million); Malaysia (20 million) and Vietnam (78 million) with the

Philippines (85 million) and Indonesia (220 million) as the economic

laggards. However, all these nations come within China's growing

economic gravitational pull and influence, and all have significant

Chinese expatriate populations, which dominate their local economies.

Japan is beginning to rethink where it future lies. The post war world

has significantly changed, and, with it old paradigms. The future is

most assuredly China and greater Asia. The US has, to a large degree,

had its day. The "War on Terror" is nothing other than a massive,

albeit obviously transparent, smokescreen for the real war: "THE WAR

FOR RESOURCES AND THE ECONOMIC SURVIVAL OF THE UNITED STATES AS A

GLOBAL POWER". The hegemony of the United States Dollar as a global

reserve currency, in which the world's commodities are traded, is

fundamental to this story. Given the massive indebtedness of the US at

every conceivable level, this currency is under huge potential threat,

with massive Asian influence in the form of dollar surpluses held as

US T bonds. If the dollar fails, so too will the United States, with

all that this means. Right at the root of the US's survival strategy

is control of the world's oil reserves. Without this, the dollar and

the US are assuredly in serious decline. No price, however vast in

terms of blood and treasure, is too high in this game of truly

gigantic stakes. Because of its failure to: adapt and reduce the

massive over-consumption of and dependence upon resources; develop its

rail and alternative infrastructure to roads; and the lopsided

structure of its car and truck driven economy, the US has quite

literally no other option. Sadly, to achieve its objectives, it has

lost the moral high ground and mortgaged the real meaning of

Democracy, with unforeseen consequences for the world and its own

citizens.

The US and Israel have inspired terrorism by 55 years of their own

policies in the Middle East, rather than tackle the root causes of

such dissention, which they have no intention of doing as this will go

against their interests. Until Israel and its puppet states, the US

and UK, are brought to book by the world community the causes of world

terror will go unaddressed and continue into the distant future.

However, they all know this, and care little for the consequences for

ordinary people, as they invoke police state legislation and practices

to tackle a problem entirely of their own creation. Besides, its role

as a suitable smokescreen to enact global war could not be more

fortuitous, given their long term objectives of control of the world's

oil reserves and Israeli "control by proxy" of a completely neutered

and divided Middle East.

The Great (Oil) Game

Oil, and energy in general, are rapidly taking centre stage in world

politics and economics. Indeed, the US administration started pursuing

these objectives in the 1930's under Herbert Hoover's Presidency.

Hoover needed no advice in this regard as he was a well travelled

consultant mining engineer. Daniel Yergin's excellent short history of

oil, written in 1990, entitled "The Prize" is recommended reading.

Throughout the late 19th and 20th Century's, Central Asia and latterly

the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf has been centre stage to what was

colloquially known as "the Great Game", between Britain and the Czar's

Russia in the period 1850 to 1900, then from 1930 to the present day

between the US, UK, Russia and China, with India and Pakistan now

playing lesser but increasing roles.

Oil in commercial quantities was first pumped in the US State of

Pennsylvania where George Bissell's little consortium, spurred by

Professor Silliman's discovery that rock oil could be fractionated

into a wide range of potentially very useful derivatives, financed the

drilling of a 60 ft rock drill hole, managed in the field by "Colonel"

Edwin Drake. Rock oil's kerosene fraction replaced sperm whale oil as

a source of clean and bright illumination in lamps in homes throughout

America. Demand around the world skyrocketed and oil mania was

initiated. New oil fields were discovered and oversupply became a

major problem with wild gyrations in oil price dependent upon the

supply - demand equation and massive speculative activity.

Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company (SOHIO and SOCAL) rapidly, by both

highly organized, intelligent and sometimes unscrupulous business

practices, brought order and organisation to what had evolved as an

unregulated, shambolic, economic "free for all", with rampant waste

and disorder in an increasingly vital industry. However, the abundance

of oil, and the development of the motor car in the US, in particular

Henry Ford's Model T car, put the burgeoning, largely new immigrant,

US population on wheels, and made the US both the world's largest

producer and consumer of oil and oil products. As the rise in oil

consumption grew exponentially, so did exploration and development.

New oil fields were discovered in Oklahoma, Texas and the Gulf states.

However, early production in the US was uncontrolled and primitive,

worsened by the ill conceived and often idiotic claim laws then in

force. Over pumping was rife, as competition between wells in very

close proximity resulted in a policy of "beggar thy neighbour" and

accelerate your "cone of depletion" fastest to get the most oil out

for yourself. Even worse than this was the flaring off of natural gas

caps to oil fields. Natural gas pressure is a vital feature in

ensuring the maximization of oil recovery in any given field. In

Canada's Edmonton field, a town lit by natural gas street lights that

were never turned off, the recoveries were as low as 40% of total oil

in the field. The remainder is to this day unexploited.

The wasteful policies and poor technology of a juvenile industry,

combined with the rapid development of the US economy as the world's

largest by the mid 1930's, meant that the US's best oil fields were

not exploited in the optimum manner to maximize production. The

majority of these fields were over-pumped and ruined. By the end of

WW2, during which the US had to open the oil spigot to the maximum to

support the war effort in the US and UK, US oil fields were in steady

decline having passed "Hubbert's Peak". The realization came home to

Harry S Truman and Winston Churchill that the new oil "centre of

gravity" was the Middle East. Control of Middle Eastern oil became

vital to the global strategies of both nations, in the cold war era,

as it was pivotal to the survival of their economies, political

influence and the survival of the "free world".

Relationships with Arab nations in the post WW1 era were by and large

good. However, in 1948 the state of Israel was created, without any

effort to establish a similar state for the Palestinian people, who

were disenfranchised by the policies of the UK and US. Since then, US

relationships with Arab states have been increasingly determined by

the immensely, and increasingly powerful, Zionist lobby in the US, and

the security mania of Israel, to the point at which Arab states today

regard the US with extreme distrust, and as an Israeli puppet state by

proxy, which is a statement of truth, whether one likes it or not. The

House of Saud is hopelessly corrupt and politically weak. The Saudi

Royal Family is entirely a US puppet government sustained until the

oil runs out. After that, they will be thrown to the wolves and the

country will most likely fragment. The vast discrepancy between rich

and poor, combined with a bell shaped population profile, Wahibi

Muslim extreme religious conservatism, and high unemployment mean that

Saudi Arabia is becoming increasingly unstable, and potentially

politically volatile. Saudi Arabia has played the role of "swing

producer" on the world's oil markets maintaining largely stable prices

for nearly 45 years. Any sudden disturbance to this delicate balance

could result in a panic situation in an increasingly nervous market

place

CONT'D

SEE

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"These stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates on

their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with

lasting victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted

hatred, moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting

their heads knocked together in the name of God, the king, or the

stock exchange-immortal, dreaming, hopeless asses, who surrender their

reason to the care of a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry

their lives in his purse."

-Stephen Crane, quoted by Jack London in People of the Abyss