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For me it is extremely simple: They have an extraordinary amount of oil:Iraq,Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, natural gas: Libya,Iran or they are in the middle of st

by pipio21 10y ago

For me it is extremely simple: They have an extraordinary amount of oil:Iraq,Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, natural gas: Libya,Iran or they are in the middle of strategic places to build oil ducts: Syria, Afghanistan. http://www.energybc.ca/images/profiles/oil/reserves.jpg http://www.energybc.ca/images/profiles/oil/reserves.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g... The West needs much more energy that what they have. They have industry and without energy their society will collapse. Anything else is secondary. Most of those places are desert, and have not enough technology to protect themselves from Western (or Eastern)plundering. Those countries can only life in peace as protectorates from powerful industrialized countries, like Saudi Arabia(de facto protectorate of USA, its oil can only be paid in USD), or Iran(protectorate of Russia and China) or Syria(Russia). Libya itself had a lot of Chinese civilian presence, but not military. So UK, USA and France thought it was going to be easy to take the country by force, like they did. They also tried with Syria, but Russia had an army there. They tried hard, remember Assad having chemical weapons so the West needed to "save" and "free" the country? Putin reacted fast to that. The need of creating a fly exclusion zone(prior to the invasion, like in Libya), again Putin reacted faster sending his own airplanes.

pipio21 10y ago
One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse. There is a great relationship between having huge resources and war, violence and crime. The countries in Africa with less resources are the richest ones, because they had peace for a long time. War destroys any wealth people have and give it to a few guys. It also destroys al civilization and social structures.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  > One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse. Don't see any of them in a rush to give up their 'curse'.
nickik 10y ago
This is a way to reductionist view of the situation. Yes, oil is important, very important, but it completely fails to explain a huge number of factors that are in play. Your reduction of the middle east countries as simple 'protectorates' is also completely false. These are countries with their own opinions and politics and they are far, far more then just outposts of the more powerful nations. Seeing everything as a global power struggle will not lead to understanding of the situations. > The West needs much more energy that what they have. They have industry and without energy their society will collapse. Thats also completely false. Any analysis of this will show that even in a worst case of a huge war in the middle east, the changes in oil prices would not collapse the first world. It might cause a slight slowdown in growth, and that only in the short term.

by pipio21 10y ago

pipio21 10y ago

One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse. There is a great relationship between having huge resources and war, violence and crime. The countries in Africa with less resources are the richest ones, because they had peace for a long time. War destroys any wealth people have and give it to a few guys. It also destroys al civilization and social structures.

maverick_iceman 10y ago
> One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse. Don't see any of them in a rush to give up their 'curse'.

nickik 10y ago

This is a way to reductionist view of the situation. Yes, oil is important, very important, but it completely fails to explain a huge number of factors that are in play. Your reduction of the middle east countries as simple 'protectorates' is also completely false. These are countries with their own opinions and politics and they are far, far more then just outposts of the more powerful nations. Seeing everything as a global power struggle will not lead to understanding of the situations. > The West needs much more energy that what they have. They have industry and without energy their society will collapse. Thats also completely false. Any analysis of this will show that even in a worst case of a huge war in the middle east, the changes in oil prices would not collapse the first world. It might cause a slight slowdown in growth, and that only in the short term.