Re: Geopolitics:Oil And Water The New Realities

On 30 Mar, 17:58, PaPaPeng <PaPaP...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Those who control oil and water will control the world
New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain
becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly
"  John Gray
"  The Observer,
"  Sunday March 30 2008http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/30/fossilfuels.water

Those who control oil and water will control the world
New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain
becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly
John Gray The Observer, Sunday March 30 2008 Article history
About this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on
Sunday March 30 2008 on p33 of the Comment section. It was last
updated at 00:03 on March 30 2008. History may not repeat itself, but,
as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and
conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by
new conditions. At present, a race for the world's resources is
underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades
leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted
prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not
always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is
not only oil that is at stake.

It was Rudyard Kipling who brought the idea of the Great Game into the
public mind in Kim, his cloak-and-dagger novel of espionage and
imperial geopolitics in the time of the Raj. Then, the main players
were Britain and Russia and the object of the game was control of
central Asia's oil. Now, Britain hardly matters and India and China,
which were subjugated countries during the last round of the game,
have emerged as key players. The struggle is no longer focused mainly
on central Asian oil. It stretches from the Persian Gulf to Africa,
Latin America, even the polar caps, and it is also a struggle for
water and depleting supplies of vital minerals. Above all, global
warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources. The Great
Game that is afoot today is more intractable and more dangerous than
the last.

The biggest new player in the game is China and it is there that the
emerging pattern is clearest. China's rulers have staked everything on
economic growth. Without improving living standards, there would be
large-scale unrest, which could pose a threat to their power.
Moreover, China is in the middle of the largest and fastest move from
the countryside to the city in history, a process that cannot be
stopped.

There is no alternative to continuing growth, but it comes with deadly
side-effects. Overused in industry and agriculture, and under threat
from the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers, water is becoming a
non-renewable resource. Two-thirds of China's cities face shortages,
while deserts are eating up arable land. Breakneck industrialisation
is worsening this environmental breakdown, as many more power plants
are being built and run on high-polluting coal that accelerates global
warming. There is a vicious circle at work here and not only in China.
Because ongoing growth requires massive inputs of energy and minerals,
Chinese companies are scouring the world for supplies. The result is
unstoppable rising demand for resources that are unalterably finite.

Although oil reserves may not have peaked in any literal sense, the
days when conventional oil was cheap have gone forever. Countries are
reacting by trying to secure the remaining reserves, not least those
that are being opened up by climate change. Canada is building bases
to counter Russian claims on the melting Arctic icecap, parts of which
are also claimed by Norway, Denmark and the US. Britain is staking out
claims on areas around the South Pole.

The scramble for energy is shaping many of the conflicts we can expect
in the present century. The danger is not just another oil shock that
impacts on industrial production, but a threat of famine. Without a
drip feed of petroleum to highly mechanised farms, many of the food
shelves in the supermarkets would be empty. Far from the world weaning
itself off oil, it is more addicted to the stuff than ever. It is
hardly surprising that powerful states are gearing up to seize their
share.

This new round of the Great Game did not start yesterday. It began
with the last big conflict of the 20th century, which was an oil war
and nothing else. No one pretended the first Gulf War was fought to
combat terrorism or spread democracy. As George Bush Snr and John
Major admitted at the time, it was aimed at securing global oil
supplies, pure and simple. Despite the denials of a less honest
generation of politicians, there can be no doubt that controlling the
country's oil was one of the objectives of the later invasion of Iraq.

Oil remains at the heart of the game and, if anything, it is even more
important than before. With their complex logistics and heavy reliance
on air power, high-tech armies are extremely energy-intensive.
According to a Pentagon report, the amount of petroleum needed for
each soldier each day increased four times between the Second World
War and the Gulf War and quadrupled again when the US invaded Iraq.
Recent estimates suggest the amount used per soldier has jumped again
in the five years since the invasion.

Whereas Western countries dominated the last round of the Great Game,
this time they rely on increasingly self-assertive producer countries.
Mr Putin's well-honed contempt for world opinion might grate on
European ears, but Europe is heavily dependent on his energy. Hugo
Chávez might be an object of hate for George W Bush, but Venezuela
still supplies around 10 per cent of America's imported oil. President
Ahmadinejad is seen by some as the devil incarnate, but with oil at
more than a $100 a barrel, any Western attempt to topple him would be
horrendously risky.

While Western power declines, the rising powers are at odds with each
other. China and India are rivals for oil and natural gas in central
Asia. Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia have clashed over
underwater oil reserves in the South China Sea. Saudi Arabia and Iran
are rivals in the Gulf, while Iran and Turkey are eyeing Iraq. Greater
international co-operation seems the obvious solution, but the reality
is that as the resources crunch bites more deeply, the world is
becoming steadily more fragmented and divided.

We are a long way from the fantasy world of only a decade ago, when
fashionable gurus were talking sagely of the knowledge economy. Then,
we were told material resources did not matter any more - it was ideas
that drove economic development. The business cycle had been left
behind and an era of endless growth had arrived. Actually, the
knowledge economy was an illusion created by cheap oil and cheap money
and everlasting booms always end in tears. This is not the end of the
world or of global capitalism, just history as usual.

What is different this time is climate change. Rising sea levels
reduce food and fresh-water supplies, which may trigger large-scale
movements of refugees from Africa and Asia into Europe. Global warming
threatens energy supplies. As the fossil fuels of the past become more
expensive, others, such as tar sands, are becoming more economically
viable, but these alternative fuels are also dirtier than conventional
oil.

In this round of the Great Game, energy shortage and global warming
are reinforcing each another. The result can only be a growing risk of
conflict. There were around 1.65 billion people in the world when the
last round was played out. At the start of the 21st century, there are
four times as many, struggling to secure their future in a world being
changed out of recognition by climate change. It would be wise to plan
for some more of history's rhymes.

· John Gray is author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the
Death of Utopia, published by Allen Lane in paperback on 24 April

This is an extremely intelligent analysis of the matter. Only when
all the people of the world are allowed the power of direct democratic
decision making, can a hugely damaging resource war (effectively ww3)
be averted. Otherwise the game will play itself out as usual. Will
the people take the power - or die at the hands of the great game? Is
there enough time left? The clock ticks on...
.

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