The Exaggerated Threat of Oil Wars
By Emily Meierding
Sunday, August 2, 2020, 10:01 AM
The USS Montgomery navigates near a Panamanian-flagged drillship in the South China Sea on May 7, 2020. Photo credit: U.S. Navy photo by Naval Aircrewmen Helicopter 3rd Class Christopher Fred.
Editor’s Note: That states go to war to seize natural resources, especially oil, seems like a truism. However, Emily Meierding of the Naval Postgraduate School argues that such wars for oil are in reality exceptionally rare. In this post, based on her new book, she explains that the costs and risks of such conflicts are almost always too high for would-be aggressors to pay.
Daniel Byman
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Over the past year, Chinese seismic survey vessels and their paramilitary escorts have interfered repeatedly with Vietnamese and Malaysian oil and natural gas exploration in the South China Sea, harassing drilling rigs and support ships. These confrontations have prompted concerns that they could provoke a larger military conflict, especially as China exploits the unsteadiness created by the coronavirus to become more aggressive in its various international territorial disputes.
Happily, the historical record indicates that China and its neighbors are unlikely to escalate their energy sparring. Contrary to overheated rhetoric, countries do not actually “take the oil,†to use President Trump’s controversial and inaccurate phrase. Instead, my recent research demonstrates that countries avoid fighting for oil resources.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/exaggerated-threat-oil-wars
