Some of the worst news this year was how Islamic State grew out
of the chaos in Iraq and Syria, and became known not as the
richest terrorist group in the world, but as the poorest terrorist
country. Because they successfully occupy
and exploit vast oil fields, loot
everything lootable while controlling
many smuggler's routes and ruthless dealers. I get how they
control the population by mass executions rivaling the worst in
history, denying
crucial water supplies to villages and other callous misdeeds.
But how do they manage to sell oil worth millions of dollars every
single day even as all eyes are on the region? Money talks, of
course, anywhere and anytime, but still?
Part of the answer came in this
fascinating report by Suzan Fraser and Yilmaz Akinci from the border
between Turkey and Syria, where... hillbillies, basically... tell
how they have always been smuggling. Everyone did it. For
generations. So, suddenly a few more bearded men came with a bit more
oil than usual. It worked for a time, but Turkish police cracked down
on it. Their large scale “pipeline” was smacked into smaller,
obscure “pipelines” - like the ones the Islamic terrorists have
for every other country, apparently.
Probably more efficient that the Turkish police, however, is the
Saudi Arabian financial muscle. To them and most of
their allies, the sum of benefits of a low oil price seems to
currently triumph the more obvious benefits of a high oil price.
Mainly by cutting the cash flow to Iran, Syria, Islamic State,
Russia, even North American non-conventional (fossil) energy producers and
others. In fact, I've seen some speculate Saudi Arabia has almost won
the war on Ukraine's behalf as Russia's weakening rubles soon cannot
pay for any more war. Speaking of Ukraine: This country used to be
self-sufficient in coal, but the
territory occupied by rebels and Russians just happen to host 66 coal
mines, leaving Ukraine's power plants under-supplied; and the
shores off now Russian Crimea just happen to be full of gas. What
a coincidence.
We live in peaceful times. Conflicts being linked to something as mundane as natural resources is a conspiracy theory. Just kidding...
Cambodia: Villages razed to clear land for sugar plantation
Amnesty International and other organisations have exposed the Cambodian authorities' systematic failure to protect people from forced evictions. Forced evictions in the name of economic development now occur regularly across Cambodia, as local elites and foreign investors seek to capitalize on a newly privatized land market and take control of the country's natural resources.
Colombia: Tribes flee civil war and gold miners
About 10% of the hunter-gatherer Awa tribe have fled their ancestral mountain homes in the past decade. Some now survive as subsistence farmers on small lots provided by the government.
The tribe has been fighting palm oil plantations encroaching on their land for about 16 years, the civil war between leftist FARC and the government has produced an extremely dangerous territory including indigenous grounds littered with landmines and lately gold mines have taken away even more land and polluting its surroundings.
Several protesters were injured on November 25th when police dispersed anti-gold mine demonstration with tear gas. The US-based Newmont Mining Corporation plan to reconstruct local water flows used in farmers' irrigation. Locals protest mining projects throughout Peru and injuries are not uncommon.
"Companies come here, take the gold and then go away - just like in colonial times. People feel cheated."
- Jorge Rimarachin
After a brief spell in international media as a success story, newly founded South Sudan is now fighting a "war by proxy" paramilitaries with Sudan. The latter appear to currently be evicting certain ethnic groups.
DigitalGlobe imagery shows the presence of Antonov An-26's and other aircraft at El Obeid Airbase on 14 November 2011.
The Sea: The race for off-shore resources intensifying world wide
One third of oil production is now off-shore and the rate is climbing. Resources are found in the Arctic, in the South Chinese Sea, in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Chinese and Turkish warships circle Vietnamese and Israeli drilling ships and platforms in each their own gunboat diplomatic efforts. These countries as well as the US, Russia and others are investing in new aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers.
Oil have been found in the underground below Lake Albert on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Western companies are working with the Ugandan government to get development under way but a myriad of issues seem to delay the project: Criminal and rebel activity is up and rising, Ugandan democracy is struggling for control with the shady closed door negotiations and now US troops enter the picture. Al Jazeera summed up the situation in less than two minutes, October 14th:
Recipe for an oil war
Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil are guessing the 2.5 billion barrel or larger field is the largest onshore field found in sub-saharan Africa in more than two decades. Production of 150,000 barrels of oil per day by 2015 place Uganda among top 50 oil producing nations is planned. The latter company, Irish Tullow Oil, is now accused of having bribed three Ugandan ministers with 100 million USD in July 2010 in return for concessions. The ministers resigned October 2011. Tullow denies allegations, maintain an anti-bribe image and have funded a lake rescue station which they claim have already saved the lives of more than 70 local fishermen. Also in the deal are French Total and Chinese Cnooc. Those corporations are expected to claim 2/3 of the 3-4 billion USD hoped to be made annually.
A leaked US embassy cable (Wikileaks, #08KAMPALA393) reveals Uganda have been asking for help stepping up security in and around the oil rich area. John Morley of Tullow Oil is quoted for saying that as oil activity on Lake Albert increase a security presence would be vital. The cable mention "several clashes on Lake Albert between oil companies and entities from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) demonstrate that oil production has increased local tensions and exacerbated cross-border hostilities". In 2007 a British drilling platform worker was killed by Congolese soldiers who claimed the barge had strayed into Congolese waters. Although the Ugandan and Congolese governments are talking and are in agreement concerning the precise geography of the border the armed forces on the Congolese side of the border are not always government-related.
An intervention overdue?
Several militias fight in the area and in just recent months thousands have had to fled their homes, hundreds have been kidnapped. Adding to the Congolese militias the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels as well as the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony add to the insecurity. FDLR is a Hutu group whose two top leaders are held in France and Germany on charges of crimes against humanity yet whose troops raped at least 154 civilians from July 30 to August 3, 2010, in the town of Luvungi. LRA is the Ugandan theocratic militia of self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, who claims to be acting on orders from spirits sent by God, and whose ranks have been inflated by an estimated 66,000 children abducted for soldiering. October 2005 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Kony and four other leading members of LRA; the 33 charges include murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement and pillaging.
Recently, the Ugandan presiden spent US$780 million on six Russian jet fighters. A decision that raises eyebrows in a country with a GDP of less than 500USD per capita.
"We don’t live in an enemy-free neighbourhood. So, don’t look at the purchase in terms of cost. The Great Lakes region is one of the most unsafe regions."
- Ugandan presiden Yoweri Museveni
Since 2008 the US have donated more than 40 million USD on supporting the Local counter-militia efforts. And now 100 Green Berets have been sent as military advisers for the governments of the region. They are receiving a warm welcome.
"For 20 years, the government of Uganda has been pleading with our American and European friends to help in the LRA problem, because these are international terrorists. We wanted our friends to help in providing technical support — such as intelligence — because they have the best."
- Uganda's acting foreign minister Henry Okello Oryem
"Any support to tackle the LRA is a good move [...] South Sudan is already working with Uganda's army in operations against the LRA, and we will be pleased to work with anyone who can help us combat the threat [...] We have large communities whose lives are ruined by these rebels, so the sooner we can end this once and for all will be something we will look forward to."
- South Sudan army spokesman Philip Aguer
"The Central African Republic today more than needs external assistance like that of United States [...] Many hundreds of our people have been killed, others kidnapped or displaced, their homes ransacked, destroyed, their possessions looted. It is unbearable."
- CAR Deputy defence minister Jean-Francis Bozize
A recent report, "Oil Extraction and the Potential for Domestic Instability in Uganda", warns about other dangers than cross-border guerrilla warfare: the possible side-effects of a sudden large scale resource industry entering a developing economy. President Museveni, who first seems to have orchestrated the addition of a third presidential term to the constitution then won a low turnout election disputed by international observers, is already speaking of "his" oil.
"If Museveni gains access to substantial oil revenue, the combination of considerable oil funds and strong presidential powers could increase the ability of his government to remain in power indefinitely. [...] Increases in corrupt behavior would essentially require secrecy in government dealings. A reduction in government transparency in oil and tax revenue management would then incentivize Museveni’s government to become increasingly autocratic in its relationship with the public and political opponents, as has so often been the pattern in other oil producing states."
Also, susceptibility to the Dutch Disease should be considered:
"If the government does not reinvest revenues into public works to soften the blow of economic change, domestic instability may ensue [...] The poor and disaffected youths are the most likely to turn to violence in order to redress socio-political grievances. A young, growing, and increasingly urban population indicates the potential for civil strife in Uganda. The added stress of urban migration associated with oil production may only exacerbate the dynamics behind civil strife. [...] If Museveni’s government makes its decisions public and is held accountable, it is more likely to choose anti-corruption policies that are favorable to the public interest."
The report estimate the risk of civil war in Uganda as 1.96% if the new found resource wealth is handled wisely, 14.05% if not. Dutch Disease effects could be both mitigated and worsened by the fact that multiple industries are likely to boom: in 2010 firms from Russia, China, India, Australia and South Africa started operating in Uganda after finds of copper, iron ore, cobalt, tin, gold and platinum.
"We must be Africa’s Norway. We must manage our oil resources in the stellar manner in which Botswana has managed its wealth from diamonds."
- Bank of Uganda Governor, Emmanuel Mutebile
We haven't heard much from the hopeful Iraqi politicians who once voiced similar intentions with their oil. However, it does seem Obama is at least trying to do better than his predecessor(s). And if a US president can't even go to war against someone as evil as Joseph Kony he truly can do nothing at all - yet, who knows if the Tea Party will side with Kony and his lunatic army?
On the initiative of small island states, Germany, Britain, the US and other members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) climate change was this week linked to conflict. Steiner and Ki-moon testified to the rationale:
"There can be little doubt today that climate change has potentially far-reaching implications for global stability and security in economic, social and environmental terms which will increasingly transcend the capacity of individual nation states to manage. [...] Competition over scarce water and land, exacerbated by regional changes in climate, are already a key factor in local-level conflicts in Darfur, the Central African Republic, northern Kenya, and Chad, for example-when livelihoods are threatened by declining natural resources, people either innovate, flee or can be brought into conflict. [...] In total, 145 countries share one or more international river basins. Changes in water flows, amplified by climate change, could be a major source of tension between states, especially those that lack the capacity for co-management and cooperation."
- Achim Steiner, UNEP addressing the UNSC
"Extreme weather events continue to grow more frequent and intense in rich and poor countries alike, not only devastating lives, but also infrastructure, institutions, and budgets - an unholy brew which can create dangerous security vacuums."
- Ban Ki-moon, UN
The key sections of the agreed upon statement:
The Security Council expresses its concern that possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security.
The Security Council expresses its concern that possible security implications of loss of territory of some States caused by sea-level-rise may arise, in particular in small low-lying island states.
- United Nations Security Council statement July 20th, 2011.
Al Jazeera has produced a 25 minute program on the subject including a quite long discussion between three experts: Sabrina Chesterman, a climate change consultant based in South Africa; Tobias Seakin, a senior research fellow and the director of National Security and Resilience; and Cleo Paskal, an associate fellow with the Energy, Environment and Development Programme.
The statement faced opposition and required amendments to pass the vote. What should be obvious to anyone following these issues, Russia, India and China raised skeptic voices against. Notice the strong rhetoric:
"It [climate change] is a threat as great as nuclear proliferation or terrorism... neither have ever led to the disappearance of an entire nation, though that is what we are confronted with today... I often wonder where we would be if the roles were reversed. What if the pollution coming from our island nations was threatening the very existence of the major emitters?"
- Marcus Stephen, President of Nauru
"We have dozens of countries in this body and in this very room whose very existence is threatened. They've asked this council to demonstrate our understanding that their security is profoundly threatened. Instead, because of the refusal of a few to accept our responsibility, this council is saying, by its silence, in effect, 'Tough luck.' This is more than disappointing. It's pathetic. It's shortsighted, and frankly it's a dereliction of duty."
- Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations
The world uses 2.6 trillion cubic metres a year, we have 187.9 trillion cubic metres left. 187.9 divided by 2.6 gives 72.3 but the graphic says there's only 63 years left assuming constant consumption. Assuming a constant growth in consumption by 2% there's supposed to be 42 years left.
The top three biggest reserves are in Russia, Quatar and Iran (~53% total). The most production and consumption is in USA and Russia (~38% total production, ~35% total consumption).
In comparison, assuming constant growths in consumption of oil (1%) and coal (4%) we have 38 and 44 years left of these resources respectively.
What is really interesting, though, is that General Electrics and BP are mentioned at the bottom of the page. Have the big corporations finally given up pretending infinite supplies of natural resources?
News about the oil business, campaigns against it's foul play, news about pollution incidents, academic studies dealing with the many implications of the importance of oil and similar reports are not infrequent. Quite a few entries at this present blog deals with oil. But how about a first hand account of visits to the oil business hotspots of the world? From an acknowledged journalist with a critical approach and an open mind. About 220 pages telling the stories of the people living from or in the shadow of oil extraction... that's Crude World.
Chances are you'll gobble it up like a SUV does gasoline but there's plenty in its ten creatively titled chapters to digest more thoroughly. Scarcity, introducing with the stories of a poster-boy whistleblower from inside the number one consuming nation, USA; Plunder, about the disturbingly overlooked textbook case of Equatorial Guinea; Rot, taking us down the polluted rivers of the Niger Delta; Contamination, continues with stories from the misery of the Ecuadorean jungle; Fear, dives into the psychology of the oil business and the ignorance and innocence of its workers; Greed, is composed of a handful of stories about the callousness of the oil business even when operating inside the West; Desire, is a bit of the impossible to ignore story of the Gulf Wars; Alienation, has the perhaps most scary story of the ghost country called Saudi Arabia; Empire, is a peek below the surface of the apparently feel-good story of Russia; and Mirage ends off the book with a similarly critical look at the naive story of the Boliviarians in Venezuela.
Around the world indeed. Plenty of facts but served in dishes of true stories. Warmly recommended.
Can't help quoting a few good quotes about the US relation to the Middle East:
“Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
- US President Jimmy Carter, 1980
“Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to US national security. The United States remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force, against any power with interests inimical to our own.”
- US President George Bush in “National Security Directive 54”
“Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”
- Dick Cheney, August 2002
Democracy Now! interviewed Peter Maass during the BP oil "spill" in the Mexican Gulf:
Also, he's talking for hours on YouTube! About the book in general...
This week the "Arctic nations" - Canada, Russia, Norway, the United States and Denmark - met in Moscow to agree on territorial claims. (Strangely, I didn't notice any coverage at all in Danish media - while even Al-Jazeera warmed up for it.)
"Serious political and economic interests are indeed crossing over in the Arctic. But I have no doubt that problems, including the continental shelf problem, can be solved in the spirit of partnership. It is well known that it is difficult to survive in the Arctic on your own. Nature itself makes people, nations and states help each other there. Unfortunately we are faced with alarmist predictions of a looming battle for the Arctic. We are monitoring the situation and making responsible forecasts."
- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
"No one problem of contemporary Arctic can be resolved by one country alone. So that's why I think that we are doomed to co-operate in the Arctic. And military confrontation especially is completely counterproductive."
- Russian Arctic expert Lev Voronkov
Russia plans to invest 312.8 billion US dollars on exploration and promise extra tax breaks for oil corporations wanting to do business in the Arctic. They have sent a submarine to plant the Russian flag on the sea bed but complain about NATO's presence.
The Arctic is thought to contain 25% of the planet's undiscovered oil and gas, about 200 billion barrels of oil.
"The industry has been around the world discovering easy oil and gas there are only the more difficult and riskier regions left - and the Arctic is one of them"
- Manouchehr Takin, Centre For Global Energy Studies
"It is a reckless prospecting endeavour, trying to find new oil reserves in this fragile and pristine environment"
- Greenpeace protestor
"If governments were serious about climate change [...] they would be putting proposals here at Copenhagen this week to determine which parts of carbon reserves would be left in the ground. [...] they would also be proposing a total global moratorium on all prospecting for new reserves of coal, oil and gas."
We have already found more than enough fossil fuel reserves to cause extreme climate change. We don't need the Arctic reserves to do that. A fact so blindingly obvious since they are only becoming accessible because of the melting ice caps.
Have been reading An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage. Good reading I can recommend!
You will find it interesting too if you, like me, is into Jared Diamond's books, agriculture or the more practical aspects of history. It is written in an accessible form and not quite as academic in nature as Diamond's books. If you, also like me, have already read all of Diamond's books as well as a selection of related literature and journal articles it will be repetitive at places. But at the same time full of great quotes and little stories.
The book tells the history of human civilization through the development of our food production and culture. A highly relevant book to the present blogging project although food is a special type of natural resource or products hereof and history is a wider subject than conflict.
The fate of nations hangs upon their choice of food.
- Jean-Anthelme Brillant-Savarin
Part I: The Edible Foundations of Civilization
First, the domestication of maize, wheat and rise is retold - essential beginning of the tale. Then the spread of farming discussed. Hunter-gatherer societies have always been and still are much more peaceful than farming societies. Why and how is explored and explained in chapter 2 from reasoning with the needs and circumstances of them as well as the historical conditions.
Chapter 3: Food, Wealth, and Power
Picking up where chapters 1 and 2 left off, now the gradual transition towards hierarchical social order is described. Especially the significance of irrigation is compelling; here are a few of the explanations for the onset of organized conflict:
One theory contends that a big man or leader can become more powerful by coordinating agricultural activity, particularly irrigation. [...] control of the irrigation system would confer power on the leader [...] the irrigation system might also need to be defended, using full-time soldiers funded by the food surplus and placed under the leader's control. [p. 41]
Another theory suggests that the communal storage of agricultural surpluses might provide the leader with an opportunity to establish greater control over his followers. [...] Increasingly elaborate public-works projects then legitimize the leader's position and require a growing number of administrators, who emerge as the ruling elite. [p. 42]
A third suggestion is that competition for agricultural land led to warfare between communities in areas where such land was environmentally circumscribed. [...] When one village defeated another it then appropriated the defeated village's land or forced its people to hand over a proportion of their harvest every year. [...] This all sounds plausible, but there is no evidence that people reached the limit of agricultural productivity in any of the places where stratified societies first emerged. In the event of a drought or a bad harvest, however, it is possible to imagine villages with food reserves coming under attack from neighboring villages where the food had run out. [p. 43]
Part III: Global Highways of Food
Standage delivers a great tale of a near-global multi-millennial trade war over spices (which I must admit I've been mostly ignorant of hitherto). A mostly non-violent conflict that occasionally flared into brutality. And, amazingly, indirectly contributed to the collapse of the Roman empire that spent two digit tonnes of gold on importing spices annually, later helped spread the plague to Italy. The latter includes one of the book's interesting detours: plague infected corpses were used by Mongols as catapult ammunition against slave trading Europeans [p. 80-81].
After the year 1500 there was no pepper to be had at Calicut that was not dyed red with blood.
- Voltaire, 1756
It is also explained how trade spread Islam by it providing suitable customs and laws. Then how the Portuguese (Pedro Álvares Cabral and Vasco da Gama) finally navigated around Africa to find unarmed trade vessels and immediately exploited it with extreme violence - bombardments of random cities, torture of innocent traders, mass executions, extortion et cetera.
Later in the 16th century the English and Dutch stepped up to compete in spice trade and global violence:
Clove production was concentrated on the central islands of Ambon and Ceram so that it could be more tightly controlled; the ancient groves of clove trees on other islands were uprooted, the clove pickers massacred, and their villages burned down. Where clove production was permitted, the growing of other crops was outlawed, to ensure that the local people would be dependent on the Dutch for their food. [p. 99]
Similar regimes were established to control nutmeg and mace production. Locals were enslaved for workforce, power was ruthlessly enforced by mercenary samurai warriors hired in Japan and problematic villages razed.
Obviously, the slaves-sugar-rum triangle is discussed. And later in the book one of the first consumer boycotts when in the 1790 British wanted slavery free tea.
Part V: Food as a Weapon
Needless to say: this is a central part of the book for Ecowar scrutiny. But it contains only two chapters. Chapter 9 on how food crucially influences warfare and chapter 10 on how some conflicts have been entirely centered around food.
Chapter 9: The Fuel of War
This chapter explains how Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte won numerous battles thanks to superior logistics. And how the English lost the American Revolutionary War due to inadequate supplies.
The fate of Europe and all further calculations depend upon the question of food. If only I will have bread, it will be child's play to beat the Russians.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Starvation destroys an army more often than does battle, and hunger is more savage than the sword. [...] whoever does not provide for food and other necessities, is conquered without fighting.
- Vegetius, 4th century
If you occupy your enemies' storehouses and granaries and seize his accumulated resources in order to provision your army continuously, you will be victorious.
- Medieval Chinese military handbook
Besides stories of how food has influenced war we also get the story of how war inspired culinary research: Around year 1800 the French invented canned food for soldiers rations but failed to keep the technology to themselves. And it concludes with the stories of how sabotage of supplies helped settle the American Civil War and how the German General Rommel fought and lost his North African battles over and because of Middle Eastern oil supplies.
Chapter 10: Food Fight
Food is a weapon.
- Maxim Litvinov, Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1930-39
Beginning with the story of the Soviet blockade of West Berlin in the post-WWII era this chapter moves on to talk of the famines caused by Stalin and Mao. Thus, not a war story but some of the silent brutality of the Cold War.
"Milk... new weapon of Democracy". A 1949 ad for Douglas Aircraft Company.
Chapter 11: Feeding the World
Once fertilizer was invented it became the new limit defining factor in agricultural production. Hence subject of competition and conflict.
[...] huge deposits of sodium nitrate [...] had been discovered in Chile. Exports boomed, and in 1879 the War of the Pacific broke out between Chile, Peru and Bolivia over the ownership of a contested nitrate-rich region in the Atacama Desert. (Chile prevailed in 1883, depriving Bolivia of its coastal province so that it has been a land-locked country ever since.) [p. 204-205]
When Fritz Haber invented nitrogen fixation fertilizer could be produced chemically and natural deposits would not have to be fought over any more. Since then it has only contributed to the demand for fossil fuel as the process is energy intensive. Curiously, Haber also eagerly developed chemical weapons for the German war to use in the 1st World War - which drove his wife to commit suicide and earned him protests when later he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
From 20 to 40 young people in white masks attacked the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [RUS], Igor Podgorny [RUS] and Novaya Gazeta [RUS] reported. The police intervention didn't help – instead several environmentalists and journalists were detained.
Russian police on Friday detained two journalists and 15 protesters at a suburban Moscow forest where they have been living to try to protect the woods from destruction. [...] The forest in Khimki has been the focus of controversy for years over plans to chop down much of it for highway construction. Khimki lies on the increasingly jammed route from Moscow to Sheremetyevo International Airport and St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. A local newspaper editor who reported extensively on the issue was severely beaten in 2008 and left wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged. [...] The activists called the police at the break of dawn on Friday when a group of some 100 young men who had covered their faces blocked the campsite, thus allowing the [tree chopping in an alledgedly illegal area] work to resume, Moscow Regional police said in a statement.
“The police swooped down on us and detained us, acting in a very rude and harsh fashion and turning a peaceful event into a brawl,” [head of the Left Front group, Sergei] Udaltsov said
This is about neither war nor even a natural resource in demand. It's about a peaceful agreement over changes in nature: As climate change is melting the glaciers defining the borders of Switzerland the government is simply redrawing the European map in collaboration with Austria, Italy and France. Complete absence of trouble, it seems.
But what if the melting glaciers had been the main water source of the neighbourhood? And what if Switzerland had been in less friendly relationships with their neighbours? Such conditions - unfortunately - are less common around the world.
"Elsewhere in the world you see a much more nationalistic attitude" - Dr. Mark Zeitoun, Britain’s University of East Anglia
Namely the Himalayas are melting. This could lead to drastic changes and trouble. First of all an increase in Pakistani-Indian tensions. But ice is melting everywhere; faster and faster.
Arctic melt also leads to conflict as nations make their territorial pissings: armies of Denmark and Canada taking turns planting a flag and a bottle of booze on a icy rock next to Greenland, Russia planting a flag on the bottom of the Arctic sea.
Every outbreak of violence has its own distinctive origins and characteristics. All, however, are driven by a similar combination of anxiety about the future and lack of confidence in the ability of established institutions to deal with the problems at hand.
[...]
The riots that erupted in the spring of 2008 in response to rising food prices suggested the speed with which economically related violence can spread.
[...]
The cost of food is now closely tied to the price of oil and natural gas because petrochemicals are so widely and heavily used in the cultivation of grains.
[...]
zero economic growth in the developing world and rising food prices -- and you have a perfect recipe for unrelenting civil unrest and violence.
[...]
Statistical modeling shows that economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one to two year period
What hits Russian interests most is that if the Caucasian route materialises, the US would have consolidated its military presence in South Caucasus on a long-term basis. Ever since the conflict in the Caucasus in August, the US has maintained a continuous naval presence in the Black Sea, with regular port calls in Georgia. The indications are that the US is planning a carefully calibrated ground presence in Georgia as well. Talks are in the final stages for a US-Georgia Security and Military Agreement. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza visited Tbilisi for consultations in this regard.
Another dramatic fallout is that the proposed land route covering Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan can also be easily converted into an energy corridor and become a Caspian oil and gas corridor bypassing Russia. Such a corridor has been a long-cherished dream for Washington. Furthermore, European countries will feel the imperative to agree to the US demand that the transit countries for the energy corridor are granted NATO protection in one form or the other. That, in turn, leads to NATO's expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Not only about oil, of course. (To the US Republican John McCain it's about "some of the oldest churches in Europe" too - sic!) But check out this Polish article: The true price of war in Georgia
The conflict in Georgia has resulted in a serious undermining of the supply route for energy resources from the Caspian basin. [...] Governments of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan recently signed agreements with Gazprom on intermediation in sale of natural gas to external markets. On the other side of the Caspian Sea, the very same Gazprom is holding negotiations with Azerbaijan. The threat of a lack of supplies is real enough for Azeri Socar to stop the expansion of a gas storage facility outside of Tbilisi, which had been planned for a year.
With regards to oil, the Kazakh company KazMunajGaz is giving up on its plans to build a new refinery in its oil terminal in Batumi. [...] Bombs also fell mere metres away from the BTC oil pipeline. The Russians missed, but the threat was a clear one.
The article also discusses Georgian and Russian national economics right now.
A glance at the map will illustrate the country's strategic importance...
People are rioting in the streets over the spiralling cost of food, but what is causing the crisis?
[...]
There were street riots over the price of basic foods in Mexico and India last year, and in Jakarta, Indonesia, last week. China and Russia have slapped controls on food prices to prevent unrest and inflation. Low-income Americans are feeling the pinch of 10 per cent increases for bread, 19 per cent for milk. Italians boycotted pasta for a day last September in protest at a 7 per cent price ...
Danish bakery poster on rising bread prices. Doesn't mention "climate change" or "global warming" but blame the Chinese for buying our food, two years of bad harvests, biofuel, droughts in Southern Europe and empty granaries.
