In his recently published memoir, Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve, writes that for war leaders like Tony Blair and George Bush 'it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil'. Political inconvenience may account too for the relative lack of attention in the NGO community to geopolitical conflict between states over access to and control over oil resources, especially when such conflict involves Western states like the USA and Britain.
The links between oil and geopolitical conflict have been extensively explored by historians and political scientists. From Churchill's decision to switch the British naval fleet to oil-power in 1911, to the 1953 Suez Crisis, to the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars, oil has been a major driver of international conflict and human suffering. The military dimension of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Central Asia and now Africa too, is driven in large part by oil security concerns. European states have frequently acquiesced to and sometimes actively participated in US oil security policy, particularly in the Middle East. The growing influence of Russia and China, ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, and the prospect of an oil supply crunch in the next decade present major challenges to the American oil security paradigm.
How can European states break the destructive link between oil security and interstate violence? What can Europe do to oppose the military dimension of US oil security policy?
Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas on this project. Contact Project Officer Neil Endicott by email nendicott@qcea.org or call 00 32 2 234 3061.
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