Military Geography - Resources; Future Flashpoints

Resources; Future Flashpoints

The Middle East is, of course, the most obvious place that comes to mind when we think of valuable resources that major nations may compete over when supplies begin to fall around the world. The first Gulf War was an example of the United States’ willingness to go to war to protect its access to the rich oilfields of the Persian Gulf. The strong military presence there influenced some leaders to aid the United States with cheap oil, but over time those forces began to be viewed as a threat to the Muslim world. The attacks of September 11, 2001, have brought new hostilities to the region with the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Other hotspots around the globe centering on oil are the areas around Venezuela, the Caspian Sea region, and possibly the offshore oil deposits around Vietnam and China. In today’s age, especially for people living in developed countries, it is hard to believe that there are other resources that can potentially cause a war.

The most precious and most needed resource of all is water, and in some parts of the world, that is a very expensive resource to obtain. The most obvious areas that conflict may arise over disputes for water supplies would be in the desert, but at the moment oil is the most valuable liquid in the Middle East. However, oil will not always be there, and if those people are going to survive, they must have water. Several times, countries that are upriver have threatened to build dams across the rivers in order to cut off the country down river, starving that particular country of its water supply. This has been the case with both the Nile and the River Jordan, and the results in both cases have been the same: the countries that are down river have threatened retaliation if such an event should occur. As our global warming trend continues, our weather patterns will continue to shift, and that means that some places will fall into a severe drought. These people may become desperate when they do not have the resources to obtain water if such a disaster should occur.

Water is not the only resource on this planet that is found to be a necessity. The forests are as well. These densely wooded regions of the world are constantly shrinking, and as the oil runs out, people will need to keep warm in the winter. Odds are that they will return to using wood as a primary fuel source for keeping warm. As the forests shrink, neighboring countries will turn on each other for this resource in order to appease their populations. The forests of Latin America and the Pacific Islands are the key hotspots for this resource; this is in part due to the already tense situations in and around those regions because of growing tensions over global oil supplies.

In 2002’s Die Another Day, the term "conflict diamonds" is at the heart of the film’s plot. In the film, the diamonds are the currency that is used to fund illegal weapons deals, and are used to fund the construction of the Icarus space weapon. The portrayal of the use of the diamonds that come out of Africa holds true in many cases. The term “conflict diamonds” is applied to those diamonds that are not sold through an internationally recognized company. They are “conflict diamonds” because warlords in Africa fight for these diamonds in order to sell them to acquire larger wealth and new weapons for continued fighting. The same is true for the gold fields in southern Africa. There are many warlords that would love to have control of the vast wealth of the mines in order to further fund their lucrative endeavors.