Control of Resources; Supporting Dictators, Rise of Terrorism Author and Page information

Control of Resources; Supporting Dictators, Rise of Terrorism

Author and Page information

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• This Page Last Updated Monday, December 30, 2002

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/260/control-of-resources-supporting-dictators-rise-of-terrorism.
• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print version:
  • http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/260

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. The historic struggle for control of resources
2. The Middle East at the center for struggle over control of resources
3. A divided people; The West's support for dictators and monarchies over democracies
4. Globalization
5. Political leaders are in between a rock and a hard place; the struggle for people's support

The historic struggle for control of resources

As we saw in the previous section, for centuries, due to the power politics and struggle over the control of resources in the Middle East, various powers have supported numerous controversial regimes. The United States, Britain, France, and others supported dictatorships and monarchies, even overthrowing democracies.
To the populations back home the reason often given for this was for “freedom”, “stability”, “containing the Soviet Union” and so on. For the people of the region that had their popular leaders overthrown and replaced with corrupt rulers, this was surely not freedom. Communism was an often used reason around the world, not just the Middle East, even if it was not the case. As Noam Chomsky details, it was often a convenient excuse, but the underlying threat was often that nations might be able to use their own resources and be an example for others to follow.
Furthermore, what was going on around the world at the time of the end of the Second World War and the geopolitical changes that resulted are critical to understanding the policies and events in the Middle East. To summarize (notes for sources are below):

• With Europe weakened, the majority of the world, which was then under imperial and colonial rule, saw their chance to break free.
• Nationalist, revolutionary, and independence movements (some violent, some peaceful) all started to take hold and Europe had little ability to maintain control.
• The sole remaining power that was really intact after the Second World War was the United States.
• Allied with Europe, the U.S. helped them rebuild with a massive injection of capital. The U.S. was also an imperial power for the past few decades, as pointed out by numerous writers such as Mark Twain, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, J.W. Smith, Walden Bello and many others. The U.S. was now the de facto leader of the West.
• The Soviet Union, on the other hand, having faced the brunt of Hitler's forces, (some 80 percent of his armies), like Europe, had lost a considerable amount and had been decimated; there was between 7 to 27 million dead, much industry and infrastructure had been destroyed, much agriculture and livestock had been destroyed, and so on. Like most of the world breaking free, it did not have much economic assistance to rebuild, but was still able to recover quickly to partake in a terrible Cold War (see J.W. Smith quoted below, for more on this).
• Due to its rapid development and power, the Soviet Union additionally threatened to be an example for the other newly free nations that rapid independent development was possible. But this also meant a massive diversion of the traditional resources that had been flowing out of the global South, to those “imperial centers of capital.”
• To the West, then, the Soviet Union, from the start (decades earlier) was seen as “evil” while to the third world, it was perhaps seen as an example that independent development was possible. It may not have necessarily been seen as a direct model to follow (as its economic policies were flawed, even without the diversion of the Cold War, as well as the horrors and massacres resulting from the paranoia of Stalin, etc), but it was the idea that a nation could develop somewhat successfully, quickly, and without much assistance, that was a real threat to the West's historic source of resources. Indeed, the Non-aligned Movement was as such yet another alternative, for example.
• The “countryside” was reclaiming its resources.

The centuries-old view of the South, from the perspective of the West, was now changing. As Chomsky describes, almost with cruel humor, the South was viewed as a service provider, and if possible that was what had to be maintained, in order to preserve the wealth and balance of power:

The South is assigned a service role: to provide resources, cheap labor, markets, opportunities for investment and, lately, export of pollution. For the past half-century, the US has shouldered the responsibility for protecting the interests of the “satisfied nations” whose power places them “above the rest,” the “rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations” to whom “the government of the world must be entrusted,” as Winston Churchill put the matter after World War II.

— Noam Chomsky, Year 501, (South End Press, 1993), Chapter 2

As J.W. Smith points out, with the weakening of the former Imperial European powers from World War II, “Virtually the entire colonial world was breaking free and their resources would be turned to the care of their own people and no longer could be siphoned to the old imperial centers of capital for a fraction of its value.”
The result of this is further described just by the chapter title itself from J.W. Smith: The World Breaking Free Frightened The Security Councils of Every Western Nation, Economic Democracy; The Political Struggle of the Twenty-First Century (1st Books, 2002, Second Edition), Chapter 7. (The previous link is a link to the reposting of that chapter. The entire book can be read on line as well.)
This control of resources being the main concern was recognized by the U.S. policy planners and was a major aspect of foreign policy strategy after World War II. Consider for example, George Kennan, head of the US State Department planning staff until 1950, and his comments on US relations with Far East:

we have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population....In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity....To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives....We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
... We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. We should make a careful study to see what parts of the Pacific and Far Eastern world are absolutely vital to our security, and we should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that those areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on.

— George Kennan, U.S. State Department Policy Planning, Study #23, February 24, 1948. (See also Foreign Relations of the United States 1948, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1976 for the full text where this was first published; Thetext to the part on realisim of US relations in the Far East; David McGowan, Derailing Democracy, (Common Courage Press, 2000), p.169; Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, (Odian Press, 1993),Chapter 2.

The Cold War, then, as well as being a struggle against Communism, also provided an appropriate pretext for actions by the West around the world (led by the United States) that could be attributed to the claims of Soviet involvement, even if there wasn't any. Chomsky is worth quoting again:

[Mainstream comments about] the overthrow of the parliamentary Mossadegh regime in Iran, observed that “Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.” The service areas must be protected from “Bolshevism” or “Communism”, technical terms that refer to social transformation “in ways that reduce their willingness and ability to complement the industrial economies of the West,” in the words of an important scholarly study of the 1950s. Most important, the historical record conforms very well to this commonly articulated understanding of the role of the South.
“Radical and nationalistic regimes” are intolerable in themselves, even more so if they appear to be succeeding in terms that might be meaningful to oppressed and suffering people. In that case they become a “virus” that might “infect” others, a “rotten apple” that might “spoil the barrel.” For the public, they are “dominoes” that will topple others by aggression and conquest; internally, the absurdity of this picture is often (not always) conceded, and the threat is recognized to be what Oxfam once called “the threat of a good example,” referring to Nicaragua.

— Noam Chomsky, Year 501, (South End Press, 1993), Chapter 2

Many nations that were subsequently destabilized by the Americans, British and others were claimed to be due to this Soviet threat, but in many cases (not all), there was no Soviet involvement. In many cases, these were just nations that had gained their freedom trying to develop. In fact, many did not want to follow the Soviet example of centralized planning. (And, as J.W. Smith details in the above-mentioned book and further on in that above-cited chapter, the Soviets themselves realized that their economic system needed changes a few decades later.)
As Smith, Chomsky and others detail, some turned to the U.S. for guidance, given the very good Constitution and other principles. The U.S. helped in some cases, not in others. For some, then, where help was not available, they either turned to the Soviets (the other superpower which had resources to help), or to themselves.
Independent development threatened the loss of power, influence and cheap raw materials for the powerful nations. The Vietnam experience suggested that an empire of the type that Britain once had was not likely to be politically feasible. So instead, a new strategy was needed. As Stephen Zunes describes, “the Nixon Doctrine (also known as the Guam Doctrine or "surrogate strategy") came into being, wherein Vietnamization [reliance on South Vietnamese conscripts and a dramatically increased air war that minimized American casualties] evolved into a global policy of arming and training third world allies to become regional gendarmes for American interests.” Many rulers in the third world have been supported into power as a result.^{(* See below for some sources detailing this perspective and history)}

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The Middle East at the center for struggle over control of resources

The Middle East, then, has been quite important, geopolitically, due to the resources, and oil in particular.

• Because this has formed a backbone to the wealth of many nations today, maintaining control of those resources has been paramount. Hence, presence in the Middle East is for “stability” of oil flows:

  Saudi Arabia remains the cornerstone, producing 50 percent of the whole world's [oil] supply. So in order to keep this economic balm flowing, to keep the status quo static and the balance sheets of the major oil companies brimming, we've [the U.S.] installed our military as a kind of mega police force in the region. Our official reason for being there is to ensure “stability,” one of the great buzzwords in the history of business, but this is nothing more than spin — the military is in the Middle East to guarantee that whatever comes out of the ground is exploitable and controlled by American multinationals.

  — Johnny Angel, It's the Oil, Stupid, LA Weekly, September 26, 2001
• Any chance that those resources would be used in different ways is naturally a threat to those who currently benefit.
• Furthermore, was there a chance that the Soviet Union could get influence in the Middle East, resources would have been further been taken away from the influence and control of the West, as Smith highlights:

  The old Soviet empire had a long border with the Middle East. The desperation of the West to maintain control stems from the potential for those two regions to join. If that had happened, the Middle East would have had the weapons to protect their resources. The resources of the Soviet Union and the Middle East together would have been comparable to those of the West, and, by virtue of most of the world's reserves of oil being within the borders of those two empires, and thus the potential for high oil prices, a good part of the West's wealth could have been claimed by the East. Hence the West's large military expenditures to maintain control in that volatile region.

  — J.W. Smith, World's Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), pp. 294 - 295. It is also reposted on this web site as part of the previous section.
• As a standard policy of state, nations have to keep an eye on such things.
• In the geopolitically and ideologically charged chess games, such “threats”, if possible, must be “contained”.

The stronger, more powerful nations are obviously better equipped with more political, economic and military means. Therefore, they can be more effective in getting and ensuring their way. This makes sense from a power politics perspective. One of the main responsibilities (if not the main one) for heads of states is to ensure their nations “interests” are met. Diplomacy and so forth are directed by such interests.
Hence, as mentioned above, those “frightened” security councils were frightened at the prospect of losing more control. To them, their “freedom” was at stake. Yet, not mentioned to the populations back home was that this “freedom” was based on centuries of war and conquest and in the Middle East this was all about control of resources and geopolitical power. Hence, the freedom of some was based on “non-freedom” of others. (See also this web site's section on behind consumption which provides more statistics and details of economic policies that lead to this skewed use of resources around the globe.)
The United States and Western Europe were therefore prepared to protect one of the sources of their wealth and power. They was prepared to go to many lengths to do so. For example,

• Massive amounts of capital injection direct, and indirect, via Japan and international institutions, helped in developing and extending freedoms to various other East Asian nations. This would serve to “contain” threats such as Soviet expansion. Wars were fought, or dictators supported, if needed. (See Smith, Chomsky, Gowan, Bello, etc. mentioned below in the sources for more details.)
• Throughout Latin America and Africa, various democracies were overthrown and dictators supported, or malleable “pseudo” democracies were supported. (See the Noam Chomsky Archive, also mentionedbelow, for far more details, including detailed research on destabilization of various Latin American democracies that did not have Soviet influence that was claimed. See also this site's section on conflicts in Africa, and on the arms trade.)
• In the Middle East, control of natural resources has been centuries-old politics. It had not changed, although the players may have, slightly.

Indian author and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy, describes in the British newspaper, The Guardian, the result of American sponsored actions: “millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel — backed by the US — invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel's occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.” (Arundhati Roy, The algebra of infinite justice, The Guardian, September 29, 2001)
With almost all the above, as researched heavily by Chomsky, Smith and others, these were nations where there was a possibly successful independent development; independent from Western influence and, in many cases, independent from Soviet influence. However, the Soviet/communist excuse was used as a pretext for these interventions. Various well-known criminals and human rights abusers were trained by the United States, for example. The School of the Americas is a well known example of this, as also mentioned on this web site (see the previous link). The United States therefore participated directly, or indirectly, in many wars and conflicts. In the Middle East, it was no different. William Blum, investigative journalist, and former employee at the U.S. State Department, where he resigned in 1967 over the Vietnam war is worth quoting here:

The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States is “prepared to used armed forces to assist” any Middle Eastern country “requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism”. The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have exclusive influence over, the Middle East and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition “communist”.

— William Blum, Rogue State, (Common Courage Press, 2000), pp. 131 - 132

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A divided people; The West's support for dictators and monarchies over democracies

Already, before World War II, as mentioned in the previous section, various monarchs had been put in place in various countries whose borders had been defined mainly by British and French colonial administrations. Many monarchs were not even local. They were the ones that could be allied to the imperial rulers and counted on to control local populations. As Britain had learned for decades, and so sharply remembered by people of India, large populations could be controlled by relatively tiny administrations by “divide and conquer” tactics keeping or creating antagonism between local groups, keeping borders small and so on, so as to make uniting as difficult as possible. (Of course, it proved not to be impossible.) It is worth quoting Smith again, to highlight the geopolitical significance of this:

Once small weak countries are established, it is very difficult to persuade their rulers to give up power and form those many dependent states into one economically viable nation. Conversely, it is easy for outside power brokers to support an exploitative faction to maintain or regain power. None of this can ever be openly admitted to or the neo-mercantilist world would fall apart. The fiction of sovereign governments, equal rights, fair trade, etc., must continue. To be candid is to invite immediate widespread rebellion and loss of control.

— J.W. Smith, World's Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), p. 294. It is also reposted on this web site as part of the previous section.

(Side Note»)
In this web site's section's Africa introduction, it is pointed out how in 1885, the Berlin Conference saw the European nations create borders in Africa that met the interests of the Europeans, and allowed them to try to share the spoils of Africa between them. European culture at that time had already labeled the African people and their cultures as non-civilized and not having rights, and hence justified such things as slavery, carving up borders as they saw fit, etc. As mentioned earlier, Middle Eastern people (Arabs and Jews) were also likewise described in negative light for centuries to justify action and exploitation there.
European geopolitics in the earlier half of the 20th century in the wider Middle East region contributed to a lot of instability overall and to a similar carve up that Africa had experienced just a few decades earlier, and is still coming to grips with. The British Empire, especially, played a major role in the region. During World War I, in 1916, it convinced Arab leaders to revolt against the Ottoman Empire (which was allied with Germany). In return, the British government would support the establishment of an independent Arab state in the region, including Palestine. Yet, in contradiction to this, in 1917, Lord Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, issued a declaration (the Balfour Declaration). This announced the British Empire's support for the establishment of “a Jewish national home in Palestine.”
As a further complication, there was a deal between Imperial Britain and France to carve up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and divide control of the region. The spoils of war were to be shared. As in 1885 in the Berlin Conference where Africa was carved up amongst the various European empires, parts of the Middle East were to also be carved up, which would require artificial borders, support of monarchies, dictators and other leaders that could be regarded as “puppets” or at least could be influenced by these external powers.
But also as with Africa, the imposition of artificial borders, unpopular rulers etc would not be accepted without struggle and following World War II, the region became even more important for its energy sources.
In the Middle East, the Arab people had a common faith that bound them together. This meant that even more extreme measures for subjugation and control would be needed. One such result was the extremely heavy militarization of the region. Millions of dollars worth of weapons were poured in to support the puppet regimes. As described in the arms trade section of this web site, it is still the most heavily militarized region in the world, with the majority of military “aid” going to that region, from the powerful nations.
With harsh rulers and authoritarian regimes like the Monarchy of Saudi Arabia, or the Shah of Iran, counter-militancy and falling back on the most extremist interpretations of Islam resulted. Extreme militarization was resulting in extreme militancy and fanaticism.
As also detailed in the previous section, an Iranian revolution took hold in 1979 with the Ayatollah Khomeini and an extremist Islamic state being formed. In a documentary on PBS in 2000, (I do not recall exactly when, unfortunately), those women interviewed had initially supported the revolution because of the oppression of the Shah. They had believed that the revolution would lead them to a better future. However, in just a few years, they were to find that one form of extremism had been replaced by another, and women in general had not gained as they thought they would. (In recent months or years, it seems that the Iranian government is trying to become more moderate. Future developments, geopolitics and time will tell how that turns out.) Throughout the region, various human rights groups have documented the harsh conditions and lack of progress in development for many in those societies.
However, from this Islamic revolution (and other such struggles), combined with the feeling of hopelessness of other avenues, the perverted realization that Islamic extremism, anti-West sentiments etc may hold the answer, started to ferment.
In addition, as detailed further below, as part of the Cold War, the U.S. via Pakistan helped develop and train Islamic extremist mujahdeen fighters in an attempt to destabilize the Soviet Union. The religious call for mujahadeen fighters also attracted extremists from the Middle East (such as Osama Bin Laden and others).
The National Security Archives project at the George Washington University published declassified U.S. documents revealing the extent of U.S. propaganda efforts in the Middle East during the early years of the Cold War. While not as effective as would have been preferred, it gives an idea of the extent to which the U.S. was willing to go to gain support for geopolitical and ideological purposes.
Many in the region see the oppression from their leaders coming from the support by the West, America in particular. In some of the regimes friendly to the United States, some of the worst human rights abuses are described.
Turkey is one such example:

• While one of the more democratic regimes, it has had a long conflict with neighbours, and segements of its own people, such as Kurd separatists.
• As mentioned on this site, and pointed out by Amnesty International and others, there have been over 30,000 deaths in the last 14 years in the struggle and conflict against the Kurds.
• Yet, “the overwhelming number of these 30,000 deaths, not to mention widespread mutilation and rape, are the responsibility of the Turkish military”, as the British newspaper, The Guardian, points out.
• Turkey, as mentioned in this web site's arms trade section, is one of the largest recipients of US military aid.

Saudi Arabia is another example, as all these reports by Amnesty International testify to.
In other cases, regimes that have previously been friendly to the United States have been supported for geopolitical reasons, regardless of how they treat and rule over their people. Only when they have gone too far (i.e. affected “national interests”) are they demonized or in some ways regarded as hostile (often appropriately so).
Iraq is an example of this:

• As described by various links in this web site's section on Iraq, when Sadam Hussain committed his murderous acts of gassing Kurds and others in his own land, and in the war against Iran, using chemical and biological weapons etc, it was during the time of U.S. support of Sadam to wage war against Iran and the new revolution.
• The weapons and technology for biological and chemical weapons had come from the West.

  Side Note»

• The invasion of Kuwait and the resulting Gulf War allowed the U.S. to highlight these crimes but without mentioning how he had been able to get these means.
• Furthermore, the Gulf War saw the death of an estimated 200,000 Iraqi's, 100,000 of which were civilian.
• And since the sanctions, the United Nations point out that 1,000,000 people have died and UNICEF points out that some half a million children have died, some 5000 per month, to which Madeline Albright has commented on public television that this price was “worth it”.
• The U.S. and U.K. are largely the ones keeping the sanctions in place, despite objections from other nations and resignations of U.N. programme coordinators over this.
• These sanctions have turned out to be a weapon of mass destruction!
• Arab people throughout the Middle East are naturally infuriated to see their own people suffering (all while Sadam Hussein remains unaffected).
• See the Iraq section on this site for more details and sources. (See also Gowan, sourced below.)

Afghanistan is another:

• As is well known and accepted now, the CIA aided and funded terrorist regimes, such as the mujahadin and Osama Bin Laden, with the aid of Pakistan, to get the Soviets involved in Afghanistan and to ultimately help defeat them.
• The vile and extremist Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, accused of terrible human rights violations (especially against women), oppressive extremist religious practices, and so on. (See for example, all the Amnesty International Afghanistan reports for more details.)
• It is a large conduit for illegal drugs as well.

Some aspects have not escaped the mainstream media either. America's NBC, for example, captures the result of all this quite well:

At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback.

— Michael Moran, Bin Laden comes home to roost, MSNBC, Aug. 24, 1998

Roy describes a sickening twist of power politics in light of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11:

In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.) ... After all that has happened [with the September 11, 2000 terrorist attacks in America], can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan?

— Arundhati Roy, The algebra of infinite justice, The Guardian, September 29, 2001

Israel has always been a sensitive issue. For regional support, as mentioned earlier, the West has often sought support, in the forms of likeable dictators/monarchs etc. It has even supported and fueled wars against each other. Israel has been another country that has received enormous amounts of military aid.

• The peace process, the Arabs have felt, has been grossly one sided, with the influential U.S. constantly backing the side of Israel as pointed out by Chomsky in the previous link.
• Ordinary Arab citizens have additionally been extremely frustrated at their own leaders for not helping Palestinians.
• Those states or organizations that have provided support, including for example, Lebanon, the Hizbollah, Syria, etc. have been branded unofficially or officially, terrorist or “rogue” states. (Sometimes, justifiably, and such crimes should not be belittled, either.)

An often-heard argument in the West is that Arabs have got themselves in this plight because of their constant bickering and disunity. This is partly true, but this almost blanket statement negates this larger history and complications of political maneuverings and support for various regimes (by the West as well). (See this web site's section on the Palestine/Israel conflict for more links and sources on that issue.) Furthermore, a part of the disunity comes from the frustration and disagreement on how to handle what they see as unilateral U.S. interests in the region. Supporting Israel “no matter what” has further infuriated Arab citizens:

International isolation [of the United States and Israel] increased in the mid-1970s, when virtually the entire world endorsed a modification of UN 242 [calling for peace along with Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories resulting from land captured after the 1967 Israel-Arab war] to include a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Washington was compelled to veto a Security Council resolution to this effect in January 1976, to vote regularly against subsequent UN resolutions, and to block other diplomatic initiatives from Europe, the Arab states, the PLO, and others.

— Noam Chomsky, Israel, Lebanon, and the “Peace Process”, April 23, 1996

The following list from Stephen Shalom lists some specific incidents of U.S. policy in the Middle East since the Second World War ended. (The original article also points out that this list misses out other long term policies such as those mentioned above. Nonetheless, it begins to give an idea why there is anti-West sentiment and anti-US in particular, in the Middle East.)

• 1948: Israel established. U.S. declines to press Israel to allow expelled Palestinians to return.
• 1949: CIA backs military coup deposing elected government of Syria.
• 1953: CIA helps overthrow the democratically-elected Mossadeq government in Iran (which had nationalized the British oil company) leading to a quarter-century of repressive and dictatorial rule by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi.
• 1956: U.S. cuts off promised funding for Aswan Dam in Egypt after Egypt receives Eastern bloc arms.
• 1956: Israel, Britain, and France invade Egypt. U.S. does not support invasion, but the involvement of its NATO allies severely diminishes Washington's reputation in the region.
• 1958: U.S. troops land in Lebanon to preserve “stability”.
• early 1960s: U.S. unsuccessfully attempts assassination of Iraqi leader, Abdul Karim Qassim.
• 1963: U.S. reported to give Iraqi Ba'ath party (soon to be headed by Saddam Hussein) names of communists to murder, which they do with vigor.
• 1967-: U.S. blocks any effort in the Security Council to enforce SC Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war.
• 1970: Civil war between Jordan and PLO. Israel and U.S. prepare to intervene on side of Jordan if Syria backs PLO.
• 1972: U.S. blocks Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat's efforts to reach a peace agreement with Israel.
• 1973: Airlifted U.S. military aid enables Israel to turn the tide in war with Syria and Egypt.
• 1973-75: U.S. supports Kurdish rebels in Iraq. When Iran reaches an agreement with Iraq in 1975 and seals the border, Iraq slaughters Kurds and U.S. denies them refuge. Kissinger secretly explains that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”
• 1975: U.S. vetoes Security Council resolution condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
• 1978-79: Iranians begin demonstrations against the Shah. U.S. tells Shah it supports him “without reservation” and urges him to act forcefully. Until the last minute, U.S. tries to organize military coup to save the Shah, but to no avail.
• 1979-88: U.S. begins covert aid to Mujahideen in Afghanistan six months before Soviet invasion in Dec. 1979. Over the next decade U.S. provides training and more than $3 billion in arms and aid.
• 1980-88: Iran-Iraq war. When Iraq invades Iran, the U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. At the same time, U.S. lets Israel provide arms to Iran and in 1985 U.S. provides arms directly (though secretly) to Iran. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq. Iraq uses chemical weapons in 1984; U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq. 1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraq's side; an overly-aggressive U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.
• 1981, 1986: U.S. holds military maneuvers off the coast of Libya in waters claimed by Libya with the clear purpose of provoking Qaddafi. In 1981, a Libyan plane fires a missile and two Libyan planes shot down. In 1986, Libya fires missiles that land far from any target and U.S. attacks Libyan patrol boats, killing 72, and shore installations. When a bomb goes off in a Berlin nightclub, killing two Americans, the U.S. charges that Qaddafi was behind it (possibly true) and conducts major bombing raids in Libya, killing dozens of civilians, including Qaddafi's adopted daughter.
• 1982: U.S. gives “green light” to Israeli invasion of Lebanon, killing some 17 thousand civilians. U.S. chooses not to invoke its laws prohibiting Israeli use of U.S. weapons except in self-defense. U.S. vetoes several Security Council resolutions condemning the invasion.
• 1983: U.S. troops sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force; intervene on one side of a civil war, including bombardment by USS New Jersey. Withdraw after suicide bombing of marine barracks.
• 1984: U.S.-backed rebels in Afghanistan fire on civilian airliner.
• 1987-92: U.S. arms used by Israel to repress first Palestinian Intifada. U.S. vetoes five Security Council resolution condemning Israeli repression.
• 1988: Saddam Hussein kills many thousands of his own Kurdish population and uses chemical weapons against them. The U.S. increases its economic ties to Iraq.
• 1988: U.S. vetoes 3 Security Council resolutions condemning continuing Israeli occupation of and repression in Lebanon.
• 1990-91: U.S. rejects any diplomatic settlement of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (for example, rebuffing any attempt to link the two regional occupations, of Kuwait and of Palestine). U.S. leads international coalition in war against Iraq. Civilian infrastructure targeted. To promote “stability” U.S. refuses to aid post-war uprisings by Shi'ites in the south and Kurds in the north, denying the rebels access to captured Iraqi weapons and refusing to prohibit Iraqi helicopter flights.
• 1991-: Devastating economic sanctions are imposed on Iraq. U.S. and Britain block all attempts to lift them. Hundreds of thousands die. Though Security Council had stated that sanctions were to be lifted once Saddam Hussein's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were ended, Washington makes it known that the sanctions would remain as long as Saddam remains in power. Sanctions in fact strengthen Saddam's position. Asked about the horrendous human consequences of the sanctions, Madeleine Albright (U.S. ambassador to the UN and later Secretary of State) declares that “the price is worth it.”
• 1993-: U.S. launches missile attack on Iraq, claiming self-defense against an alleged assassination attempt on former president Bush two months earlier.
• 1998: U.S. and U.K. bomb Iraq over the issue of weapons inspections, even though Security Council is just then meeting to discuss the matter.
• 1998: U.S. destroys factory producing half of Sudan's pharmaceutical supply, claiming retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and that factory was involved in chemical warfare. U.S. later acknowledges lack of evidence for the chemical warfare charge.
• 2000-: Israel uses U.S. arms in attempt to crush Palestinian uprising, killing hundreds of civilians.

(See also works from the above-mentioned William Blum for a similar list as well. As an example, see his book, Rogue State, (Common Courage Press, 2000).)
This is not a complete set of examples, but not atypical of the region either. As also mentioned in the previous section, numerous areas in the region were carved into different territories with monarchs put there. Not all were necessarily oppressive in physical ways. Some restricted cultural, political, and/or economic freedoms. The net result was they did not (and do not) necessarily represent (or perhaps even respect) the actual people of the region entirely.
Furthermore, with the large commissions that accompany arms sales, and the heavy militarization, many accuse their leaders of being easily corruptible. There has also been frustration that the Arab leaders are divided, interested in their own power games within their region and hence unable to unite or present one voice on many issues, including Palestine/Israel.
In that respect, after decades of this, some have felt limited options of where to turn; religion has failed them, their leaders have failed them, those that tried are either seen as bought out, or isolated or in some way not delivering. Fanatics and militants see easy recruitment for their causes, as a result. Hatred is easy to teach. Extremist views are easier to preach (especially with the success of Afghanistan and the Taliban regime in fighting off the Soviets, another feared power).

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Globalization

With the Cold War over and the West victorious, globalization in its current form was able to spread further. Conflicts also broke out between nations that were within the sphere of Soviet influence, especially in Central Asia, where many were Islamic. Extremist regimes and organizations were involved in participating in those conflicts for separation.
In addition, with globalization, came the increasing spread of western culture to the global South. In the Middle East as well, western products and more importantly, culture, was coming in more so. While around the world, not just the Middle East there has been increasing concern at what is described as “cultural imperialism”, because of the extremes in the Middle East, for the extremists and fanatics, this has added to the concerns and anti-West feelings that have spilled into violent actions and hatred.
Hardly touched upon on this page has been the economic policies that have accompanied these geopolitical policies. Harsh Structural Adjustment imposition on the Third World for example, as described on this site (see previous link), has deepened poverty for most in the world. Walden Bello, professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, and co-director of Thailand-based research organization, Focus on the Global South, describes the harsh geopolitical ramifications well:

[T]he Southern policies of all the key Northern governments on the eve of the twenty-first century are marked by similar features. These include continued support for structural adjustment in the Third World; creation of a new Berlin Wall to prevent the entry of refugees fleeing the devastation of the South; exploitation of tribal fears of racial and ethnic minorities to deflect domestic attention away from structural causes of economic distress; and demonization of Southern figures or institutions, such as Islam, as the new enemy in the post-Cold War era. ... Not surprisingly, the dark vision of the twenty-first century as an era of North-South polarization between privileged white citizens and colored barbarian hordes, or between the Christian West and the “Islamic-Confusion Connection”, has begun to take hold in the writings of Northern intellectuals.

— Walden Bello, Shea Cunningham, Bill Rau, Dark Victory; The United States and Global Poverty, (Food First, Pluto Press, 1994, 1999), p.6

The political economy of globalization therefore has been accompanied by all nations vying to best represent their interests. Of course, the more powerful and stronger nations are better able to represent their interests, which can also have the effect of undermining others. The United States being the most successful and powerful nation on the international political scene therefore weilds incredible power and influence, as Professor Wade of the prestigious London School of Economics, for example, vividly highlights:

These power relations and exercises of statecraft are obscured in the current talk about globalization. Far from being just a collapsing of distance and widening of opportunities for all, the increasing mobility of information, finance, goods and services frees the American government of constraints while more tightly constraining everyone else. Globalization and the global supervisory organizations enable the United States to harness the rest of the world to its own rhythms and structure.

— Professor Robert Hunter Wade, America's Empire Rules an Unbalanced World, January 3, 2002

Because we live in such times, it is hard to see or accept that today's global political system, from the perspective of many in the third world, is a continuation of the system of previous decades and centuries, but of course evolved with its own nuances and complexities. Oftentimes, then, military solutions and other aggressive courses of actions are supported without understanding or considering the deeper and long term causes of various situations. S. Brian Willson, a U.S. Vietnam War veteran, now a peace activist highlights an aspect of this quite well:

The most highly decorated Marine Corps General in U.S. history, Smedley D. Butler understood all too well the real nature of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. foreign policy in general when he concluded after his retirement in 1931 that during his 33 years as a Marine officer operating on three continents, he served “as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers...a gangster for capitalism” [Smedley D. Butler, “America's Armed Forces,” Part 2, Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (Nov. 1935)]. But it seems that that understanding is easily forgotten. General A.M. Gray, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1990 identified threats to the United States as originating from the “underdeveloped world's growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations,” creating “a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies which have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources” (Marine Corps Gazette, May 1990). Gray understands the structural social and economic problems, but it apparently does not occur to him that the solution might be to directly address the injustices rather than perpetuate them with the use of military force.

— S. Brian Willson, Who are the REAL terrorists?, Institute for Policy Research and Development, 1999

Such factors in the Middle East on top of the heavy militarism and political oppression have also contributed to extremism.

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Political leaders are in between a rock and a hard place; the struggle for people's support

Political leaders throughout various regions, be it the Middle East, or Western countries, are in a tough situation, on many fronts. The following is perhaps an oversimplified number of fronts but gives a hint of the challenges:

The people front

Democracy or no democracy, people can and will only take so much. At some point, they will rise up and ask for their demands to be met. This can be via democratic processes, or through various movements, violent or peaceful.

The extremist front

There are always extremists on all sides, everywhere. They are able to exert some influence, to varying degrees and try to garnish popular support if possible. This can be very destabilizing depending on many circumstances and conditions.

The corporate/geopolitical front

There are various interests pulling at leaders to either do or not do something, in relation to some event. This might be to go to war, to enforce economic sanctions, some other form of diplomacy, or deal with such things coming at one's country from others. These interests are often not always the interests of the majority of people.

With various “fronts” also influencing the mainstream media of that nation/region, then other actors or some of these above actors can have more say, directly or indirectly. One such example is the arms industry, as mentioned in this web site's section on that issue. (See this web site's section on the mainstream media for more examples.) Such influences can affect popular opinions and create support or lack of support on various issues. Gaining popular support or convincing the population has been of major importance. For dictators etc, such propaganda also serves to try to minimize the risk of an uprising. For democracies, where the media's democratic institutions are weak or subject to influences, propaganda can create support.
Hence, in the West, our perceptions of the Middle East are subject to these influences in the mainstream media and elsewhere, just as we point out how the perceptions of the West in the Middle East are subject to influences of extremism.
As a result of these decisions, lives of ordinary citizens, be it the West, Middle East, or elsewhere can be affected.
Stephen Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, as well as a senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project is worth quoting here, in light of the September 11, 2001 atrocity and resulting actions:

To win the war against terrorism, we need to reevaluate our definition of security. The more the U.S. militarizes the Middle East, the less secure we have become. All the sophisticated weaponry, all the brave fighting men and women, and all the talented military leadership we may possess will not stop terrorism as long as our policies cause millions of people hate us.
President George W. Bush is wrong when he claims we are targeted because we are a “beacon for freedom.” We are targeted because the support of freedom is not part of our policy in the Middle East, which has instead been based upon alliances with repressive governments and support for military occupation. We would be much safer if the U.S. supported a policy based more on human rights, international law, and sustainable development — and less on arms transfers, air strikes, and punitive sanctions.

— Stephen Zunes, Bombing Will Not Make U.S. More Secure, Foreign Policy in Focus, October 8, 2001.

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(There are many more examples of incidents and support of regimes, overthrowing popular leaders and replacing with dictators etc, which are not mentioned here, but the sources and links provided detail. Over time, more will be added to this page. None of this justifies terrorism, violence, or killing of innocent civilians, but does try and provide some additional context.)

Additional Notes

* Some notes on the explanation of the Cold War, the threat of nations breaking free, using resources more themselves, and the continuing geopolitical struggle for control of access to those resources and the real containment, etc:
Numerous declassified documents also confirm this history, as well as works by many researchers for years. This has been understood for decades by peoples of the third world, even though this sounds completely opposite to what we have grown up knowing in the West. Yet, from the view point of the elite of the West, their claims were partly true; that is, their concerns were founded in some reality; that they risked losing their resource base from which a large part of their wealth came, from where the industrial engines for their economies were, and are, fueled.
The actions of the West, such as supporting dictators or killing civilians are always explained away as necessary to fight a larger evil, etc. Yet, other regions are not afforded such excuses (rightly so). It is to highlight though, that like any other regions and peoples, the West too have been involved in crimes against humanity. Hence, a more honest acceptance and look at this is needed to understand others perception of the West as well as better options and policies for the future, if peace and social justice for all is the end goal.
In the context of this page, looking at the geopolitical aspects of the Middle East and why there was outside support, I have of course glossed over many important aspects of the wider Cold War, while saying some things which may seem controversial and just treating it as a passing comment! Hence, the following sources, of course by no means exhaustive, are though, themselves very detailed and also provide many more detailed sources to follow for more information:

• Noam Chomsky Archive provides many articles and online books written by Noam Chomsky, a prominent political analyst. He is a professor of linguistics at MIT.
• Institute for Economic Democracy provides a detailed account of the last 800 years or so of the battles over the control of resources and the causes of poverty world wide (as well as ideas on how to solve them based on a more democratic and cooperative form of capitalism).
• The National Security Archive from George Washington University archives declassified U.S. documents, based on the Freedom of Information Act.
• Food First has published many books and articles that describe the gains made in development by various countries before they faced coups, destabilizations, overthrows of leaders and so on.
• Emperors Clothes web site provides a large number of articles on geopolitics and foreign policy issues.
• Peter Gowan, Global Gamble, (Verso Press, 1999), in particular, chapter 8.
• ZMagazine's MidEast Watch provides many articles.
• Walden Bello, Shea Cunningham, Bill Rau, Dark Victory; The United States and Global Poverty, foreword by Susan George, (Food First, Pluto Press, 1994, 1999)
• Killing civilians to show that killing civilians is wrong by Zoltan Grossman gives a briefing on the history of U.S. military interventions, in wake of the September 11, 2000 terrorist attacks on the United States.
• Elsewhere on this web site are other sections discussing related issues, where yet more sources are available:
  • Conflicts in Africa
  • Arms Trade
  • Military Expansion
  • International Criminal Court

I thought it would be worth also addressing what some might describe as conspiracy theory here. With the numerous films and television programs like The Matrix, The X-files, etc, it is easy to read all this and think this is some sort of elaborate conspiracy theory. It is not. In fact, as these sources also show, this is a deeper study of institutional powers, power abuse by states, ideologies and belief systems. From a Western perspective these are hard to accept (as I initially found myself), but from other cultures' perspectives (and digging back to understanding from my own Eastern culture's perspectives), these processes have been understood informally for generations, through unfortunate experiences. The sources listed above are more systematic analysis of such perspectives and also address this issue. For additional examples of discussion on these differences between conspiracies and analysis of power see the following:

• Conspiracy Theory; A problem to avoid by Michael Albert, ZMagazine
• Noam Chomsky Archive has a large collection of articles and on line books that relate to this issue as well.
• Bello, sourced above, in particular Chapter 1, pp. 3 - 4.
• Institute for Economic Democracy, mentioned above, provides a systematic look at the factors behind the struggle for the control of resources over the past centuries, including power politics, belief systems and so forth.
• Mainstream Media from this web site provides a look at some of the problems within the current system that affects the influences and perspectives that dominate the media. This does not directly deal with conspiracies as such, but looks at some of the systemic problems that affect a more open and democratic media. Concentration of ownership, for example leads to a reduction in diversity of views, and while there is intense debate and freedom of discussion within those views, reduction in diversity leads to narrowing perspectives, and easily missing out wider and additional issues, etc.

Does this imply the world's people are always doomed to power struggles by various regions, regimes and/or cultures? Well, with the scarcity mentality — that there aren't enough resources to go around, and we have to watch out for number one — and the fear of changing one's living standards, then perhaps yes. However, as described in the behind consumption section of this web site, there is such an incredible amount of waste of capital, labor and resources within the system (in part to maintain and support these power struggles) that the technological and other gains we have made in efficiency are not really being realized. And yet, for some time now we have had the means to share these gains, but also importantly, to eliminating the waste. Further, living standards would not need to drop much at all. On top of that, all can gain economic rights and freedoms, not just some twenty percent of humanity. A threat of this idea is that power and influence is shared and dissipated. Of course, summarizing an entire section here in a few sentences glosses over many details and problems, which is introduced in more detail in the above-mentioned section.
The last thing to quickly address here, is that with the mention of waste elimination and sharing in the previous paragraph and with the look at the power play of the Cold War, it is easy to conclude that my suggestions are some how Marxist or communist. I can only repy by saying they are not. In fact, the sharing of wealth does not mean totalitarian, centralized planning to ensure this happens. It does not mean taking away rights. It implies addressing excessive and unfair, or unequal, rights of some that have been at the direct expense of others. It implies elimination of subtle concentrations of ownerships and monopolies to allow a more cooperative and democratic capitalism to be given a chance. It implies extending rights to everyone, not denying rights to over half of humanity. For far more depth in this area, visit the Institute for Economic Democracy web site.
[Note also that the use of a country name or region often implies the government. That is, often mentioned is something like “the U.S. did this” or “Iraq did that”, etc, when it is usually implied to be the political leaders. This is commonly done in news analysis. (For example, a journalist might write, “Today Switzerland declared,” when obviously a given country itself is not capable of declaring anything!)]
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Where next?

Related articles

1. Middle East: A 1300 Year Struggle for Control of Resources
2. Middle East and North Africa Unrest
3. Control of Resources; Supporting Dictators, Rise of Terrorism
4. Energy Security
5. Crisis in Libya
6. Syria Unrest
7. Iran
8. Iraq—2003 onwards; War, Aftermath and Post-Saddam
9. US/UK Buildup for War on Iraq
10. Iraq—Post 1991 Persian Gulf War/Sanctions

See more related articles

Control of Resources; Supporting Dictators, Rise of Terrorism

Author and Page information

• by Anup Shah
• This Page Last Updated Monday, December 30, 2002

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/260/control-of-resources-supporting-dictators-rise-of-terrorism.
• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print version:
  • http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/260

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. The historic struggle for control of resources
2. The Middle East at the center for struggle over control of resources
3. A divided people; The West's support for dictators and monarchies over democracies
4. Globalization
5. Political leaders are in between a rock and a hard place; the struggle for people's support

The historic struggle for control of resources

As we saw in the previous section, for centuries, due to the power politics and struggle over the control of resources in the Middle East, various powers have supported numerous controversial regimes. The United States, Britain, France, and others supported dictatorships and monarchies, even overthrowing democracies.
To the populations back home the reason often given for this was for “freedom”, “stability”, “containing the Soviet Union” and so on. For the people of the region that had their popular leaders overthrown and replaced with corrupt rulers, this was surely not freedom. Communism was an often used reason around the world, not just the Middle East, even if it was not the case. As Noam Chomsky details, it was often a convenient excuse, but the underlying threat was often that nations might be able to use their own resources and be an example for others to follow.
Furthermore, what was going on around the world at the time of the end of the Second World War and the geopolitical changes that resulted are critical to understanding the policies and events in the Middle East. To summarize (notes for sources are below):

• With Europe weakened, the majority of the world, which was then under imperial and colonial rule, saw their chance to break free.
• Nationalist, revolutionary, and independence movements (some violent, some peaceful) all started to take hold and Europe had little ability to maintain control.
• The sole remaining power that was really intact after the Second World War was the United States.
• Allied with Europe, the U.S. helped them rebuild with a massive injection of capital. The U.S. was also an imperial power for the past few decades, as pointed out by numerous writers such as Mark Twain, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, J.W. Smith, Walden Bello and many others. The U.S. was now the de facto leader of the West.
• The Soviet Union, on the other hand, having faced the brunt of Hitler's forces, (some 80 percent of his armies), like Europe, had lost a considerable amount and had been decimated; there was between 7 to 27 million dead, much industry and infrastructure had been destroyed, much agriculture and livestock had been destroyed, and so on. Like most of the world breaking free, it did not have much economic assistance to rebuild, but was still able to recover quickly to partake in a terrible Cold War (see J.W. Smith quoted below, for more on this).
• Due to its rapid development and power, the Soviet Union additionally threatened to be an example for the other newly free nations that rapid independent development was possible. But this also meant a massive diversion of the traditional resources that had been flowing out of the global South, to those “imperial centers of capital.”
• To the West, then, the Soviet Union, from the start (decades earlier) was seen as “evil” while to the third world, it was perhaps seen as an example that independent development was possible. It may not have necessarily been seen as a direct model to follow (as its economic policies were flawed, even without the diversion of the Cold War, as well as the horrors and massacres resulting from the paranoia of Stalin, etc), but it was the idea that a nation could develop somewhat successfully, quickly, and without much assistance, that was a real threat to the West's historic source of resources. Indeed, the Non-aligned Movement was as such yet another alternative, for example.
• The “countryside” was reclaiming its resources.

The centuries-old view of the South, from the perspective of the West, was now changing. As Chomsky describes, almost with cruel humor, the South was viewed as a service provider, and if possible that was what had to be maintained, in order to preserve the wealth and balance of power:

The South is assigned a service role: to provide resources, cheap labor, markets, opportunities for investment and, lately, export of pollution. For the past half-century, the US has shouldered the responsibility for protecting the interests of the “satisfied nations” whose power places them “above the rest,” the “rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations” to whom “the government of the world must be entrusted,” as Winston Churchill put the matter after World War II.

— Noam Chomsky, Year 501, (South End Press, 1993), Chapter 2

As J.W. Smith points out, with the weakening of the former Imperial European powers from World War II, “Virtually the entire colonial world was breaking free and their resources would be turned to the care of their own people and no longer could be siphoned to the old imperial centers of capital for a fraction of its value.”
The result of this is further described just by the chapter title itself from J.W. Smith: The World Breaking Free Frightened The Security Councils of Every Western Nation, Economic Democracy; The Political Struggle of the Twenty-First Century (1st Books, 2002, Second Edition), Chapter 7. (The previous link is a link to the reposting of that chapter. The entire book can be read on line as well.)
This control of resources being the main concern was recognized by the U.S. policy planners and was a major aspect of foreign policy strategy after World War II. Consider for example, George Kennan, head of the US State Department planning staff until 1950, and his comments on US relations with Far East:

we have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population....In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity....To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives....We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
... We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. We should make a careful study to see what parts of the Pacific and Far Eastern world are absolutely vital to our security, and we should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that those areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on.

— George Kennan, U.S. State Department Policy Planning, Study #23, February 24, 1948. (See also Foreign Relations of the United States 1948, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1976 for the full text where this was first published; Thetext to the part on realisim of US relations in the Far East; David McGowan, Derailing Democracy, (Common Courage Press, 2000), p.169; Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, (Odian Press, 1993),Chapter 2.

The Cold War, then, as well as being a struggle against Communism, also provided an appropriate pretext for actions by the West around the world (led by the United States) that could be attributed to the claims of Soviet involvement, even if there wasn't any. Chomsky is worth quoting again:

[Mainstream comments about] the overthrow of the parliamentary Mossadegh regime in Iran, observed that “Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.” The service areas must be protected from “Bolshevism” or “Communism”, technical terms that refer to social transformation “in ways that reduce their willingness and ability to complement the industrial economies of the West,” in the words of an important scholarly study of the 1950s. Most important, the historical record conforms very well to this commonly articulated understanding of the role of the South.
“Radical and nationalistic regimes” are intolerable in themselves, even more so if they appear to be succeeding in terms that might be meaningful to oppressed and suffering people. In that case they become a “virus” that might “infect” others, a “rotten apple” that might “spoil the barrel.” For the public, they are “dominoes” that will topple others by aggression and conquest; internally, the absurdity of this picture is often (not always) conceded, and the threat is recognized to be what Oxfam once called “the threat of a good example,” referring to Nicaragua.

— Noam Chomsky, Year 501, (South End Press, 1993), Chapter 2

Many nations that were subsequently destabilized by the Americans, British and others were claimed to be due to this Soviet threat, but in many cases (not all), there was no Soviet involvement. In many cases, these were just nations that had gained their freedom trying to develop. In fact, many did not want to follow the Soviet example of centralized planning. (And, as J.W. Smith details in the above-mentioned book and further on in that above-cited chapter, the Soviets themselves realized that their economic system needed changes a few decades later.)
As Smith, Chomsky and others detail, some turned to the U.S. for guidance, given the very good Constitution and other principles. The U.S. helped in some cases, not in others. For some, then, where help was not available, they either turned to the Soviets (the other superpower which had resources to help), or to themselves.
Independent development threatened the loss of power, influence and cheap raw materials for the powerful nations. The Vietnam experience suggested that an empire of the type that Britain once had was not likely to be politically feasible. So instead, a new strategy was needed. As Stephen Zunes describes, “the Nixon Doctrine (also known as the Guam Doctrine or "surrogate strategy") came into being, wherein Vietnamization [reliance on South Vietnamese conscripts and a dramatically increased air war that minimized American casualties] evolved into a global policy of arming and training third world allies to become regional gendarmes for American interests.” Many rulers in the third world have been supported into power as a result.^{(* See below for some sources detailing this perspective and history)}

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The Middle East at the center for struggle over control of resources

The Middle East, then, has been quite important, geopolitically, due to the resources, and oil in particular.

• Because this has formed a backbone to the wealth of many nations today, maintaining control of those resources has been paramount. Hence, presence in the Middle East is for “stability” of oil flows:

  Saudi Arabia remains the cornerstone, producing 50 percent of the whole world's [oil] supply. So in order to keep this economic balm flowing, to keep the status quo static and the balance sheets of the major oil companies brimming, we've [the U.S.] installed our military as a kind of mega police force in the region. Our official reason for being there is to ensure “stability,” one of the great buzzwords in the history of business, but this is nothing more than spin — the military is in the Middle East to guarantee that whatever comes out of the ground is exploitable and controlled by American multinationals.

  — Johnny Angel, It's the Oil, Stupid, LA Weekly, September 26, 2001
• Any chance that those resources would be used in different ways is naturally a threat to those who currently benefit.
• Furthermore, was there a chance that the Soviet Union could get influence in the Middle East, resources would have been further been taken away from the influence and control of the West, as Smith highlights:

  The old Soviet empire had a long border with the Middle East. The desperation of the West to maintain control stems from the potential for those two regions to join. If that had happened, the Middle East would have had the weapons to protect their resources. The resources of the Soviet Union and the Middle East together would have been comparable to those of the West, and, by virtue of most of the world's reserves of oil being within the borders of those two empires, and thus the potential for high oil prices, a good part of the West's wealth could have been claimed by the East. Hence the West's large military expenditures to maintain control in that volatile region.

  — J.W. Smith, World's Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), pp. 294 - 295. It is also reposted on this web site as part of the previous section.
• As a standard policy of state, nations have to keep an eye on such things.
• In the geopolitically and ideologically charged chess games, such “threats”, if possible, must be “contained”.

The stronger, more powerful nations are obviously better equipped with more political, economic and military means. Therefore, they can be more effective in getting and ensuring their way. This makes sense from a power politics perspective. One of the main responsibilities (if not the main one) for heads of states is to ensure their nations “interests” are met. Diplomacy and so forth are directed by such interests.
Hence, as mentioned above, those “frightened” security councils were frightened at the prospect of losing more control. To them, their “freedom” was at stake. Yet, not mentioned to the populations back home was that this “freedom” was based on centuries of war and conquest and in the Middle East this was all about control of resources and geopolitical power. Hence, the freedom of some was based on “non-freedom” of others. (See also this web site's section on behind consumption which provides more statistics and details of economic policies that lead to this skewed use of resources around the globe.)
The United States and Western Europe were therefore prepared to protect one of the sources of their wealth and power. They was prepared to go to many lengths to do so. For example,

• Massive amounts of capital injection direct, and indirect, via Japan and international institutions, helped in developing and extending freedoms to various other East Asian nations. This would serve to “contain” threats such as Soviet expansion. Wars were fought, or dictators supported, if needed. (See Smith, Chomsky, Gowan, Bello, etc. mentioned below in the sources for more details.)
• Throughout Latin America and Africa, various democracies were overthrown and dictators supported, or malleable “pseudo” democracies were supported. (See the Noam Chomsky Archive, also mentionedbelow, for far more details, including detailed research on destabilization of various Latin American democracies that did not have Soviet influence that was claimed. See also this site's section on conflicts in Africa, and on the arms trade.)
• In the Middle East, control of natural resources has been centuries-old politics. It had not changed, although the players may have, slightly.

Indian author and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy, describes in the British newspaper, The Guardian, the result of American sponsored actions: “millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel — backed by the US — invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel's occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.” (Arundhati Roy, The algebra of infinite justice, The Guardian, September 29, 2001)
With almost all the above, as researched heavily by Chomsky, Smith and others, these were nations where there was a possibly successful independent development; independent from Western influence and, in many cases, independent from Soviet influence. However, the Soviet/communist excuse was used as a pretext for these interventions. Various well-known criminals and human rights abusers were trained by the United States, for example. The School of the Americas is a well known example of this, as also mentioned on this web site (see the previous link). The United States therefore participated directly, or indirectly, in many wars and conflicts. In the Middle East, it was no different. William Blum, investigative journalist, and former employee at the U.S. State Department, where he resigned in 1967 over the Vietnam war is worth quoting here:

The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States is “prepared to used armed forces to assist” any Middle Eastern country “requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism”. The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have exclusive influence over, the Middle East and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition “communist”.

— William Blum, Rogue State, (Common Courage Press, 2000), pp. 131 - 132

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A divided people; The West's support for dictators and monarchies over democracies

Already, before World War II, as mentioned in the previous section, various monarchs had been put in place in various countries whose borders had been defined mainly by British and French colonial administrations. Many monarchs were not even local. They were the ones that could be allied to the imperial rulers and counted on to control local populations. As Britain had learned for decades, and so sharply remembered by people of India, large populations could be controlled by relatively tiny administrations by “divide and conquer” tactics keeping or creating antagonism between local groups, keeping borders small and so on, so as to make uniting as difficult as possible. (Of course, it proved not to be impossible.) It is worth quoting Smith again, to highlight the geopolitical significance of this:

Once small weak countries are established, it is very difficult to persuade their rulers to give up power and form those many dependent states into one economically viable nation. Conversely, it is easy for outside power brokers to support an exploitative faction to maintain or regain power. None of this can ever be openly admitted to or the neo-mercantilist world would fall apart. The fiction of sovereign governments, equal rights, fair trade, etc., must continue. To be candid is to invite immediate widespread rebellion and loss of control.

— J.W. Smith, World's Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), p. 294. It is also reposted on this web site as part of the previous section.

(Side Note»)
In this web site's section's Africa introduction, it is pointed out how in 1885, the Berlin Conference saw the European nations create borders in Africa that met the interests of the Europeans, and allowed them to try to share the spoils of Africa between them. European culture at that time had already labeled the African people and their cultures as non-civilized and not having rights, and hence justified such things as slavery, carving up borders as they saw fit, etc. As mentioned earlier, Middle Eastern people (Arabs and Jews) were also likewise described in negative light for centuries to justify action and exploitation there.
European geopolitics in the earlier half of the 20th century in the wider Middle East region contributed to a lot of instability overall and to a similar carve up that Africa had experienced just a few decades earlier, and is still coming to grips with. The British Empire, especially, played a major role in the region. During World War I, in 1916, it convinced Arab leaders to revolt against the Ottoman Empire (which was allied with Germany). In return, the British government would support the establishment of an independent Arab state in the region, including Palestine. Yet, in contradiction to this, in 1917, Lord Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, issued a declaration (the Balfour Declaration). This announced the British Empire's support for the establishment of “a Jewish national home in Palestine.”
As a further complication, there was a deal between Imperial Britain and France to carve up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and divide control of the region. The spoils of war were to be shared. As in 1885 in the Berlin Conference where Africa was carved up amongst the various European empires, parts of the Middle East were to also be carved up, which would require artificial borders, support of monarchies, dictators and other leaders that could be regarded as “puppets” or at least could be influenced by these external powers.
But also as with Africa, the imposition of artificial borders, unpopular rulers etc would not be accepted without struggle and following World War II, the region became even more important for its energy sources.
In the Middle East, the Arab people had a common faith that bound them together. This meant that even more extreme measures for subjugation and control would be needed. One such result was the extremely heavy militarization of the region. Millions of dollars worth of weapons were poured in to support the puppet regimes. As described in the arms trade section of this web site, it is still the most heavily militarized region in the world, with the majority of military “aid” going to that region, from the powerful nations.
With harsh rulers and authoritarian regimes like the Monarchy of Saudi Arabia, or the Shah of Iran, counter-militancy and falling back on the most extremist interpretations of Islam resulted. Extreme militarization was resulting in extreme militancy and fanaticism.
As also detailed in the previous section, an Iranian revolution took hold in 1979 with the Ayatollah Khomeini and an extremist Islamic state being formed. In a documentary on PBS in 2000, (I do not recall exactly when, unfortunately), those women interviewed had initially supported the revolution because of the oppression of the Shah. They had believed that the revolution would lead them to a better future. However, in just a few years, they were to find that one form of extremism had been replaced by another, and women in general had not gained as they thought they would. (In recent months or years, it seems that the Iranian government is trying to become more moderate. Future developments, geopolitics and time will tell how that turns out.) Throughout the region, various human rights groups have documented the harsh conditions and lack of progress in development for many in those societies.
However, from this Islamic revolution (and other such struggles), combined with the feeling of hopelessness of other avenues, the perverted realization that Islamic extremism, anti-West sentiments etc may hold the answer, started to ferment.
In addition, as detailed further below, as part of the Cold War, the U.S. via Pakistan helped develop and train Islamic extremist mujahdeen fighters in an attempt to destabilize the Soviet Union. The religious call for mujahadeen fighters also attracted extremists from the Middle East (such as Osama Bin Laden and others).
The National Security Archives project at the George Washington University published declassified U.S. documents revealing the extent of U.S. propaganda efforts in the Middle East during the early years of the Cold War. While not as effective as would have been preferred, it gives an idea of the extent to which the U.S. was willing to go to gain support for geopolitical and ideological purposes.
Many in the region see the oppression from their leaders coming from the support by the West, America in particular. In some of the regimes friendly to the United States, some of the worst human rights abuses are described.
Turkey is one such example:

• While one of the more democratic regimes, it has had a long conflict with neighbours, and segements of its own people, such as Kurd separatists.
• As mentioned on this site, and pointed out by Amnesty International and others, there have been over 30,000 deaths in the last 14 years in the struggle and conflict against the Kurds.
• Yet, “the overwhelming number of these 30,000 deaths, not to mention widespread mutilation and rape, are the responsibility of the Turkish military”, as the British newspaper, The Guardian, points out.
• Turkey, as mentioned in this web site's arms trade section, is one of the largest recipients of US military aid.

Saudi Arabia is another example, as all these reports by Amnesty International testify to.
In other cases, regimes that have previously been friendly to the United States have been supported for geopolitical reasons, regardless of how they treat and rule over their people. Only when they have gone too far (i.e. affected “national interests”) are they demonized or in some ways regarded as hostile (often appropriately so).
Iraq is an example of this:

• As described by various links in this web site's section on Iraq, when Sadam Hussain committed his murderous acts of gassing Kurds and others in his own land, and in the war against Iran, using chemical and biological weapons etc, it was during the time of U.S. support of Sadam to wage war against Iran and the new revolution.
• The weapons and technology for biological and chemical weapons had come from the West.

  Side Note»

• The invasion of Kuwait and the resulting Gulf War allowed the U.S. to highlight these crimes but without mentioning how he had been able to get these means.
• Furthermore, the Gulf War saw the death of an estimated 200,000 Iraqi's, 100,000 of which were civilian.
• And since the sanctions, the United Nations point out that 1,000,000 people have died and UNICEF points out that some half a million children have died, some 5000 per month, to which Madeline Albright has commented on public television that this price was “worth it”.
• The U.S. and U.K. are largely the ones keeping the sanctions in place, despite objections from other nations and resignations of U.N. programme coordinators over this.
• These sanctions have turned out to be a weapon of mass destruction!
• Arab people throughout the Middle East are naturally infuriated to see their own people suffering (all while Sadam Hussein remains unaffected).
• See the Iraq section on this site for more details and sources. (See also Gowan, sourced below.)

Afghanistan is another:

• As is well known and accepted now, the CIA aided and funded terrorist regimes, such as the mujahadin and Osama Bin Laden, with the aid of Pakistan, to get the Soviets involved in Afghanistan and to ultimately help defeat them.
• The vile and extremist Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, accused of terrible human rights violations (especially against women), oppressive extremist religious practices, and so on. (See for example, all the Amnesty International Afghanistan reports for more details.)
• It is a large conduit for illegal drugs as well.

Some aspects have not escaped the mainstream media either. America's NBC, for example, captures the result of all this quite well:

At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback.

— Michael Moran, Bin Laden comes home to roost, MSNBC, Aug. 24, 1998

Roy describes a sickening twist of power politics in light of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11:

In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.) ... After all that has happened [with the September 11, 2000 terrorist attacks in America], can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan?

— Arundhati Roy, The algebra of infinite justice, The Guardian, September 29, 2001

Israel has always been a sensitive issue. For regional support, as mentioned earlier, the West has often sought support, in the forms of likeable dictators/monarchs etc. It has even supported and fueled wars against each other. Israel has been another country that has received enormous amounts of military aid.

• The peace process, the Arabs have felt, has been grossly one sided, with the influential U.S. constantly backing the side of Israel as pointed out by Chomsky in the previous link.
• Ordinary Arab citizens have additionally been extremely frustrated at their own leaders for not helping Palestinians.
• Those states or organizations that have provided support, including for example, Lebanon, the Hizbollah, Syria, etc. have been branded unofficially or officially, terrorist or “rogue” states. (Sometimes, justifiably, and such crimes should not be belittled, either.)

An often-heard argument in the West is that Arabs have got themselves in this plight because of their constant bickering and disunity. This is partly true, but this almost blanket statement negates this larger history and complications of political maneuverings and support for various regimes (by the West as well). (See this web site's section on the Palestine/Israel conflict for more links and sources on that issue.) Furthermore, a part of the disunity comes from the frustration and disagreement on how to handle what they see as unilateral U.S. interests in the region. Supporting Israel “no matter what” has further infuriated Arab citizens:

International isolation [of the United States and Israel] increased in the mid-1970s, when virtually the entire world endorsed a modification of UN 242 [calling for peace along with Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories resulting from land captured after the 1967 Israel-Arab war] to include a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Washington was compelled to veto a Security Council resolution to this effect in January 1976, to vote regularly against subsequent UN resolutions, and to block other diplomatic initiatives from Europe, the Arab states, the PLO, and others.

— Noam Chomsky, Israel, Lebanon, and the “Peace Process”, April 23, 1996

The following list from Stephen Shalom lists some specific incidents of U.S. policy in the Middle East since the Second World War ended. (The original article also points out that this list misses out other long term policies such as those mentioned above. Nonetheless, it begins to give an idea why there is anti-West sentiment and anti-US in particular, in the Middle East.)

• 1948: Israel established. U.S. declines to press Israel to allow expelled Palestinians to return.
• 1949: CIA backs military coup deposing elected government of Syria.
• 1953: CIA helps overthrow the democratically-elected Mossadeq government in Iran (which had nationalized the British oil company) leading to a quarter-century of repressive and dictatorial rule by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi.
• 1956: U.S. cuts off promised funding for Aswan Dam in Egypt after Egypt receives Eastern bloc arms.
• 1956: Israel, Britain, and France invade Egypt. U.S. does not support invasion, but the involvement of its NATO allies severely diminishes Washington's reputation in the region.
• 1958: U.S. troops land in Lebanon to preserve “stability”.
• early 1960s: U.S. unsuccessfully attempts assassination of Iraqi leader, Abdul Karim Qassim.
• 1963: U.S. reported to give Iraqi Ba'ath party (soon to be headed by Saddam Hussein) names of communists to murder, which they do with vigor.
• 1967-: U.S. blocks any effort in the Security Council to enforce SC Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war.
• 1970: Civil war between Jordan and PLO. Israel and U.S. prepare to intervene on side of Jordan if Syria backs PLO.
• 1972: U.S. blocks Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat's efforts to reach a peace agreement with Israel.
• 1973: Airlifted U.S. military aid enables Israel to turn the tide in war with Syria and Egypt.
• 1973-75: U.S. supports Kurdish rebels in Iraq. When Iran reaches an agreement with Iraq in 1975 and seals the border, Iraq slaughters Kurds and U.S. denies them refuge. Kissinger secretly explains that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”
• 1975: U.S. vetoes Security Council resolution condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
• 1978-79: Iranians begin demonstrations against the Shah. U.S. tells Shah it supports him “without reservation” and urges him to act forcefully. Until the last minute, U.S. tries to organize military coup to save the Shah, but to no avail.
• 1979-88: U.S. begins covert aid to Mujahideen in Afghanistan six months before Soviet invasion in Dec. 1979. Over the next decade U.S. provides training and more than $3 billion in arms and aid.
• 1980-88: Iran-Iraq war. When Iraq invades Iran, the U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. At the same time, U.S. lets Israel provide arms to Iran and in 1985 U.S. provides arms directly (though secretly) to Iran. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq. Iraq uses chemical weapons in 1984; U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq. 1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraq's side; an overly-aggressive U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.
• 1981, 1986: U.S. holds military maneuvers off the coast of Libya in waters claimed by Libya with the clear purpose of provoking Qaddafi. In 1981, a Libyan plane fires a missile and two Libyan planes shot down. In 1986, Libya fires missiles that land far from any target and U.S. attacks Libyan patrol boats, killing 72, and shore installations. When a bomb goes off in a Berlin nightclub, killing two Americans, the U.S. charges that Qaddafi was behind it (possibly true) and conducts major bombing raids in Libya, killing dozens of civilians, including Qaddafi's adopted daughter.
• 1982: U.S. gives “green light” to Israeli invasion of Lebanon, killing some 17 thousand civilians. U.S. chooses not to invoke its laws prohibiting Israeli use of U.S. weapons except in self-defense. U.S. vetoes several Security Council resolutions condemning the invasion.
• 1983: U.S. troops sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force; intervene on one side of a civil war, including bombardment by USS New Jersey. Withdraw after suicide bombing of marine barracks.
• 1984: U.S.-backed rebels in Afghanistan fire on civilian airliner.
• 1987-92: U.S. arms used by Israel to repress first Palestinian Intifada. U.S. vetoes five Security Council resolution condemning Israeli repression.
• 1988: Saddam Hussein kills many thousands of his own Kurdish population and uses chemical weapons against them. The U.S. increases its economic ties to Iraq.
• 1988: U.S. vetoes 3 Security Council resolutions condemning continuing Israeli occupation of and repression in Lebanon.
• 1990-91: U.S. rejects any diplomatic settlement of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (for example, rebuffing any attempt to link the two regional occupations, of Kuwait and of Palestine). U.S. leads international coalition in war against Iraq. Civilian infrastructure targeted. To promote “stability” U.S. refuses to aid post-war uprisings by Shi'ites in the south and Kurds in the north, denying the rebels access to captured Iraqi weapons and refusing to prohibit Iraqi helicopter flights.
• 1991-: Devastating economic sanctions are imposed on Iraq. U.S. and Britain block all attempts to lift them. Hundreds of thousands die. Though Security Council had stated that sanctions were to be lifted once Saddam Hussein's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were ended, Washington makes it known that the sanctions would remain as long as Saddam remains in power. Sanctions in fact strengthen Saddam's position. Asked about the horrendous human consequences of the sanctions, Madeleine Albright (U.S. ambassador to the UN and later Secretary of State) declares that “the price is worth it.”
• 1993-: U.S. launches missile attack on Iraq, claiming self-defense against an alleged assassination attempt on former president Bush two months earlier.
• 1998: U.S. and U.K. bomb Iraq over the issue of weapons inspections, even though Security Council is just then meeting to discuss the matter.
• 1998: U.S. destroys factory producing half of Sudan's pharmaceutical supply, claiming retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and that factory was involved in chemical warfare. U.S. later acknowledges lack of evidence for the chemical warfare charge.
• 2000-: Israel uses U.S. arms in attempt to crush Palestinian uprising, killing hundreds of civilians.

(See also works from the above-mentioned William Blum for a similar list as well. As an example, see his book, Rogue State, (Common Courage Press, 2000).)
This is not a complete set of examples, but not atypical of the region either. As also mentioned in the previous section, numerous areas in the region were carved into different territories with monarchs put there. Not all were necessarily oppressive in physical ways. Some restricted cultural, political, and/or economic freedoms. The net result was they did not (and do not) necessarily represent (or perhaps even respect) the actual people of the region entirely.
Furthermore, with the large commissions that accompany arms sales, and the heavy militarization, many accuse their leaders of being easily corruptible. There has also been frustration that the Arab leaders are divided, interested in their own power games within their region and hence unable to unite or present one voice on many issues, including Palestine/Israel.
In that respect, after decades of this, some have felt limited options of where to turn; religion has failed them, their leaders have failed them, those that tried are either seen as bought out, or isolated or in some way not delivering. Fanatics and militants see easy recruitment for their causes, as a result. Hatred is easy to teach. Extremist views are easier to preach (especially with the success of Afghanistan and the Taliban regime in fighting off the Soviets, another feared power).

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Globalization

With the Cold War over and the West victorious, globalization in its current form was able to spread further. Conflicts also broke out between nations that were within the sphere of Soviet influence, especially in Central Asia, where many were Islamic. Extremist regimes and organizations were involved in participating in those conflicts for separation.
In addition, with globalization, came the increasing spread of western culture to the global South. In the Middle East as well, western products and more importantly, culture, was coming in more so. While around the world, not just the Middle East there has been increasing concern at what is described as “cultural imperialism”, because of the extremes in the Middle East, for the extremists and fanatics, this has added to the concerns and anti-West feelings that have spilled into violent actions and hatred.
Hardly touched upon on this page has been the economic policies that have accompanied these geopolitical policies. Harsh Structural Adjustment imposition on the Third World for example, as described on this site (see previous link), has deepened poverty for most in the world. Walden Bello, professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, and co-director of Thailand-based research organization, Focus on the Global South, describes the harsh geopolitical ramifications well:

[T]he Southern policies of all the key Northern governments on the eve of the twenty-first century are marked by similar features. These include continued support for structural adjustment in the Third World; creation of a new Berlin Wall to prevent the entry of refugees fleeing the devastation of the South; exploitation of tribal fears of racial and ethnic minorities to deflect domestic attention away from structural causes of economic distress; and demonization of Southern figures or institutions, such as Islam, as the new enemy in the post-Cold War era. ... Not surprisingly, the dark vision of the twenty-first century as an era of North-South polarization between privileged white citizens and colored barbarian hordes, or between the Christian West and the “Islamic-Confusion Connection”, has begun to take hold in the writings of Northern intellectuals.

— Walden Bello, Shea Cunningham, Bill Rau, Dark Victory; The United States and Global Poverty, (Food First, Pluto Press, 1994, 1999), p.6

The political economy of globalization therefore has been accompanied by all nations vying to best represent their interests. Of course, the more powerful and stronger nations are better able to represent their interests, which can also have the effect of undermining others. The United States being the most successful and powerful nation on the international political scene therefore weilds incredible power and influence, as Professor Wade of the prestigious London School of Economics, for example, vividly highlights:

These power relations and exercises of statecraft are obscured in the current talk about globalization. Far from being just a collapsing of distance and widening of opportunities for all, the increasing mobility of information, finance, goods and services frees the American government of constraints while more tightly constraining everyone else. Globalization and the global supervisory organizations enable the United States to harness the rest of the world to its own rhythms and structure.

— Professor Robert Hunter Wade, America's Empire Rules an Unbalanced World, January 3, 2002

Because we live in such times, it is hard to see or accept that today's global political system, from the perspective of many in the third world, is a continuation of the system of previous decades and centuries, but of course evolved with its own nuances and complexities. Oftentimes, then, military solutions and other aggressive courses of actions are supported without understanding or considering the deeper and long term causes of various situations. S. Brian Willson, a U.S. Vietnam War veteran, now a peace activist highlights an aspect of this quite well:

The most highly decorated Marine Corps General in U.S. history, Smedley D. Butler understood all too well the real nature of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. foreign policy in general when he concluded after his retirement in 1931 that during his 33 years as a Marine officer operating on three continents, he served “as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers...a gangster for capitalism” [Smedley D. Butler, “America's Armed Forces,” Part 2, Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (Nov. 1935)]. But it seems that that understanding is easily forgotten. General A.M. Gray, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1990 identified threats to the United States as originating from the “underdeveloped world's growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations,” creating “a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies which have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources” (Marine Corps Gazette, May 1990). Gray understands the structural social and economic problems, but it apparently does not occur to him that the solution might be to directly address the injustices rather than perpetuate them with the use of military force.

— S. Brian Willson, Who are the REAL terrorists?, Institute for Policy Research and Development, 1999

Such factors in the Middle East on top of the heavy militarism and political oppression have also contributed to extremism.

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Political leaders are in between a rock and a hard place; the struggle for people's support

Political leaders throughout various regions, be it the Middle East, or Western countries, are in a tough situation, on many fronts. The following is perhaps an oversimplified number of fronts but gives a hint of the challenges:

The people front

Democracy or no democracy, people can and will only take so much. At some point, they will rise up and ask for their demands to be met. This can be via democratic processes, or through various movements, violent or peaceful.

The extremist front

There are always extremists on all sides, everywhere. They are able to exert some influence, to varying degrees and try to garnish popular support if possible. This can be very destabilizing depending on many circumstances and conditions.

The corporate/geopolitical front

There are various interests pulling at leaders to either do or not do something, in relation to some event. This might be to go to war, to enforce economic sanctions, some other form of diplomacy, or deal with such things coming at one's country from others. These interests are often not always the interests of the majority of people.

With various “fronts” also influencing the mainstream media of that nation/region, then other actors or some of these above actors can have more say, directly or indirectly. One such example is the arms industry, as mentioned in this web site's section on that issue. (See this web site's section on the mainstream media for more examples.) Such influences can affect popular opinions and create support or lack of support on various issues. Gaining popular support or convincing the population has been of major importance. For dictators etc, such propaganda also serves to try to minimize the risk of an uprising. For democracies, where the media's democratic institutions are weak or subject to influences, propaganda can create support.
Hence, in the West, our perceptions of the Middle East are subject to these influences in the mainstream media and elsewhere, just as we point out how the perceptions of the West in the Middle East are subject to influences of extremism.
As a result of these decisions, lives of ordinary citizens, be it the West, Middle East, or elsewhere can be affected.
Stephen Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, as well as a senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project is worth quoting here, in light of the September 11, 2001 atrocity and resulting actions:

To win the war against terrorism, we need to reevaluate our definition of security. The more the U.S. militarizes the Middle East, the less secure we have become. All the sophisticated weaponry, all the brave fighting men and women, and all the talented military leadership we may possess will not stop terrorism as long as our policies cause millions of people hate us.
President George W. Bush is wrong when he claims we are targeted because we are a “beacon for freedom.” We are targeted because the support of freedom is not part of our policy in the Middle East, which has instead been based upon alliances with repressive governments and support for military occupation. We would be much safer if the U.S. supported a policy based more on human rights, international law, and sustainable development — and less on arms transfers, air strikes, and punitive sanctions.

— Stephen Zunes, Bombing Will Not Make U.S. More Secure, Foreign Policy in Focus, October 8, 2001.

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(There are many more examples of incidents and support of regimes, overthrowing popular leaders and replacing with dictators etc, which are not mentioned here, but the sources and links provided detail. Over time, more will be added to this page. None of this justifies terrorism, violence, or killing of innocent civilians, but does try and provide some additional context.)

Additional Notes

* Some notes on the explanation of the Cold War, the threat of nations breaking free, using resources more themselves, and the continuing geopolitical struggle for control of access to those resources and the real containment, etc:
Numerous declassified documents also confirm this history, as well as works by many researchers for years. This has been understood for decades by peoples of the third world, even though this sounds completely opposite to what we have grown up knowing in the West. Yet, from the view point of the elite of the West, their claims were partly true; that is, their concerns were founded in some reality; that they risked losing their resource base from which a large part of their wealth came, from where the industrial engines for their economies were, and are, fueled.
The actions of the West, such as supporting dictators or killing civilians are always explained away as necessary to fight a larger evil, etc. Yet, other regions are not afforded such excuses (rightly so). It is to highlight though, that like any other regions and peoples, the West too have been involved in crimes against humanity. Hence, a more honest acceptance and look at this is needed to understand others perception of the West as well as better options and policies for the future, if peace and social justice for all is the end goal.
In the context of this page, looking at the geopolitical aspects of the Middle East and why there was outside support, I have of course glossed over many important aspects of the wider Cold War, while saying some things which may seem controversial and just treating it as a passing comment! Hence, the following sources, of course by no means exhaustive, are though, themselves very detailed and also provide many more detailed sources to follow for more information:

• Noam Chomsky Archive provides many articles and online books written by Noam Chomsky, a prominent political analyst. He is a professor of linguistics at MIT.
• Institute for Economic Democracy provides a detailed account of the last 800 years or so of the battles over the control of resources and the causes of poverty world wide (as well as ideas on how to solve them based on a more democratic and cooperative form of capitalism).
• The National Security Archive from George Washington University archives declassified U.S. documents, based on the Freedom of Information Act.
• Food First has published many books and articles that describe the gains made in development by various countries before they faced coups, destabilizations, overthrows of leaders and so on.
• Emperors Clothes web site provides a large number of articles on geopolitics and foreign policy issues.
• Peter Gowan, Global Gamble, (Verso Press, 1999), in particular, chapter 8.
• ZMagazine's MidEast Watch provides many articles.
• Walden Bello, Shea Cunningham, Bill Rau, Dark Victory; The United States and Global Poverty, foreword by Susan George, (Food First, Pluto Press, 1994, 1999)
• Killing civilians to show that killing civilians is wrong by Zoltan Grossman gives a briefing on the history of U.S. military interventions, in wake of the September 11, 2000 terrorist attacks on the United States.
• Elsewhere on this web site are other sections discussing related issues, where yet more sources are available:
  • Conflicts in Africa
  • Arms Trade
  • Military Expansion
  • International Criminal Court

I thought it would be worth also addressing what some might describe as conspiracy theory here. With the numerous films and television programs like The Matrix, The X-files, etc, it is easy to read all this and think this is some sort of elaborate conspiracy theory. It is not. In fact, as these sources also show, this is a deeper study of institutional powers, power abuse by states, ideologies and belief systems. From a Western perspective these are hard to accept (as I initially found myself), but from other cultures' perspectives (and digging back to understanding from my own Eastern culture's perspectives), these processes have been understood informally for generations, through unfortunate experiences. The sources listed above are more systematic analysis of such perspectives and also address this issue. For additional examples of discussion on these differences between conspiracies and analysis of power see the following:

• Conspiracy Theory; A problem to avoid by Michael Albert, ZMagazine
• Noam Chomsky Archive has a large collection of articles and on line books that relate to this issue as well.
• Bello, sourced above, in particular Chapter 1, pp. 3 - 4.
• Institute for Economic Democracy, mentioned above, provides a systematic look at the factors behind the struggle for the control of resources over the past centuries, including power politics, belief systems and so forth.
• Mainstream Media from this web site provides a look at some of the problems within the current system that affects the influences and perspectives that dominate the media. This does not directly deal with conspiracies as such, but looks at some of the systemic problems that affect a more open and democratic media. Concentration of ownership, for example leads to a reduction in diversity of views, and while there is intense debate and freedom of discussion within those views, reduction in diversity leads to narrowing perspectives, and easily missing out wider and additional issues, etc.

Does this imply the world's people are always doomed to power struggles by various regions, regimes and/or cultures? Well, with the scarcity mentality — that there aren't enough resources to go around, and we have to watch out for number one — and the fear of changing one's living standards, then perhaps yes. However, as described in the behind consumption section of this web site, there is such an incredible amount of waste of capital, labor and resources within the system (in part to maintain and support these power struggles) that the technological and other gains we have made in efficiency are not really being realized. And yet, for some time now we have had the means to share these gains, but also importantly, to eliminating the waste. Further, living standards would not need to drop much at all. On top of that, all can gain economic rights and freedoms, not just some twenty percent of humanity. A threat of this idea is that power and influence is shared and dissipated. Of course, summarizing an entire section here in a few sentences glosses over many details and problems, which is introduced in more detail in the above-mentioned section.
The last thing to quickly address here, is that with the mention of waste elimination and sharing in the previous paragraph and with the look at the power play of the Cold War, it is easy to conclude that my suggestions are some how Marxist or communist. I can only repy by saying they are not. In fact, the sharing of wealth does not mean totalitarian, centralized planning to ensure this happens. It does not mean taking away rights. It implies addressing excessive and unfair, or unequal, rights of some that have been at the direct expense of others. It implies elimination of subtle concentrations of ownerships and monopolies to allow a more cooperative and democratic capitalism to be given a chance. It implies extending rights to everyone, not denying rights to over half of humanity. For far more depth in this area, visit the Institute for Economic Democracy web site.
[Note also that the use of a country name or region often implies the government. That is, often mentioned is something like “the U.S. did this” or “Iraq did that”, etc, when it is usually implied to be the political leaders. This is commonly done in news analysis. (For example, a journalist might write, “Today Switzerland declared,” when obviously a given country itself is not capable of declaring anything!)]
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Where next?

Related articles

1. Middle East: A 1300 Year Struggle for Control of Resources
2. Middle East and North Africa Unrest
3. Control of Resources; Supporting Dictators, Rise of Terrorism
4. Energy Security
5. Crisis in Libya
6. Syria Unrest
7. Iran
8. Iraq—2003 onwards; War, Aftermath and Post-Saddam
9. US/UK Buildup for War on Iraq
10. Iraq—Post 1991 Persian Gulf War/Sanctions

See more related articles

Energy Security

Author and Page information

• by Anup Shah
• This Page Last Updated Sunday, May 15, 2011

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/article/595/energy-security.
• To print all information e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links, use the print version:
  • http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/595

Recent years and months have seen increasing attention being paid to the issue of energy security. There are a number of concerns and fears such as (though not limited to):

• Oil and other fossil fuel depletion (peak oil, etc)
• Reliance on foreign sources of energy
• Geopolitics (such as supporting dictatorships, rising terrorism, “stability” of nations that supply energy)
• Energy needs of poorer countries, and demands from advancing developing countries such as China and India
• Economic efficiency versus population growth debate
• Environmental issues, in particular climate change
• Renewables and other alternative energy sources

Energy insecurity combined with other global issues risks fueling conflict, repeating past mistakes in history.

This web page has the following sub-sections:

1. Oil and other fossil fuel depletion
2. Oil and Globalization
3. Reliance on foreign sources of energy and geopolitics
4. Energy needs and demands of growing countries such as China and India
5. Economic efficiency versus population growth
6. Need to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels
7. Nuclear as a suitable alternative to fossil fuels?
8. New resources for alternative energy; same old geopolitics?
9. Local renewable energy reduces violence yet may be a threat to governments
10. More Information

Oil and other fossil fuel depletion

Many fear that the world is quickly using up the vast but finite amount of fossil fuels. Some fear we may have already peaked in fossil fuel extraction and production. So much of the world relies on oil, for example, that if there has been a peak, or if a peak is imminent, or even if a peak is some way off, it is surely environmentally, geopolitically and economically sensible to be efficient in use and invest in alternatives.
Some may argue (ideologically) that markets will solve this problem. However, markets are good for making profit and allocating resources efficiently for that purpose, but that does not always mean that is good for the environment or for society or for other societies in other parts of the world. Furthermore, in reality markets are not perfect, so even if the theory holds, reality sees a mixture of politics, power play and corruption—even in the most advanced countries.

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Oil and Globalization

Canadian economist, Jeff Rubin, notes that the current form of globalization has two key parts to it:

1. Trade liberalization/lower tariffs, etc. to manufacture goods far away from where it is consumed;
2. Cheap oil to transport all those goods from far away.

High oil prices of recent years, therefore, threatens the current form of globalization:

Oil and The Death of Globalization, jyskebank, October 25, 2010

Would it be the “death of globalization” for everyone as Rubin says? Might the “everyone” be the “West”? It is hard to predict, of course. But consider this:

• Importing goods from far away depends who it is far from.
• Currently, China seems to be the main manufacturer for the world, and it is far away from Europe and America.
• A decline in American/European (or more generally, the “West”) dominance due to the current global financial crisis, the emergence of a few developing nations, and other related events, may affect theirability to afford that transportation (if alternatives to oil do not emerge quickly enough) and it may affect their ability to participate in a global system (that they helped forge).
• But if other regions develop, they may offset the decline of the “West”.
• In that scenario, it may be the end of globalization for the West, but it may still be some kind of globalization for the rest.

Also interestingly, and perhaps importantly, another implication is that even if there is a decline for some that is somewhat offset by others, the importance of “localization” may emerge, which could mean declining industries in the “West” may also be revived.
(The implications are wider than economic, too. Geopolitically, this “offset” may be violent; those with power rarely give it up easily, for example. Even if it is a reasonably peaceful transition where the West finds an alternative model or accepts a different role in the world economy, it will have cultural and social implications. Changing media, changing food habits (and sources), and more which a few generalizations and words here cannot begin to explain!)

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Reliance on foreign sources of energy and geopolitics

There has certainly been a recognition in recent months and years that energy security is a concern. Even US president George Bush admitted during his 2006 State of the Union speech that, “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology.”
Ignoring for the moment the irony that a major (though not only) reason that those parts of the world are unstable is because of US foreign policy there, there have been signs—for many years—that some major companies and industries, have been considering alternatives.
The other concern is that whether this drive or need for competitiveness will contribute to more intense rivalry between powerful nations as witnessed at the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, or whether this time we will learn from history’s lessons. So far, there is little to indicate that we have evolved into peaceful enough societies to not repeat those past disasters as growing inequality, extremism, power, drive for growth and profit, and our collective short memories all interplay. After all, the 20^th century has been described as “the century of war”, not peace. At the beginning of the 21^st century, the leaders of two countries that hold themselves as high examples of peaceful members of the international community decided to invade Iraq, without global approval or legal justification.
Some foreign policy decisions in past years are coming back to haunt advanced nations. For example, in order to destabilize the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the United States successfully encouraged, trained and sustained Islamic extremism and terrorism so that a relentless, religiously-driven resistance could counter the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
However, the kind of extremists that the US helped create included Osama Bin Laden. With these extremists returning back after defeating the Soviet Union, various events since have seen Islamic extremists resort to terrorist acts, alarmed at the military presence of the US in their holiest lands, the influences of western culture which they fear is against Islam, and so on.
As more and more developing countries industrialize, they will naturally want more energy to quench the growth thirst. This will see more involvement in international affairs, and indeed China and India are increasingly active in many regions around the world. Geopolitical issues, new and old, will therefore arise. For example, the Cold War years witnessed both the West and Soviet Union readily support puppet governments, even overthrowing fledgling democracies, in favor of dictatorships, if needed. This was often justified to the home population as being for the “national interest.” (Note, the US and other western countries also supported Saddam Hussein when he was committing some of his worst crimes against humanity.)
Legitimate stability and supply issues are also of concern. For example, places like Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, etc. all produce oil but present problems of varying degree for oil consuming nations, as concerns range from stable supply, to stable government. Others, such as Venezuela, “threaten” to use oil and its related profits to develop their own country and region even more.
Some countries such as the US have enormous military expenditure in part to protect global oil areas for their interests. A number of other large countries are getting more involved or active in the international arena due to energy related concerns, including China and Russia prompting a fear of a geopolitical cold war centered around energy security.
Already many talk about the US using the War on Terror in Asia, and its courting of India (a country with its own ambitions) as an attempt to contain China, for example. Russia has also flexed its muscle lately with neighboring countries as it has access to some of the largest sources of natural gas. China and US interest in parts of Africa are also viewed with some suspicion as some of these countries become sources of oil and other raw materials.
The rapid rise of developing countries such as Brazil, China, and India, will also see their increased interested in ensuring secure access to energy, and so a new geopolitical cold war is possible. Countries already powerful (such as the US) and some of these emerging countries will therefore have their own interests at stake.
The ironic part to this is that the Pentagon has become an enormous consumer of fuel itself, thus contributing to climate change worries, and increasing global energy security concerns as other large countries are emerging on the scene. Michael Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies, writes about the rising geopolitical battle centered around energy security, and notes that “the Pentagon is itself one of the world's great oil guzzlers, consuming 134 million barrels of oil in 2005, as much as the entire nation of Sweden.”The future could also see continued conflicts for resources. Thus fossil fuel dependency and wasteful use of resources will worsen climate change which already threatens to endanger many of the world’s ecosystems, raise sea levels, and affect food production possibly leading to resource-scarcity driven instability and conflict.

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Energy needs and demands of growing countries such as China and India

The western nations form a small percentage of the world population but consume far more resources. Problems such as climate change and energy depletion are thus largely caused by these nations.
However, as China and India also grow rapidly there is a fear that these countries’ demands for energy and resources will very quickly see the world’s natural resources stripped away even more quickly given their large population sizes. Some fear that already we are close to, or are already exceeding, the planet’s ability to replenish itself at a quick enough rate.
Some policies and suggestions therefore point fingers at China and India, that they must address issues such as population growth and be subject to emission reduction targets like the industrialized countries, etc. (And also watch for more defensive reaction from industrialized countries, for example, raising often legitimate issues—though often by vested interests—such as as human rights, corruption, threats of jobs, and so on.)
On the other hand, most developing countries (including China and India) counter that they have a right to development, and they have not been the ones wastefully pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for as many decades. (This principle was also agreed to by the rich countries, including the US, for example, when discussing the Kyoto protocol to tackle global warming, accepting common but differentiated responsibilities. Developing countries also promised to pursue a path of development that was less wasteful and inefficient as the already-industrialized nations’, one that would be more sustainable.)

© Centre for Science and Environment and Equity Watch

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Economic efficiency versus population growth

Another issue is whether it is population growth or economic choices (patterns of consumption, production, etc.) that drive resource depletion and energy needs. The former implies countries like China and India are major causes of problems, and the latter implies that economic policies, perhaps even fundamental economic ideologies may be major problems. Indeed, many have calculated that depending on how resources are consumed, the number of people the planet can sustain varies significantly.
A population-related argument serves rich country interest by focusing blame or concern of global problems at the developing countries. Arguing that by noting the right to development may appear to defend bad policies that are not sustainable for the environment. Clearly this is not a black and white issue, yet, rarely is the enormous waste of resources in our economic system, even in many industrialized markets, ever discussed.
It is common to hear of concerns about the thirst for energy, the growing number of cars, etc. in China, India and other rapidly developing countries. The concerns are indeed genuine, but rarely are changes to energy usage/efficiently, fuel consumption, or driving habits in the industrialized countries discussed, for it “threatens our way of life” even though that currently (and historically) has caused far more harm to the planet both relative to population size and in absolute terms. Instead, it is easier to blame nations such as China and India that have followed practices ironically encouraged by the industrialized nations.

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Need to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels

It would make strategic and environmental sense to pour more resources into the research and development of alternatives to fossil fuels. Fossil fuel-dependent industries cry foul of such suggestions, but governments poured billions into fossil fuel development (before privatizing those industries). Perhaps in a similar way, given those industries are now mature, they do not need such support, but other industries in renewable and alternatives could be created.
Dr. Hermann Scheer is a Member of the German Parliament since 1980 and was given the title “Hero for the Green Century” in 2002 by Time Magazine. He argues in a short video clip (2 minutes 30 seconds,transcript) that the reason why many still think renewable energy cannot replace fossil and nuclear power is because those working in these industries have made efforts to propagate the notion.

Hermann Scheer, Big Energy’s Last Stand, May 21, 2006, © Big Picture TV

The higher prices at petrol pumps in recent months may be a blessing in disguise if it makes consumers also think more about energy conservation and alternatives, for the market may respond to that.
Nuclear power is one alternative to fossil fuels that many nations are considering, given their efficient and environmental friendliness during operation. Many (not all) environmentalists fear the consequences and costs of accidents and radioactive waste and say it is not worth it, and that other renewable alternatives should be invested in, instead.
Despite environmental concerns, “demand for nuclear power plants is on the increase, and the International Energy Agency estimates that more than $200bn will be spent by 2030 on harnessing the atom for energy output”, notes the BBC. As an example, by 2050, India expects to have 25% of its energy provided by nuclear power, compared to the current 3%, according to another BBC article.
India and China are some of the countries that have recently made deals with providers of nuclear power plants, while others, such as Iran are criticized and obstructed from having such capability based on the fear that they may want to create nuclear weapons.
Many have called for a massive infusion of funds by leading governments and companies to invest in alternatives such as solar, wind, and wave power. Governments encouraging and even funding investment in these areas would be no different to the past where development of fossil fuel-based energy required a kick-start.Ars Technica summarized an International Energy Agency (IEA) report noting that

• Globally, we’re subsidizing fossil fuel use to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars (over $300bn in 2009)
• Fossil fuel subsidies are over 5 times the subsidies going to renewable energy ($57bn in 2009)
• Inaction on climate goals has added $1 trillion onto the cost of reaching them—in 2009 alone.

Governments will have to act fast to have any chance of getting us to the 450ppm goal that they claim to support. Due to the inaction that dominated the past year, the IEA estimates that it will take a trillion dollars more to stabilize the atmosphere at 450ppm if we start now than it would have if we’d started a year earlier. Any further delay would make matters worse, so much so that the report seems to conclude that it simply won’t happen.

— John Timmer, IEA: last year’s inaction on climate goals cost us $1 trillion, Ars Technica, November 9, 2010 (emphasis added)

This is a lot of money, but the pledges at recent climate change meetings seem far less ambitious. But trillions were quickly made available to tackle the global financial crisis as mentioned further below.Although alternative energy investment and subsidies seem to be small and at their initial stages, there may already be signs of pay-off; some are finding that solar power is now cheaper than nuclear power — at least in North Carolina, USA. Some of the factors include the steady decline in costs for solar photovoltaic systems while projected costs for new nuclear plants continue rising.
As part of a growing trend for renewable energy, many US states are developing off-shore wind to complement solar energy as this is seen as more efficient than large nuclear power plants and fossil fuel provision. Although the idea of nuclear energy has been more palatable in recent times, this perhaps shows an alternative energy policy may have its advantages; Iran, for example could be persuaded to pursue this avenue (as could existing nuclear powers who are large fossil fuel users, too).The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted in 2008 that renewable energy contributed to a huge 12.9% of global primary energy supply in 2008, while nuclear power, for example, contributed just 2% when comparing the “direct equivalent” of supply. (Oil, gas and coal combined were the rest at 85.1%):

Shares of energy sources in total global primary energy supply in 200 Special Report Renewable Energy Sources (SRREN) — Summary for Policy Makers , IPCC, May 2011, p. 6

Note, without the direct equivalent accounting method used above, nuclear power, for example accounts for 12 to 13% total world electricity supply but the IPCC explains the use of “direct equivalent” to also include their heating value so it is primary energy not just electricity. The IPCC noted that renewable energy contributed approximately 19% of global electricity supply. (p.5)
The vast majority of renewables is biomass, meaning burning wood, using animal dung etc but also includes commercial production of bioenergy. The IPCC noted that some 60% of biomass is used in cooking and heating applications in developing countries though there is rapid increase in using modern biomass. Compared to global primary energy, however, direct solar energy (0.1%), wind power (0.2%) and somewhat questionable hydropower (2.3%) are minuscule but use differs significantly in different parts of the world.
As the above IPCC report also notes, the costs of renewable energies are declining all the time and will continue to decline as more and more is deployed. At present, the cost can be higher than other sources of energy which puts some people off the idea that they could be a viable, large scale alternative to nuclear power.
However, fossil fuels are increasing in price while the cost of renewables continue to decline and become more and more competitive, so as the IPCC also urges, it makes economic sense to give it a political push too to help provide a significant boost as there is huge potential although there are still many challenges ahead.Those favoring a strict neoliberal economic ideology will argue that the state should not interfere in markets, yet history shows that the market has hardly ever functioned without the state, and indeed the state has often been the major reason a market has even appeared. For democratic countries, governments subsidizing renewable and alternatives could reflect the desires of many of that nation’s constituents. If fossil fuel companies fear competition, they should (and many are) become more active in this area, but not stifle important and urgent debate and research.

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Nuclear as a suitable alternative to fossil fuels?

Although nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl, or geopolitical issues such as Iran are often cause for worry when talking of using nuclear energy, recent years have seen an emergent debate about the potential that nuclear energy offers as a large scale alternative to fossil fuels in a world where energy demands are rapidly increasing.
For some, the risks associated with the technology are too high and renewable energy is far safer, and has high potential. For others, nuclear is seen as either an unfortunate reality that will be essential part of the future mix or an area that has further potential.
When one of the biggest earthquakes on record followed by a devastating tsunami affected Japan in March 2011, some of the older nuclear power reactors at Fukushima suffered what eventually was realized as a nuclear meltdown. Of the numerous issues that the disaster raised, nuclear policy became an issue in many places around the world.
Japan’s nuclear reactors that suffered from the incredibly huge earthquake were the older models. Nuclear experts point out that the newer designs are much more robust. Many are still worried however. Even if newer ones are more robust, if an even more powerful earthquake does occur then are those going to be safe?
Civil society started to debate nuclear power in Japan more. Japan had about 30% of its electricity from nuclear power and had originally planned to increase that to 50%. However, given the growing concerns in the wake of the impacts at Fukushima, in May, Japan announced a change in strategy: abandon plans for half of Japan’s electricity to come from nuclear and instead look to renewables such as solar and wind energy.
But this has also got other regions around the world thinking about their nuclear energy strategies, too. For example,

• Many countries in Europe have been rethinking nuclear policies, Inter Press Service (IPS) notes. Germany in particular (more below). France, more reliant on nuclear power than any other country, has so far felt no need to change its nuclear power policy though anti-nuclear voices are growing louder. There are concerns about the use of nuclear power in seismic zones in some EU countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovenia.
• Italy — the only leading industrialized country without nuclear energy — also suspended its previous plans to build new nuclear power plants.
• IPS also noted that the European Union’ announcement that it will be carrying out stress tests on all 143 nuclear reactors in operation in the member countries. These tests could lead to shutting down several nuclear power plants, if needed.
• Germany has been profoundly affected by Fukushima, IPS also adds.
  • After the Japan catastrophe, some 60,000 people gathered in an anti-nuclear demonstration at the oldest nuclear power plant, in Berlin. Many thousands demonstrated on other days, too.
  • Previous ruling parties had decided to phase out nuclear power, but Angela Merkel’s government had always stated it would overrule it if it came into power and it did so last September.
  • Another IPS report notes that a large number of environmental and energy experts have said that Germany could do without nuclear power by the mid 2020s and generate all its electricity needs from renewables by 2050.
  • In mid-March, Germany “stunned” the world when announcing an accelerated phasing out of all 17 German nuclear reactors as an immediate reaction to the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The chancellor now says she wants to slash the use of coal, speed up approvals for renewable energy investments, and reduce CO2 emissions drastically.
  • (Perhaps it is not as surprising as it first seems, as back in 2009 IPS noted that half of all Germany’s nuclear reactors had technical problems at some point in July 2009, failing to provide any electricity, but Germany did not suffer any power shortages as it produces more than it uses.)
• France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, more than any other nation in the world. But in the wake of Fukushima, the French press, traditionally a supporter of nuclear power noted that in the previous year alone, there were over 1,000 accidents of different intensity in the France’s atomic power plants.. In addition, several French nuclear power plants are located in seismic zones as the previousIPS story notes. Given France’s dependency on nuclear power, it defends the use of it for now. Aging power plants are coming under more scrutiny now, however. Some experts there also believe that a combination of turning to renewals, while addressing wasteful and superfluous consumption could help reduce nuclear dependency.
• The US is also beginning to debate if it could handle a similar nuclear disaster. It is a large producer of nuclear power, and for now has put aside calls for a moratorium on nuclear power development in favor strengthening and assuring the public of the safety of its nuclear power plants.
• Philippines President Benigno Aquino has rejected the need for nuclear energy in his country in the wake of the crisis unfolding in Japan. Aquino wants a greater push towards non-nuclear energy sources, according to the Philippines media. The same article also notes that China, Thailand and Indonesia are all being more cautious in light of the events in Japan.

Others, however, are still interested in going ahead with nuclear power as many countries still see it as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Australia, as a major uranium exporter, is therefore keen to capitalize on this continued demand for nuclear power.

Villagers oppose India’s nuclear park, Al Jazeera, March 20, 2011

As IPS also added, prior to the Japanese radiation emergency, the IAEA anticipated that up to 25 countries that do not have a nuclear power station at present would have access to the technology by 2030. How many will still go for it, and to what extent is of course less clear now. Some nations still interested in the option to aggressively expand nuclear power plants (though still announcing more caution) include India,Vietnam, and a much more cautious Thailand and Indonesia.
During the initial media blitz as people at Fukushima were going through various attempts to stabilize the situation, various nuclear experts appeared on television noting that newer power plants are much more modern than the ones suffering the most in Fukushima and that in some parts of the world that are not in earthquake zones, nuclear power remains a viable option.
That being said, as The Guardian has implied, if the 3^rd and 4^th largest economies in the world (Japan and Germany) can rethink nuclear power to such an extent and entertain renewables at a much larger scale, then maybe so can many others.
But as by the IPCC report mentioned earlier, the transition to renewables also brings with it challenges, including technical, social, economic, political and geopolitical ones.

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New resources for alternative energy; same old geopolitics?

Automakers are looking into the next generation electric or hybrid cars. The main resource for the battery would be lithium, already used in smaller electronic devices and far more efficient and longer-lasting than regular batteries.
Almost half the world’s lithium is found in Bolivia, and as The Seattle Times notes, Bolivia is reluctant to give up lithium resources too easily.
Bolivia and the US have had thorny relations as the democratically elected socialist and indigenous leader, Evo Morales, has nationalized oil and gas companies, much to the disappointment of the US, and with general support from his population as he attempts to slowly develop the extremely poor nation.
This means that the European Union and Japan have been trying to court Bolivia in the hopes they can invest in lithium extraction.
But as this PBS video highlights, geopolitics are again the concern; Bolivia fears that others will exploit it for rich resources, just as most resource-rich nations have been plundered/exploited in the past. It may be that this time the exploitation may not be as violent as during imperial and colonial times, but resource-rich/economically-poor nations like Bolivia are understandably hesitant to give up a valuable resource without local benefits.
So it seems that Bolivia is trying hard to understand the resource more and possibly develop local capacity so that it is not just a raw resource provider, but can go further and process the resources, with much if not all proceeds helping local populations:

In Bolivia, debate over natural resources rages on, PBS, April 17, 2009

Here is an additional video (in Spanish, with English captioning) that also looks at this issue:

As Cars Go Green, Bolivia Hits the Jackpot with Lithium, Video Journalism Movement, November 5, 2009

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Local renewable energy reduces violence yet may be a threat to governments

One of the interesting aspects to alternatives to fossil fuels is if any of those alternatives can by generated by citizens themselves or in more localized settings, rather than relying on governments or massive industry to supply such alternatives.
If that were to happen, it implies enormous political change. This is summarized quite well by the following article that looks at the implication of Cold Fusion becoming reality (ignoring the debate and controversy about Cold Fusion claims for the moment):

Suddenly, certain areas of the world that have built up economies based on oil production would become less important. These areas might suffer economically. However, it would take a period of time for the world to transition to a cold fusion based economy and these nations would have years to prepare.
The “powers that be” also might not like the idea that this technology could give individuals, communities, cities, states, and small countries energy independence. Cheap energy represents unlimited wealth and wealth brings power. The powers that be do not like sharing power. A technology that could give people the ability to live “off the grid”, start self sufficient communities, or liberate themselves from oppressive central governments might be considered a threat.
This technology literally gives power to the people. How will the governments of the world respond to that?

— Hank Mills, Future Impact of Rossi’s Cold Fusion, Pure Energy Systems News, February 28, 2011

Writing just before the mid-east unrest started to take hold of mainstream attention at the beginning of 2011, Phil Champain wrote in openDemocracy.net that centralized energy production contributes to violence and instability:

Elite capture of oil and gas revenues keeps power in the hands of an unaccountable few; the withholding of oil and gas supplies enables some states to manipulate others; and the extraction of resources is sometimes only possible if large numbers of people are forcibly moved from their homes. These and other factors can lead to violence and instability, inhibiting development and security for vulnerable communities.
… It is by no means certain … that … new, large scale renewable projects will benefit the peace and development prospects of countries already exposed to vulnerability, conflict and weak governance.
There are, by comparison, small-scale renewable energy projects, from farm biogas to mini-hydro to thermal solar power. [Solar power] is essentially limitless and so, in a concentrated form under local control with falling costs, becomes affordable, accessible, and likely to reduce pressures which give rise to violence. However, the relationship between small scale models of energy provision and the ability of states and communities to manage tension and violence also needs further research and exploration.
Now is the time to explore these links.
…

— Phil Champain, Changing energy provision – a peacebuilding opportunity?, openDemocracy.net, 3 January 2011

And if these alternatives are not explored?

The cost of not taking this opportunity is likely to be a continuation of systems of energy provision which privilege the northern hemisphere over the south, which deny large sections of the world’s population access to electricity and other forms of energy, which leave the populations of conflict affected countries vulnerable to authoritarian masters, unenlightened energy companies and the increasingly energy hungry states of the north, and which make little contribution to the governance challenges the world faces. This despite the key role energy plays in the development of our societies.

— Phil Champain, Changing energy provision – a peacebuilding opportunity?, openDemocracy.net, 3 January 2011

It was thought that the global financial crisis and climate change was a “perfect storm” to kick start an earnest look into alternative energy. There has certainly be an increase in recent years into this, but now theunrest in the middle east surely adds to the importance of this issue.

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More Information

Many people have recently asked me to write about this topic, and unfortunately lack of spare time has prevented me from writing about this sooner. At the same time, the above is woefully short as there is much more that can be written. However, related issues—including many issues touched upon above—have been discussed on this site for some time, so until I get some time to write about this important topic in more depth, please see the following pages and sections:

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Where next?

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