[Mb-civic] The Coming Resource Wars

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

The Coming Resource Wars
Michael T. Klare
March 07, 2006

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/07/the_coming_resource_w
ars.php

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at 
Hampshire College and the author of Resource Wars and Blood and 
Oil, both available in paperback from Owl Books.

It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us.  In a major London 
address, British Defense Secretary John Reid warned that global 
climate change and dwindling natural resources are combining to 
increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and energy.  
Climate change, he indicated, “will make scarce resources, clean 
water, viable agricultural land even scarcer”—and this will “make the 
emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely.”

Although not unprecedented, Reid’s prediction of an upsurge in 
resource conflict is significant both because of his senior rank and the 
vehemence of his remarks.  “The blunt truth is that the lack of water 
and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic 
conflict we see unfolding in Darfur,” he declared.  “We should see this 
as a warning sign.”

Resource conflicts of this type are most likely to arise in the developing 
world, Reid indicated, but the more advanced and affluent countries 
are not likely to be spared the damaging and destabilizing effects of 
global climate change.  With sea levels rising, water and energy 
becoming increasingly scarce and prime agricultural lands turning into 
deserts, internecine warfare over access to vital resources will become 
a global phenomenon.

Reid’s speech, delivered at the prestigious Chatham House in London 
(Britain’s equivalent of the Council on Foreign Relations), is but the 
most recent expression of a growing trend in strategic circles to view 
environmental and resource effects—rather than political orientation 
and ideology—as the most potent source of armed conflict in the 
decades to come.  With the world population rising, global 
consumption rates soaring, energy supplies rapidly disappearing and 
climate change eradicating valuable farmland, the stage is being set 
for persistent and worldwide struggles over vital resources.  Religious 
and political strife will not disappear in this scenario, but rather will be 
channeled into contests over valuable sources of water, food and 
energy.

Prior to Reid’s address, the most significant expression of this outlook 
was a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Defense by a 
California-based consulting firm in October 2003.  Entitled “An Abrupt 
Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States 
National Security,” the report warned that global climate change is 
more likely to result in sudden, cataclysmic environmental events than 
a gradual (and therefore manageable) rise in average temperatures.  
Such events could include a substantial increase in global sea levels, 
intense storms and hurricanes and continent-wide “dust bowl” effects.  
This would trigger pitched battles between the survivors of these 
effects for access to food, water, habitable land and energy supplies.

“Violence and disruption stemming from the stresses created by abrupt 
changes in the climate pose a different type of threat to national 
security than we are accustomed to today,” the 2003 report noted.  
“Military confrontation may be triggered by a desperate need for 
natural resources such as energy, food and water rather than by 
conflicts over ideology, religion or national honor.”

Until now, this mode of analysis has failed to command the attention of 
top American and British policymakers. For the most part, they insist 
that ideological and religious differences—notably, the clash between 
values of tolerance and democracy on one hand and extremist forms 
of Islam on the other—remain the main drivers of international conflict.  
But Reid’s speech at Chatham House suggests that a major shift in 
strategic thinking may be under way. Environmental perils may soon 
dominate the world security agenda.

This shift is due in part to the growing weight of evidence pointing to a 
significant human role in altering the planet’s basic climate systems.  
Recent studies showing the rapid shrinkage of the polar ice caps, the 
accelerated melting of North American glaciers, the increased 
frequency of severe hurricanes and a number of other such effects all 
suggest that dramatic and potentially harmful changes to the global 
climate have begun to occur. More importantly, they conclude that 
human behavior—most importantly, the burning of fossil fuels in 
factories, power plants, and motor vehicles—is the most likely cause of 
these changes.   This assessment may not have yet penetrated the 
White House and other bastions of head-in-the-sand thinking, but it is 
clearly gaining ground among scientists and thoughtful analysts around 
the world.

For the most part, public discussion of global climate change has 
tended to describe its effects as an environmental problem—as a 
threat to safe water, arable soil, temperate forests, certain species and 
so on.  And, of course, climate change is a potent threat to the 
environment; in fact, the greatest threat imaginable.  But viewing 
climate change as an environmental problem fails to do justice to the 
magnitude of the peril it poses.  As Reid’s speech and the 2003 
Pentagon study make clear, the greatest danger posed by global 
climate change is not the degradation of ecosystems per se, but rather 
the disintegration of entire human societies, producing wholesale 
starvation, mass migrations and recurring conflict over resources.

“As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to abrupt 
climate change,” the Pentagon report notes, “many countries’ needs 
will exceed their carrying capacity”—that is, their ability to provide the 
minimum requirements for human survival.  This “will create a sense of 
desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression” against 
countries with a greater stock of vital resources.  “Imagine eastern 
European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling 
supply of food, water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is 
already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy supply.” 

Similar scenarios will be replicated all across the planet, as those 
without the means to survival invade or migrate to those with greater 
abundance—producing endless struggles between resource “haves” 
and “have-nots.”

It is this prospect, more than anything, that worries John Reid.  In 
particular, he expressed concern over the inadequate capacity of poor 
and unstable countries to cope with the effects of climate change, and 
the resulting risk of state collapse, civil war and mass migration.  “More 
than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water,” 
he observed, and “climate change will worsen this dire 
situation”—provoking more wars like Darfur.  And even if these social 
disasters will occur primarily in the developing world, the wealthier 
countries will also be caught up in them, whether by participating in 
peacekeeping and humanitarian aid operations, by fending off 
unwanted migrants or by fighting for access to overseas supplies of 
food, oil, and minerals.

When reading of these nightmarish scenarios, it is easy to conjure up 
images of desperate, starving people killing one another with knives, 
staves and clubs—as was certainly often the case in the past, and 
could easily prove to be so again.  But these scenarios also envision 
the use of more deadly weapons.  “In this world of warring states,” the 
2003 Pentagon report predicted, “nuclear arms proliferation is 
inevitable.”  As oil and natural gas disappears, more and more 
countries will rely on nuclear power to meet their energy needs—and 
this “will accelerate nuclear proliferation as countries develop 
enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to ensure their national 
security.”

Although speculative, these reports make one thing clear: when 
thinking about the calamitous effects of global climate change, we 
must emphasize its social and political consequences as much as its 
purely environmental effects.  Drought, flooding and storms can kill us, 
and surely will—but so will wars among the survivors of these 
catastrophes over what remains of food, water and shelter.  As Reid’s 
comments indicate, no society, however affluent, will escape 
involvement in these forms of conflict.

We can respond to these predictions in one of two ways: by relying on 
fortifications and military force to provide some degree of advantage in 
the global struggle over resources, or by taking meaningful steps to 
reduce the risk of cataclysmic climate change. 

No doubt there will be many politicians and pundits—especially in this 
country—who will tout the superiority of the military option, 
emphasizing America’s preponderance of strength.  By fortifying our 
borders and sea-shores to keep out unwanted migrants and by fighting 
around the world for needed oil supplies, it will be argued, we can 
maintain our privileged standard of living for longer than other 
countries that are less well endowed with instruments of power.  
Maybe so.  But the grueling, inconclusive war in Iraq and the failed 
national response to Hurricane Katrina show just how ineffectual such 
instruments can be when confronted with the harsh realities of an 
unforgiving world.  And as the 2003 Pentagon report reminds us, 
“constant battles over diminishing resources” will “further reduce 
[resources] even beyond the climatic effects.”

Military superiority may provide an illusion of advantage in the coming 
struggles over vital resources, but it cannot protect us against the 
ravages of global climate change.  Although we may be somewhat 
better off than the people in Haiti and Mexico, we, too, will suffer from 
storms, drought and flooding.  As our overseas trading partners 
descend into chaos, our vital imports of food, raw materials and energy 
will disappear as well.  True, we could establish military outposts in 
some of these places to ensure the continued flow of critical 
materials—but the ever-increasing price in blood and treasure required 
to pay for this will eventually exceed our means and destroy us.  
Ultimately, our only hope of a safe and secure future lies in 
substantially reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases and working 
with the rest of the world to slow the pace of global climate change.

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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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