Oil Wars: U.S. military is being remolded into an oil-protection force
By Michael T. Klare
Oct 11, 2004, 09:34
Under the pressure of Bush administration energy geopolitics (and
under the guise of anti-terrorism), the U.S. military is being remolded
into an oil-protection force.
In the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy commandos
stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. “Swooping silently out of
the Persian Gulf night,” an overexcited reporter for the New York Times
wrote on March 22, “Navy Seals seized two Iraqi oil terminals in bold
raids that ended early this morning, overwhelming lightly-armed Iraqi
guards and claiming a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq’s vast
oil empire.”
A year and a half later, American soldiers are still struggling to
maintain control over these vital petroleum facilities â^À^Ó and the
fighting is no longer bloodless. On April 24, two American sailors and
a Coast Guardsman were killed when a boat they sought to intercept,
presumably carrying suicide bombers, exploded near the Khor al-Amaya
loading platform. Other Americans have come under fire while protecting
some of the many installations in Iraq’s “oil empire.”
Indeed, Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for
control over Iraq’s cities and the constant struggle to protect its
far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack. The
first contest has been widely reported in the American press;
the second has received far less attention. Yet the fate of Iraq’s
oil infrastructure could prove no less significant than that of its
embattled cities. A failure to prevail in this contest would eliminate
the economic basis upon which a stable Iraqi government could someday
emerge. “In the grand scheme of things,” a senior officer told the
New York Times, “there may be no other place where our armed forces
are deployed that has a greater strategic importance.” In recognition
of this, significant numbers of U.S. soldiers have been assigned to
oil-security functions.
Top officials insist that these duties will eventually be taken
over by Iraqi forces, but day by day this glorious moment seems to
recede ever further into the distance. So long as American forces
remain in Iraq, a significant number of them will undoubtedly spend
their time guarding highly vulnerable pipelines, refineries, loading
facilities, and other petroleum installations. With thousands of
miles of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities at risk, this task
will prove endlessly demanding – and unrelievedly hazardous. At the
moment, the guerrillas seem capable of striking the country’s oil
lines at times and places of their choosing, their attacks often
sparking massive explosions and fires.
Guarding the Pipelines
It has been argued that our oil-protection role is a peculiar feature
of the war in Iraq, where petroleum installations are strewn about
and the national economy is largely dependent on oil revenues. But
Iraq is hardly the only country where American troops are risking
their lives on a daily basis to protect the flow of petroleum. In
Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and the Republic of Georgia, U.S. personnel
are also spending their days and nights protecting pipelines and
refineries, or supervising the local forces assigned to this mission.
American sailors are now on oil-protection patrol in the Persian
Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and along other sea
routes that deliver oil to the United States and its allies. In fact,
the American military is increasingly being converted into a global
oil-protection service.
The situation in the Republic of Georgia is a perfect example of
this trend. Ever since the Soviet Union broke apart in 1992, American
oil companies and government officials have sought to gain access to
the huge oil and natural gas reserves of the Caspian Sea basin â^À^Ó
especially in Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Some
experts believe that as many as 200 billion barrels of untapped oil
lie ready to be discovered in the Caspian area, about seven times the
amount left in the United States. But the Caspian itself is landlocked
and so the only way to transport its oil to market in the West is by
pipelines crossing the Caucasus region â^À^Ó the area encompassing
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the war-torn Russian republics of
Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia.
American firms are now building a major pipeline through this volatile
area. Stretching a perilous 1,000 miles from Baku in Azerbaijan
through Tbilisi in Georgia to Ceyhan in Turkey, it is eventually
slated to carry one million barrels of oil a day to the West; but will
face the constant threat of sabotage by Islamic militants and ethnic
separatists along its entire length. The United States has already
assumed significant responsibility for its protection, providing
millions of dollars in arms and equipment to the Georgian military
and deploying military specialists in Tbilisi to train and advise the
Georgian troops assigned to protect this vital conduit. This American
presence is only likely to expand in 2005 or 2006 when the pipeline
begins to transport oil and fighting in the area intensifies.
Or take embattled Colombia, where U.S. forces are increasingly assuming
responsibility for the protection of that country’s vulnerable oil
pipelines. These vital conduits carry crude petroleum from fields in
the interior, where a guerrilla war boils, to ports on the Caribbean
coast from which it can be shipped to buyers in the United States
and elsewhere. For years, left-wing guerrillas have sabotaged the
pipelines â^À^Ó portraying them as concrete expressions of foreign
exploitation and elitist rule in Bogota, the capital â^À^Ó to deprive
the Colombian government of desperately needed income. Seeking to prop
up the government and enhance its capacity to fight the guerrillas,
Washington is already spending hundreds of millions of dollars to
enhance oil-infrastructure security, beginning with the Cano-Limon
pipeline, the sole conduit connecting Occidental Petroleum’s prolific
fields in Arauca province with the Caribbean coast. As part of this
effort, U.S. Army Special Forces personnel from Fort Bragg, North
Carolina are now helping to train, equip, and guide a new contingent
of Colombian forces whose sole mission will be to guard the pipeline
and fight the guerrillas along its 480-mile route.
Oil and Instability
The use of American military personnel to help protect vulnerable
oil installations in conflict-prone, chronically unstable countries
is certain to expand given three critical factors: America’s
ever-increasing dependence on imported petroleum, a global shift in
oil production from the developed to the developing world, and the
growing militarization of our foreign energy policy.
America’s dependence on imported petroleum has been growing steadily
since 1972, when domestic output reached its maximum (or “peak”) output
of 11.6 million barrels per day (mbd). Domestic production is now
running at about 9 mbd and is expected to continue to decline as older
fields are depleted. (Even if some oil is eventually extracted from the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as the Bush administration
desires, this downward trend will not be reversed.) Yet our total oil
consumption remains on an upward course; now approximating 20 mbd,
it’s projected to reach 29 mbd by 2025. This means ever more of the
nation’s total petroleum supply will have to be imported â^À^Ó 11
mbd today (about 55% of total U.S. consumption) but 20 mbd in 2025
(69% of consumption).
More significant than this growing reliance on foreign oil,
an increasing share of that oil will come from hostile, war-torn
countries in the developing world, not from friendly, stable
countries like Canada or Norway. This is the case because the older
industrialized countries have already consumed a large share of their
oil inheritance, while many producers in the developing world still
possess vast reserves of untapped petroleum. As a result, we are seeing
a historic shift in the center of gravity for world oil production
â^À^Ó from the industrialized countries of the global North to the
developing nations of the global South, which are often politically
unstable, torn by ethnic and religious conflicts, home to extremist
organizations, or some combination of all three.
Whatever deeply-rooted historical antagonisms exist in these countries,
oil production itself usually acts as a further destabilizing
influence. Sudden infusions of petroleum wealth in otherwise poor
and underdeveloped countries tend to deepen divides between rich
and poor that often fall along ethnic or religious lines, leading to
persistent conflict over the distribution of petroleum revenues. To
prevent such turbulence, ruling elites like the royal family in
Saudi Arabia or the new oil potentates of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
restrict or prohibit public expressions of dissent and rely on the
repressive machinery of state security forces to crush opposition
movements. With legal, peaceful expressions of dissent foreclosed in
this manner, opposition forces soon see no options but to engage in
armed rebellion or terrorism.
There is another aspect of this situation that bears examination. Many
of the emerging oil producers in the developing world were once
colonies of and harbor deep hostility toward the former imperial powers
of Europe. The United States is seen by many in these countries as
the modern inheritor of this imperial tradition. Growing resentment
over social and economic traumas induced by globalization is aimed
at the United States. Because oil is viewed as the primary motive
for American involvement in these areas, and because the giant U.S.
oil corporations are seen as the very embodiment of American power,
anything to do with oil â^À^Ó pipelines, wells, refineries, loading
platforms â^À^Ó is seen by insurgents as a legitimate and attractive
target for attack; hence the raids on pipelines in Iraq, on oil
company offices in Saudi Arabia, and on oil tankers in Yemen.
Militarizing Energy Policy
American leaders have responded to this systemic challenge to stability
in oil-producing areas in a consistent fashion: by employing military
means to guarantee the unhindered flow of petroleum. This approach
was first adopted by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations after
World War II, when Soviet adventurism in Iran and pan-Arab upheavals
in the Middle East seemed to threaten the safety of Persian Gulf
oil deliveries. It was given formal expression by President Carter in
January 1980, when, in response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
and the Islamic revolution in Iran, he announced that the secure flow
of Persian Gulf oil was in “the vital interests of the United States
of America,” and that in protecting this interest we would use “any
means necessary, including military force.” Carter’s principle of
using force to protect the flow of oil was later cited by President
Bush the elder to justify American intervention in the Persian Gulf
War of 1990-91, and it provided the underlying strategic rationale
for our recent invasion of Iraq.
Originally, this policy was largely confined to the world’s most
important oil-producing region, the Persian Gulf. But given America’s
ever-growing requirement for imported petroleum, U.S. officials
have begun to extend it to other major producing zones, including
the Caspian Sea basin, Africa, and Latin America. The initial step
in this direction was taken by President Clinton, who sought to
exploit the energy potential of the Caspian basin and, worrying
about instability in the area, established military ties with future
suppliers, including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and with the pivotal
transit state of Georgia. It was Clinton who first championed the
construction of a pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan and who initially took
steps to protect that conduit by boosting the military capabilities of
the countries involved. President Bush junior has built on this effort,
increasing military aid to these states and deploying American combat
advisers in Georgia; Bush is also considering the establishment of
permanent U.S. military bases in the Caspian region.
Typically, such moves are justified as being crucial to the “war
on terror.” A close reading of Pentagon and State Department
documents shows, however, that anti-terrorism and the protection of
oil supplies are closely related in administration thinking. When
requesting funds in 2004 to establish a “rapid-reaction brigade”
in Kazakhstan, for example, the State Department told Congress that
such a force is needed to “enhance Kazakhstan’s capability to respond
to major terrorist threats to oil platforms” in the Caspian Sea.
As noted, a very similar trajectory is now under way in Colombia. The
American military presence in oil-producing areas of Africa,
though less conspicuous, is growing rapidly. The Department of
Defense has stepped up its arms deliveries to military forces
in Angola and Nigeria, and is helping to train their officers and
enlisted personnel; meanwhile, Pentagon officials have begun to look
for permanent U.S. bases in the area, focusing on Senegal, Ghana,
Mali, Uganda, and Kenya. Although these officials tend to talk only
about terrorism when explaining the need for such facilities, one
officer told Greg Jaffe of the Wall Street Journal in June 2003 that
“a key mission for U.S. forces [in Africa] would be to ensure that
Nigeria’s oil fields, which in the future could account for as much
as 25 percent of all U.S. oil imports, are secure.”
An increasing share of our naval forces is also being committed to the
protection of foreign oil shipments. The Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based at
the island state of Bahrain, now spends much of its time patrolling
the vital tanker lanes of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz
â^À^Ó the narrow waterway connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea and
the larger oceans beyond. The Navy has also beefed up its ability
to protect vital sea lanes in the South China Sea â^À^Ó the site of
promising oil fields claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and
Malaysia â^À^Ó and in the Strait of Malacca, the critical sea-link
between the Persian Gulf and America’s allies in East Asia. Even
Africa has come in for increased attention from the Navy. In order to
increase the U.S. naval presence in waters adjoining Nigeria and other
key producers, carrier battle groups assigned to the European Command
(which controls the South Atlantic) will shorten their future visits
to the Mediterranean “and spend half the time going down the west
coast of Africa,” the command’s top officer, General James Jones,
announced in May 2003.
This, then, is the future of U.S. military involvement abroad. While
anti-terrorism and traditional national security rhetoric will be
employed to explain risky deployments abroad, a growing number of
American soldiers and sailors will be committed to the protection
of overseas oil fields, pipeline, refineries, and tanker routes. And
because these facilities are likely to come under increasing attack
from guerrillas and terrorists, the risk to American lives will grow
accordingly. Inevitably, we will pay a higher price in blood for
every additional gallon of oil we obtain from abroad.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies
at Hampshire College. This article is based on his new book, ‘Blood
and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Petroleum
Dependency’ (Metropolitan / Henry Holt
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress