The oil that drives the US military
By Michael T Klare
In the first US 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, 2003, "Navy Seals [Sea,
Air and Land special forces] 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 - and the fighting is no longer bloodless. On
April 24, two American sailors and a coastguardsman 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 US
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 US 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 US 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 kilometers 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 America's 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 US troops
are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect the flow of petroleum. In
Colombia, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Georgia, US 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 US military is
increasingly being converted into a global oil-protection service.
The situation in Georgia is a perfect example of this trend. Ever since the Soviet
Union broke apart in 1992, US oil companies and government officials have sought to
gain access to the huge oil and natural-gas reserves of the Caspian Sea basin -
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 - the area encompassing Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Georgia and the war-torn Russian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and North
Ossetia.
US firms are now building a major pipeline through this volatile area. Stretching a
perilous 1,600 kilometers from Baku in Azerbaijan through Tbilisi in Georgia to Ceyhan
in Turkey, it is eventually slated to carry a 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 US 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 US 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 -
portraying them as concrete expressions of foreign exploitation and elitist rule in
Bogota, the capital - 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, US Army Special Forces personnel fro
m 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 770km route.
Oil and instability
The use of US 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 US 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
(mb/d). Domestic production is now running at about 9mb/d 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 administration of President
George W Bush desires, this downward trend will not be reversed.) Yet America's total
oil consumption remains on an upward course; now approximating 20mb/d, it's projected
to reach 29mb/d by 2025. This means ever more of the nation's total petroleum supply
will have to be imported - 11mb/d today (about 55% of total US consumption) but 20mb/d
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 such as 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 - 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 such as 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 US involvement in these areas,
and because the giant US oil corporations are seen as the very embodiment of US power,
anything to do with oil - pipelines, wells, refineries, loading platforms - 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
US 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 administrations of Harry
Truman and Dwight Eisenhower 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 Jimmy 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
the United States 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
George H W Bush to justify US intervention in the Gulf War of 199
0-91, and it provided the underlying strategic rationale for America's 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, US 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 Bill 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 George W Bush has built on this effort, increasing military aid to these
states and deploying US combat advisers in Georgia; Bush is also considering
the establishment of permanent US 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 US 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 US 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 US forces [in Africa] would be to ensure that Nigeria's oilfields, which in the
future could account for as much as 25% of all US oil imports, are secure".
An increasing share of US naval forces is also being committed to the protection of
foreign oil shipments. The navy's 5th 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 - 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 - the site of promising oilfields claimed by China,
Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia - 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. To increase the US 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 US 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 oilfields, pipelines, 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, Americans
will pay a higher price in blood for every additional liter of oil they 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). This
article appeared on Tomdispatch and is used here by permission.
(Copyright 2004 Michael Klare.)
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