These series of articles are from the pages of the Philadelphia Trumpet
(_www.thetrumpet.com_ (http://www.thetrumpet.com) )
which is a Christian publication out of Philadelphia. Their main aim is to
relate World events to Biblical Prophecies and as much as possible, I have
edited out the parts of the articles which relate to that and for those of you
who want to search their archives and read the un-edited versions of their
articles, please visit their web-site. I appreciate and wanted to focus on the
parts of their article that present an excellent picture of the current
global political, economic and social situation thereby enabling us to have a
clearer understanding of the reasons behind much of what is happening in the
World today.
There are quite a few articles in this particular series and I will be
forwarding them a few at a time.
We in Africa especially cannot afford to be un-educated about this
situation. While the majority of our politicians and their supporters in Africa are
mainly focusing their energies on haggling for positions of power that are
becoming more and more really simply ceremonial positions vis a vis our
position in the World economic arena when one analyzes the reality of the Global
political, economic, military and resultant social situations, it is clear that
the major battle has already been lost for us and our people who form the
majority of the World's poor and down-trodden masses, and "the kings of the
hill as well as those who aspire to be the kings of the hill" on our continent
are but like the emperor with no clothes who may think he is well dressed but
in reality, he is naked. It is abundantly clear that unless we Africans have
a complete change of attitude where we sincerely and wholeheartedly walk,
talk and feel in our bones that what we want for ourselves is truly what we
want for our fellow African/compatriot etc, we will never have the essential
unified front to stand against not only dictatorships and hegemony but also
to enable us to see clearly enough to concentrate our energies on identifying
and fighting the impending re-enslavement of our people and our continent
Please see part one below:
Jabou Joh
PART ONE
Stoking the Engines of Empires
By Joel Hilliker
The world is exiting the age of America and entering the age of multiple
superpowers. The crunch on resources needed to stoke the engines of emerging
global powers is destined to spark a violent revolution.
In the modern world, being a first-rate global power is expensive. It takes
a lot of fuel to keep the engine firing.
Modern luxuries such as jetliners and suvs, electronics and computer
technology, spacious air-conditioned homes and offices require an unprecedented
supply of resources to operate—resources like oil, natural gas and coal, not to
mention human laborers. The more elaborate our civilization becomes, the more
resource-dependent it becomes—developing from a patchwork of self-sufficient
communities using only local resources into a dizzyingly complex,
economically interdependent matrix of pipelines, shipping lanes and trade routes that
transmit resources to the folks who hunger for them.
The United States is the most voracious devourer of natural resources ever.
Its 296 million citizens spend over half a trillion dollars each year on
energy. Over 40 percent of that energy comes from oil, of which the U.S.
guzzles 20 million barrels, and growing, daily. Since the U.S. produces only about
a third of that itself, it must import well over 4 billion barrels of oil
annually (a quarter of that from our “friends” in Saudi Arabia and
Venezuela). That is what it takes to enable 4.6 percent of the world’s population
(Americans) to consume 25 percent of the world’s oil production. The Institute
Français de Petrole warns that if all countries consumed oil on a per-person
basis equal to that of the U.S., the world’s known oil resources would be
gone in eight years.
America’s unmatched prosperity and record-breaking use of resources has
erected a new standard not only in materialism and convenience, but also power
projection. And it is a standard to which other nations in a competitive world
are aggressively trying to catch up. Consider the U.S. military: To possess
the most impressive armed forces in the world, the United States has paid
close to a billion dollars a day, every day, for over 60 years. Nations that
aim to compete on that level are shelling out money and manpower on a massive
scale, forming alliances and pooling their assets—and all the while
increasing their thirst for greater and greater quantities of natural resources.
This is not an insignificant development. The world is already straining
just to fuel one superpower. But other empires-to-be are now coming of age.
China, the most dramatic example, is growing twice as fast economically as the
U.S. and has settled into its new role as the world’s home base for
manufacturing.
As countries like China industrialize and urbanize, their oil consumption
inevitably expands. Whereas a man living in a developing country uses two
barrels of oil per year (that is the average per-capita usage of 5 billion of the
planet’s 6.4 billion people), his brother in the developed world uses 18
barrels. The gap between these two figures is shrinking—and not because the
developed world is cutting back in its oil usage.
Unfortunately, though demand is ballooning, supplies aren’t: In fact, global
oil production appears to be approaching its peak.
Existing oil fields are already working at or close to full capacity—and, in
many cases, have already started to decline in output—and new discoveries
aren’t expected to make up the difference. According to former Secretary of
Defense James R. Schlesinger, “The underlying problem is that for more than
three decades, [world] production has outrun new discoveries. Most of our giant
fields were found 40 years ago and more. Even today, the bulk of our
production comes from these old—and aging—giant fields” that are past peak production
(www.senate.gov, Nov. 16, 2005).
The U.S. Department of Energy’s statistical agency, the Energy Information
Administration, insists that the world will “require new [oil] production
equivalent to three Saudi Arabias by 2025” to meet projected growing global oil
needs. In other words, three “Saudi Arabias” must be discovered,
permitted, drilled and put into production over the next two decades just to meet
demand (Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, Sept. 5, 2005). Furthermore, all
infrastructure—including pipelines, tankers, storage facilities and refineries—
would also need to be constructed before the oil could reach the market.
Clearly, this is not going to happen. What will happen is that competition
for what oil does exist will get vicious.
While the scope of resource extraction, distribution and consumption in today
’s world is unparalleled in human history, competing for resources is as old
as the hills. A shortage or perceived shortage of required resources, or an
increased appetite for resources, has time and again brought families, clans,
tribes, states and nations into conflict with one another in tragic cycles
of violence, conquest, enslavement and revolution. To take nothing away from
the friction between contrasting ideas (particularly religious ideas), nor
from the competitive and hostile tendencies within human nature to simply want
to dominate other people, throughout history physical resources—including
land, water, livestock, material supplies, treasure, armaments and even slave
labor—have been among the principal pursuits of those nations that have engaged
other nations in war. The two world wars of the past century, for example,
were ignited largely by resource grabs by Germany within Europe and Northern
Africa, and by Japan in Southeast Asia.
So it will be in our day. Only now, in the age of wmd, the stakes are much,
much higher.
Precursor to War
The classic sign of oil demand exceeding supply is already in evidence today—
and that is price hikes. Over the past decade, crude oil prices have
tripled.
Such rate escalation especially wallops the countries that import oil the
most. Certainly the U.S. is hurting: In 2004 it imported 58 percent of its
oil. The world’s most populous nations, China and India—which import 44 and 70
percent of their oil respectively—also feel the crunch, though they are, as
yet, generally less dependent on it. But this is a real crisis for the
European Union, which ships in over 80 percent of its oil (last year, that figure in
Germany, France, Italy and Spain exceeded 90 percent)—and the island
nation of Japan, which imports 98 percent. Mounting costs for those oil imports
can ravage a nation’s economy, simultaneously stunting economic growth and
driving up inflation.
It is easy to see how quickly the tension will escalate between those
nations that have the resources and those that need them—and among those who are
competing for them—as they become more scarce. The incalculably high stakes of
this game are producing some serious side effects. First, the nations that
export those resources, especially oil and natural gas, are coming to enjoy a
disproportionate amount of clout (witness Iran, which the world appears
completely unable to prevent from gaining nuclear weaponry simply for fear of
jeopardizing the 4.2 million barrels of oil it puts on the market each day).
Second, while demand for resources skyrockets, production increases have not kept
pace. As a result, the competition to lock down sources is already starting
to become more fierce—and it is about to get ugly.
From Washington to Brussels, Caracas to Moscow and Beijing, national
leaders and international corporations are stepping up their efforts to gain
control over major sources of energy and commodities. With oil especially, never
has the competitive pursuit of resources been so sharp, and, in the words
of Michael T. Klare, director of the Five College Program in Peace and World
Security Studies, “Never has so much money as well as diplomatic and military
muscle been deployed” to gain control over major stockpiles (TomDispatch.com,
May 9, 2005).
Economic analyst James Puplava succinctly sums up the global situation we
face: “At a time of tremendous population growth and escalating demand for
commodities of all types, resource scarcity will become a harbinger of war. The
wars of the 21st century will arise over the scarcity of resources like water,
oil and food as much as they will religion and economics. National security
will become aligned and directed towards the securing and protection of
global resource flows” (Financial Sense Online, Feb. 22, 2002).
The facts we are about to examine are compelling, even alarming. But it is
only when we compare those facts with the Holy Bible’s prophetic descriptions
of the interplay among nations during the final days of our present
civilization that the utter ferocity of the rivalry over resources we are about to
witness truly leaps into focus—and the extent to which today’s great powers
will claw their way into becoming tomorrow’s superpowers by raping weaker
nations, while enriching an elite collection of international corporatists.
As the following pages show, two of the major players in this drama, the
United States and Iran, are about to be eliminated in a shocking manner. The
world is about to witness a titanic struggle for dominance—already appearing
in its embryonic stages—between, principally, Germany and China. In large
part, it will be competition over resources that ignites it.
Realizing their resource dependency and the potential for a coming supply
crunch, nations, especially China and EU nations, have already begun
scrambling to secure sources. In fact, we are actually witnessing the reemergence of
colonial-type relationships, in which greater powers offer their manufactured
goods in exchange for raw materials from their weaker partners.
But considering there is more than one empire in the game—and that they are
all pursuing the same select group of “colonies”—this development is a clear
precursor of resource war.
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
|
