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Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author Review

copyright 2006 Kat W.

In Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict Michael Klare argues that the post-Cold War era can be best explained by a perspective that focuses on the "global demand for" what he calls "key materials." These materials include but are not limited to water, oil, old-growth timber, uranium, copper, rutile, bauxite, diamonds, gold, other minerals, gems and the global atmosphere. Klare's concept of what Thomas Friedman would call `The One Big Thing' readily explains the major global conflicts in the post-War era. Klare concedes, however, that his conception of dynamic global order, as it is informed by disputes over resources "may not be " The One Big Thing" that lies at the heart of all international relations, [but] it helps explain much of what is happening in the world today" (14).

Klare's perspective is a useful and accurate one. I think that Klare's text stands above Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree, Sam Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, and Stigliz's Globalization and its Discontents. Klare gives the most parsimonious description of the current geopolitical climate. His characterization of conflicts as "resource Wars" is adaptable enough to be a useful paradigm for the next 40-60 years, perhaps longer if technology creates viable renewable forms of energy. This is because Klare's resource-based view of the global political climate is founded on the undeniable fact that as the world population soars and industrialization spreads; vital, finite resources will continue to diminish rapidly. Two hundred and fifty years of heavy industrialization in Europe and the United States has taken a toll on the world's resources. As India and China look to reap the benefits of a fully industrialized economy, resource allocation will play a priority role in the geopolitical climate of the coming decades.

American Capitalism was able to provide benefits and commodities that Soviet Communism failed to deliver. It was able to avoid the shortages that befell the Soviet Union. The fall of Communism in the Soviet Union was marked in economic terms more than in ideological terms. Klare usurps the view of Christopher Warren who claimed that "economic competition is eclipsing ideological rivalry"(8).

Currently, Nations perceive economic strength as a vital part of National security. Nations believe a strong economy is necessary for political influence in the world. Klare explains, " the adoption of an econocentric security policy almost always leads to an increased emphasis on resource protection" (14). A thriving economy is necessary for strong national security and open access to vital resources is a necessary component for a strong economy. Klare makes a compelling connection between national security, economic growth, and strategic military operations. In the post Cold-War era there is a shift from the "weapons technology and alliance politics [that] once dominated the discourse on military affairs, American strategy now focuses on oil-field protection, the defense of maritime trade routes, and other aspects of resource security" (6).

We see that documents of official U.S. foreign policy target resource-rich regions such as the Persian Gulf. When asked why the United States invaded Iraq instead of North Korea Donald Rumsfeld responded that the country swims on a sea of oil. Where Huntington sees clashes of civilizations as the main challenge to peace in the world, Klare sees "intensified resource competition" pushed by private and state interests as the main purveyors of global conflict in the current era. We see that the United States is all-too-often able to avert its watchful eyes from humanitarian atrocities as long as those atrocities don't hurt U.S. business' access to "vital raw materials." The United States allies itself with "three Muslim states -Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan -against two prominently Christian ones, Armenia and Russia" The Reason? : to have a claim to the Caspian Sea basin's impressively rich reserves of petroleum and natural gas(Klare 12-13). The strategic desire to acquire high-demand resources becomes more important than playing along civilizational lines. Klare's Resource-based perspective on international and domestic conflicts speaks to me in a compelling way for several reasons.
1) I am an environmentalist and I am well versed in the stubborn attitudes that certain senators (ex. =Voinovich from Ohio!) have toward diminishing U.S. economic output (measured in G.N.P) by limiting the use of finite fossil fuel resources. The U.S. senate regularly fails to pass climate change initiatives aimed at CO2 reductions because they believe investment in non-CO2 producing technology and subsequent shifts away from a coal-based economy will lead to a net loss of jobs and a drop in GNP. Klare does a nice job of connecting resource acquisition with the economy. He then relates the economy to national security, which informs political and especially military policy.
2) I am an atheist. I think this predisposes me to be more receptive to Klare's claims about the geopolitical climate of the post Cold War world, and less receptive to Sam Huntington's strongly argued and conceived civilizational division of global regions of power. Religion seems to be ( as Huntington explains) the heart of civilization. Klare is able to bring conflicts into focus with specific regional resources at the center when ostensibly these outbreaks of violence appeared to be results of ethnic or religious clashes and nothing else. Klare takes time to address conflicts (such as water wars between Israel and Palestine) that at first appear to be civilizational. He successfully convinces the reader that at its core the conflict is because of a dispute over resources.
3) I read the forementioned books with the U.S. occupation of Iraq in the forefront of my thought. Klare actually makes a cameo appearance in Hijacking Catastrophe, a movie that explains some of the ways that Bush's " War on terror" (which I believe to be a misnomer in the first place! - I think Wars are against nation states not decentralized, non-state actors) is not about preventing the spread of terrorist cells and "Islamo-Facism" but instead the war is about securing vital oil resources of the Persian Gulf region. The Plan for the New American century literally said that Persian gulf oil would be of vital interest to U.S. and that the U.S. should be prepared to act unilaterally to gain control or influence over the use of this oil. My previous exposure to the role that resources play in U.S. foreign policy made me very open to the core thesis of Klare's book.
4) I don't know very much about Islam in general, and my exposure (a few days a week for 14 years) to Christianity in America left me uninspired. Klare's discussion of the politics on the Arabian peninsula speak to me where perhaps, if I knew more about the region I might find Huntington's civilizational, demographic, and core state/ cleft state/ torn state perspective more compelling.
5) My interest in global politics is based in my desire to create a more egalitarian society in the United States and to spread the riches of industrialization to the poorest people in underdeveloped countries. With this purpose I see resource re-allocation as a way to pull some underdeveloped countries into the class of those who have what they need to survive comfortably. "The United States alone consumes approximately 30 percent of all raw materials used by the human population" (Klare 13). Each human requires a minimum of " approximately 1,000 cubic meters (265,000 gallons) per" year and there is currently enough for every person if the water is shared equitably (Klare 142-144). Klare's statistical data is a very useful tool that can be used to the meet the end of securing nutritional necessities for humans living in countries without infrastructure or exploitable assets (that could be used to get them out of poverty). Klare's thesis leads to a conclusion where he argues that the best outcome for the human population would be to manage and control resources in a peaceful way, under the regulation of a "global authority." He believes this, coupled with a concerted effort among nations to develop technological revolutions could help solve resource crises. Klare is weak on policy suggestions (it seems like less than 10 pages of the book is policy recommendations) but his `One World' unificationist ending is much more satisfying, hopeful, and accurate than strong challengers' ultimate conclusions about the strife-ridden, perpetually divided future of the world.

Religion haunts the text of Klare's Resource Wars. Interspersed between strong arguments for his resource-based perspective on Global politics Klare makes concessions to the popular conservative, Samuel Huntington. These concessions do not de-value the central thesis of the book, however. He does not attack a straw man's version of Huntington's, Friedman's and others' characterizations of the geopolitical climate. Instead, he critically engages these popular frameworks that are in opposition to the main trend he lays out. In terms of politics and conflict in the Middle East Klare admits," Even before the discovery of oil, the states in this region were torn by internal divisions along ethnic and political lines, and by historic rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. ... This fiery cauldron has been further heated in recent years by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the endurance of authoritarian regimes, and deep frustrations (among many Arabs) over Israel's treatment of the Palestinians" (45).
However, at the same time, Huntington is unable to preach along civilizational lines without giving some mention of the fact that Saudi Arabia is both the "original home of Islam" and the land with "the world's largest oil reserves" (Huntington 178). Similarly Iraq is both the land of Babylon and the land with an estimated 112.5 billion barrels of oil, the second greatest oil reserves in the world (Klare 45). Lands of great religious significance are the same lands under which vital resources sit ready to be fought over. Conflicts in the Middle East must be approached with some previous knowledge of cultural, ethnic, historical and religious lines drawn between groups of people, but the significance of middle eastern conflicts and their primary significance all around the world lies in the fact that the region sits on top of resources that the rest of the world wants access to.

If I were to rewrite Klare's book I would change very little. I would expand on the policy implications that can be extracted from the paradigm that Klare lays out. I would probably offer stronger critiques of the United States' claims to unfair portions of global resources. I think Klare strikes the balance between the influence resources exert over global politics and the influence that culture and civilization exert over global politics. If I were Klare I would have gone one step further and in rewriting the book I would address Global climate change as it is related to the acquisition of fossil fuel resources. In addition, treaties such Kyoto would be areas of global politics that I would examine. I believe that issues having to do with the global warming will become very important in the coming decades. Densely populated regions face loss of coastal land and this means that there will be mass migrations of peoples. An environmentalist spin on Klare's Resource Wars may move a bit toward Friedman's claims that Green energy industry will be a prime money-making market of the new century.

Ultimately I believe that Klare's lens gives the least distorted view of international relations as they exist and operate in today's world. It is not what Huntington's followers may belittle as "vacuous" "western universalism" that pushes Klare to plead for resource allocations to be parsed out by transnational organizations (or "global authorities") ; it is the universalism of the basic rights and physical needs of the body that are common among all human beings. This is something that can be understood without religion, without culture (Huntington's definition) and without nationality.

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author Feature

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Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author Overview

From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia, Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations.

International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on.

A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.

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Customer Reviews

A little outdated by now, but great insights beyond the media - Michael T. Hanley, CPA - Smithtown, NY United States
Take a trip below the surface of media stories and find out what is going on behind the scenes of many well-known as well as many other unknown problems across the globe.

Michael T. Hanley, CPA is the Managing Partner of the Smithtown, NY CPA Firm, Merl & Hanley, LLP and the author of Effective Tax Planning for the MicroBusiness: 30 Minutes With...A Certified Public Accountant: Effective Tax Planning for the MicroBusiness

Fascinating reading - Jesse Taylor - North Idaho
Absolutely incredible book on natural resource conflicts. This book opened my eyes to many issues I had never considered before. For instance, I had never thought about Egypt's desire to destabilize the other nations in the Nile River basin, in order to prevent them from becoming wealthy enough to be able to construct expensive dams and waterworks which would divert water from the Nile to feed people. Nor had I thought of Russia's interest in maintaining instability in Georgia, so that oil pipelines could not be safely run through there (thus forcing Caspian Sea oil to travel through Russian pipelines instead) ... Engaging and important. Highly recommended.

Through detailed, an important concept - railmeat - Emeryville, CA USA
Resource Wars presents an interesting thesis about the causes of up coming wars. The book is well written, through and detailed. There are copious foot notes describing the sources.

The thesis of Resource Wars is that conflict for scarce resources, especially oil and fresh water will drive wars in the future. In Klare's view the geology and geography of resource distribution trumps ethnic and political causes of war. The book was published in 2001, but obviously written before the terrorist attacks on September 11th of that year. The lack of discussion of terrorism in future conflicts made the book seem dated, and incomplete. Of course the author could not predict that event, or its consequences. I do not think the events of 9/11 refute the authors thesis. However the few references to terrorism seem paltry in the context of the ongoing war on terror.

The second through fifth chapters cover competition for oil. Most of the discussion is about the Caspian sea and the Persian gulf; areas that are predominantly muslim. The sparse mentions of terrorism are a weakness of this section. There are two chapters on conflict over water, which have held up better the the chapters on oil. There is only one chapter on the many other kinds of conflict over resources. I would have liked to see more on this. The last chapter offers some solutions, however this does not seem to have received the same kind of attention that they other chapters got. The author might have done better to not offer any solutions at all.

To some extent Resource Wars has been overtaken by events since it was written. Never the less it has important concepts, a lot of information and is well worth reading.

No wars for resources - I. Klein - Kfar Saba, Israel
The author is unconvincing because he is wrong. He imagines an unidimensional, zero-sum world, which not the one we live in. Take water: Israel (and many other countries) are desalinating sea water, at a cost of about 0.5 dollar per 1000 liter. The whole water consumption of Israel can be supplied with 1 billion dollars, which is less than 0.6% of the GNP. For oil rich countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc. making war instead of buying a desalination plant makes even less sense. There will be no wars for water, not in the Middle East nor anywhere else. Bottom line: Nonsense.

Regarding oil, the amount of money in play is more important, but even oil is not worth a war. There are many suppliers of oil and oil can be bought in the market. Say the price of oil goes up to 250 dollars a barrel, what is cheaper, to pay the price or to fight a war? Wars are incredibly expensive. People will pay more for using their cars, that's all. Germans are already paying 3 dollars per liter, and no signs of discomfort. No German nor Englishman imagines going to war for cheaper oil. And oil has substitutes, many substitutes. Producers are forced to sell, even Hugo chavez sells oil to America and America pays and pays. No one will go to war for oil. Nor for any other natural resource.

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