Oil wars are old hat. They were useful for bootstrapping the system, but now that that is done we don't need them anymore. Oil wars are not preferred because

Oil wars are old hat. They were useful for bootstrapping the system, but now that that is done we don't need them anymore. Oil wars are not preferred because they are fairly transparent and therefore give bad approval ratings for politicians. The new system: Find a war torn area (perhaps one decimated by oil wars), dismantle their army and replace it with a wildly incompetent one. Make an earnest but fruitless attempt to train them (how humanitarian!). Give them American weapons (cha-ching) without actually solving any of the issues that were destabilizing the region. Local strive escalates to war, the incompetent army is crushed and their American weapons are seized. Use American owned and operated weapons (cha-ching) to bomb the seized American weapons back into the stone age (how humanitarian!). Rinse and repeat. War machine get's their money, and the politicians get to pretend that they are only trying to help others.