THE OIL WARS MYTH THE OIL WARS MYTH Petroleum and the Causes of International Conflict Emily Meierding CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ​ ITHACA AND LONDON Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress. cornell . edu. First published 2020 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of Amer i ca Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Meierding, Emily, author. Title: The oil wars myth : petroleum and the causes of international conflict / Emily Meierding. Description: Ithaca [New York]: Cornell University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019035806 (print) | LCCN 2019035807 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501748288 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501748950 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501748943 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Petroleum industry and trade—Political aspects—History— 20th century. | World politics—20th century. | War—Causes. | Politics and war. Classification: LCC HD9560.6 .M44 2020 (print) | LCC HD9560.6 (ebook) | DDC 338.2/7280904—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035806 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035807 The most stubborn facts are those of the spirit, not those of the physical world. — Jean Gottmann Contents List of Tables and Maps ix Acknowl edgments xi Introduction: Blood and Oil 1 1. From Value to Violence: Connecting Oil and War 10 2. Explaining the Oil Wars Myth: Mad Max and El Dorado 22 3. Why Classic Oil Wars Do Not Pay 40 4. Searching for Classic Oil Wars 61 5. Red Herrings: The Chaco and Iran–Iraq Wars 81 6. Oil Spats: The Falkland/Malvinas Islands Dispute 104 7. Oil Campaigns: World War II 117 8. Oil Gambit: Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait 144 Conclusion: Petro- Myths and Petro- Realities 166 Notes 175 Index 227 Tables and Maps Tables 4.1 Militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) involving hydrocarbon- endowed territories 65–67 4.2 Oil spats 70 4.3 Severe red herrings 73 Maps 5.1 The Chaco Boreal (1932) 83 5.2 The Iran– Iraq border (1980) 98 6.1 The Falkland/Malvinas Islands (1976) 107 7.1 Southeast Asia (1939) 125 7.2 Eastern Eu rope and the Caucasus (December 1940) 137 ix Acknowl edgments This book began, I suppose, with a duck. Scrooge McDuck, to be exact, whom I discovered one Christmas at my grand mother’s house in Ventura, California. Her trove of comics, written by the “Duck Man,” Carl Barks, introduced me to the stories of El Dorado, the Seven Cities of Cibola, and the Golden Fleece. I de- voured them while sitting on the floor of a living room whose win dows over- looked the distant lights of oil rigs gleaming in the Santa Barbara Channel. On the pathway from that preliminary encounter to this book’s completion, I have accumulated innumerable personal and professional debts, for which I can only begin to express my gratitude. I will also inevitably look back at these acknowl edgments and be horrified by at least one omission. Whoever you are, please track me down and insist that I buy you a drink. Thanks go to my advisers at the University of Chicago—Charles Lipson, John Mearsheimer, and Steven Wilkinson. Thanks also to my colleagues at the Gradu- ate Institute of International and Development Studies, especially Liliana An- donova, Susanna Campbell, Stephanie Hofmann, and Annabelle Littoz- Monnet, as well as to Kathryn Chelminski, Daniel Norfolk, Joanne Richards, and Alain Schaub for their research support. Thanks to my new colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School, including Jason Altwies, Naaz Barma, Erik Dahl, Chris Darnton, Diego Esparza, Covell Meyskens, Afshon Ostovar, Jessica Piombo, and Rachel Sigman, who have made working in Monterey even more of a pleasure. Additional thanks to my students in Energy Security and Geopolitics (fall 2018), who stepped in where my pop culture knowledge failed. I also thank all the energy experts whose engagement, encouragement, and criticism have made this a much better book (and who bear no responsibility for its shortcomings): Jeff Colgan, Eugene Gholz, Charlie Glaser, Kathleen Hancock, Rose Kelanic, Philippe Le Billon, Jonathan Markowitz, Victor McFarland, Mark Nance, Shannon O’Lear, Ben Smith, Roger Stern, Adam Stulberg, Thijs Van de Graaf, and Bob Vitalis. I want to express par tic u lar thanks to Michael Klare for his extraordinary graciousness; when this book is criticized, you will be my model of how to respond. Thanks to the researchers associated with the now sadly shuttered Conflict Rec ords Research Center at the National Defense University, especially David Palkki, for giving scholars access to an invaluable resource. Further gratitude goes to the librarians at the Naval Postgraduate School, the Graduate Institute of xi xii ACKNOWL EDGMENTS International and Development Studies, Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago, especially those who had to deal with my Interlibrary Loan and microfiche requests. Thanks to my produc- tion editor, Kristen Bettcher, and the team at Cornell University Press, especially Roger Haydon, for supporting a book that raced from rationalism to critical geopolitics with possibly reckless abandon. Thanks also to Mike Markowitz for the book’s fantastic maps. Enormous gratitude goes to all the other friends who have supported me, practically and emotionally, along the way, including Jon DiCicco, Dan Drezner, Andrea Everett, Anne Holthöfer, Jennifer London, Patchen Markell, Alex Mont- gomery, Owen O’Leary, Nathan Paxton, Negeen Pegahi, Keven Ruby, John Schuessler, Scott Siegel, and Nick Smith. Par tic u lar shout- outs go to those who played key roles in the home stretch: Jenna Jordan, for an inspirational conversa- tion at Whole Foods; Frank Smith, who unknowingly helped me write my intro- duction; Jon Caverley, who encouraged me to celebrate early and often; and Jill Hazelton and Karthika Sasikumar, for their liberality with the “like” button. Special thanks, of course, to Harper House’s Chris Buck, Andrew Dilts, and Sina Kramer, who gave me my first tastes of scotch, key lime pie, andThe West Wing. To my parents, Mark and Linda, and my sister, Julie, for their love, sup- port, and inspiration. To Louise for always, always believing in me. And to Louis, who has played the roles of geological consul tant, cheerleader, copyeditor, co- expat, and partner with equal generosity and élan. Je t’aime, mon amour. THE OIL WARS MYTH Introduction BLOOD AND OIL Oil powers modern life. It provides gasoline for our cars, diesel for our trucks and trains, heavy oil for our ships, and jet fuel for our planes. Without oil, transpor- tation would come to a standstill. Recreational and business travel would collapse. Shipping would cease. Military vehicles would be incapacitated; from jeeps to de- stroyers, modern defense establishments run on petroleum-based fuels.1 Even vehicles that consume biofuels, compressed natu ral gas, or nuclear energy would literally grind to a halt; without lubricants, derived from oil, there would be noth- ing to grease their gears. Absent oil, New En glanders would experience very cold winters, as many com- munities use petroleum as a heating fuel. In Hawaii, the one US state that still relies on oil to produce electricity, losing it would turn out the lights. Outside the United States, oil- fueled power plants would shut down and people would no lon- ger be able to compensate by firing up diesel- fueled generators. Globally, the petrochemical industry would take a beating. Plastics, fertilizers, paints, synthetic fabrics, and medicines are all manufactured from hydrocarbons. Absent petro- leum feedstocks, output would drop, dramatically. Recognizing oil’s exceptional value, Henry Kissinger called it “the world’s most strategic commodity,” while the international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau labeled oil “the lifeblood of industrially advanced nations.”2 Petroleum resources are also vital to the countries that produce them. If their oil dis appeared, states like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela would lose a crucial revenue stream. They would no longer be able to balance their bud gets and maintain social spending, inviting popu lar discontent. The French industrialist Henri Bérenger summarized 1 2 INTRODUCTION petroleum’s extraordinary contributions to national power and prosperity in 1919 by proclaiming that “he who owns the oil will own the world, for he will rule the sea by means of the heavy oils, the air by means of the ultra- refined oils, and the land by means of the petrol and the illuminating oils. And in addition to these he will rule his fellow men in an economic sense, by reason of the fantastic wealth he will derive from oil.”3 Oil’s unique value has led many people to assume that countries fight to ob- tain it. “Oil wars” figure prominently in popu lar culture. The final season of the critically acclaimed tele vi sion show The West Wing depicted Rus sia and China poised on the brink of war over oil fields in Kazakhstan. As one character stated, “The Rus sians want the oil and are willing to fight for it. ​Worst- case scenario, two nuclear powers are positioning themselves to actively engage in an armed con- flict over oil.”4 In the speculative novel Ghost Fleet, a US naval officer explains that “the scramble for new energy resources . ​[is] sparking