For those of you who think that the Gulf War in 1991 wasn't about securing the oil supplies and that this current crises isn't mainly about oil, I refer you to:
Policy specialists George Friedman and Meredith Lebard argued in their influential book The Coming War with Japan, published in 1991:
“With oil, the Persian Gulf becomes much more than a regional issue. It becomes the pivot of the world economy. For the US, domination of the region would open the door on unprecedented international power. On the other hand, allowing another regional power, such as Iraq or Iran, to seize control of the region and consolidate its own power would close the door on the possibility, unless the US were prepared to wage a ground war in the region.
“During the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the US response was explicitly for one purpose: preventing Iraqi domination of the region’s oil supply. However, it opened up quite another possibility. Success of the US in retaking Kuwait, breaking the Saddam regime, and seizing control of Iraq would place the US in control of a large amount of the world’s oil reserves and production. No matter how benignly this power might be used, the US would emerge in control of the international economic system. ...
“...It would be in a position to set production quotas and therefore prices, as well as control the movement of oil. A country like Japan, dependent on the countries within the Straits of Hormuz for over 60 percent of its oil imports, would find that its greatest economic competitor—the world’s only large economy, and one increasingly bitter toward Japan—was in direct control of the Japanese supply of oil. ...
“...The leading political power, the US, suddenly finds itself in a position where its political power can be used to gain a hammerlock on the international economy.
“The Persian Gulf will necessarily become a center of controversy between the US and Japan. Japan’s vulnerability to the flow of oil from the area means that increased US power in the region must increase Japanese insecurity. The regionalization of conflict and the regional segmentation of economies will open an important door for the United States: the manipulation of Japan’s oil supply could well end the challenge that Japanese exports pose to the US.”[8] |
