Customer Reviews

A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I first ran across this book referenced in a footnote about three years ago and tried to track it down. First I tried to purchase it, but found that it was out of print and used copies were going for $100.00+ on the internet. I found this curious since it was relatively recent (1993) and, given its topic, was certainly of tremendous interest to US readers, even before the events of 9/11 and the subsequent Gulf War II. I was fortunate to find it in my university library and have since read it several times.

I am tempted to go 'on and on' about this book, especially since it is not easily available for people to read. Nor does anyone seem to feel that they can (or are able to?) republish what should be a 'best seller' in the current geopolitical climate and circumstances. Engdahl, whose personal background includes engineering and law (Princeton), working in Texas oil industry, and international economics (University of Stockholm), does a penetrating and eloquent job of sorting out the complex web that connects the controlling interests of international politics with the goals and objectives of global oil and financial interests, these having merged in the last century into the powerful and dominant hegemony of an Anglo-American consortium.

There are so many revelations that are so well documented that one has to slow down and completely reorientate his or her conception of and attitude toward recent history. His tone is neither particularly vindictive nor is it conspiratorial. It looks at people and events and provides plausible motives and methods that are not part of the conventional awareness. For example, (fact) the British navy decided in the late 19th century to change their primary fuel source from coal to oil, thereby (objective) needing to secure access to oil reserves, basically in perpetuity. (result) British agreements for oil resources with the Sheikh of Kuwait date from 1899. (fact) Oil then comes to supplant coal as the primary energy source for all of the industrializing world, and a decade later Germany threatens to become the leading industrialized nation in Europe and (objective) needs a secure source of oil, so they begin construction on the Berlin to Baghdad railway intending to capitalize on agreements to import Iraqi oil. (question) How does Britain meet this emerging geopolitical threat. (objective) Block Germany's access to Middle East oil. (result) Curiously WWI begins with an out-of-the-way assassination in Croatia that just happens to occur near the route of that railway. War ensues and not only is the B-to-B railway cut off, but Germany loses all colonial power in the Middle East.

Shortly after WWI the leaders of the seven major western oil companies meet and agree to not compete with each other but to cooperate, and in 1928 drew up the Red Line agreement that gave virtually control of virtually all Middle East oil to the Anglo-American cartel. Even France's portion was minimalized to Turkish reserves. The Anglo-American consortium came to be known as the Seven Sisters and over the course of the ensuing decades become more and more infused with global banking and financial interestes, i.e., Rockefeller, J.P.Morgan, the Warburgs, the Rotheschilds, Brown Harriman, etc., coming to dominate the world economy by controlling the primary energy source. It is "all about oil" and has been since the turn of the century.

Engdahl's references are extensive and substantiate his disturbing interpretation of history, like the intentional suppression of the German Mark after WWI and the intentional manipulation of the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s as a premise to artificially inflate global energy costs (a Bilderberg target objective), thereby making BritPetr North Sea oil exploration efforts solvent and bankrupting the debt burdened Third World.

Engdahl's revelatory insights go up through Gulf War I and one can only speculate as to his thoughts on the current Bush administration's economic/tax policies, the Iraq intervention, and their relationship to consolidating control of the global economy into the hands of a few staggeringly wealthy individuals and corporations. This book should be IN PRINT and TODAY!

H. Kissinger has said: 'control energy and you control the nations.'
W. Engdahl explains the all importance of oil in world domination, and more specifically its geopolitical, military, economic and financial impact.

Oil became for the first time an important raw material during World War I, when air, mobile tank and swifter naval warfare held the upper hand.

After WW I the British sought to secure their petroleum supplies, by creating the League of Nations, which was only a facade of international legitimacy to a naked imperial seizure of territory.
British imperial power was based on 3 pillars: control of world sea-lines, of world banking and finance and of strategic raw materials. Through its free trade policy (liberalism) it tried to preserve and to serve the interests of an exclusive private power: a tiny number of bankers and institutions of the City of London.

Its hegemony was attacked and replaced by the US after WW II, confirmed by the Bretton-Woods Agreements with the creation of the IMF and the World bank.
The new hegemon was (and is ) built on 2 pillars: military power and the dollar, but those pillars are fundamentally intertwined with one commodity: petroleum, the basis of the world economy's growth engine.

10 % of the Marshall aid to Europe after WW II served to buy US oil. The big US oil companies asked top dollars for their exports and obtained also that the aid could not be used to build refineries.

The Vietnam war constituted a massive diversion of the US industry into the production of defense goods (pillar 1).
The first oil shock of 1973 made the US banks the giants of world banking and the oil companies the giants of world industry: 'The artificial oil price inflation was a manipulation of the world economy of such a hideous dimension that it created an unprecedented transfer of the wealth of the entire world into the hands of a tiny minority. It was no less than a global world taxation through petrodollars.' (pillar 2, confirmed by Sheikh Zaki Yamani).
The oil companies also took the 'blossom of the nuclear rose'.

A cardinal goal of US foreign and military policy is control of every major existing and potential oil source. Such control would permit it to decide who gets how much energy and at what price: 'a true weapon of mass destruction'.

William Engdahl's brilliant but frightening analysis puts in the same framework Iraq, the Balkan wars, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergency of the oligarchs, the financial crises across Asia, the civil wars in Africa, the IMF and World bank policies, the fall of the Shah (after the collapse of the negotiations with BP), as well as the murders or 'accidental' deaths of W. Rathenau, I. Krueger, E. Mattei, J. Ponto and A. Moro.

At the start of the new millenium, the US has a near monopoly on military technology and might, commands the world's reserve currency and is able to control the assets of much of the industrial world. It fights for a near monopoly on future energy resources; in other words, for 'full spectrum dominance'.

William Engdahl has written an eye opening, fascinating but extremely dark book.

A must read.

This book tells the hidden history of oil and money, and how they have been the underlying cause of almost every conflict since WWI. At the turn of the century oil became the new fuel to power naval fleets and provide energy. Ever since, the Anglo-American powers and their cohorts have never ceased to interfere in the affairs of other nations. In the cold calculating hands of a few, they have become the strategic weapons of choice to extend their sphere of global hegemony and domination.

The first few chapters lay the groundwork showing how early British `balance of power' politics produced a long and bloody history of colonial subjugation of developing nations and her subsequent steps taken to insure a war against an economically rising Germany who had embarked on a Berlin to Baghdad rail project. Maneuvered out of her isolationism, the United States joined WWI just as Britain, seeing a colossal opportunity at colonialism and control over oil, issued her mysteriously timed Balfour Declaration to Zionist Lord Rothschild during the darkest days of the war, and secured her foothold in Palestine by means of secret agreement.

The decades after, saw an increasingly close association of U.S. and British interests (among others), with many current US organizations being born out of their British counterparts who brought their Malthusian and social intelligentsia views along with them. So close in fact would this relationship become, that Henry Kissinger once admitted in his own words: "I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department"

Mr. Engdahl then takes us on a journey to show how the politically rich and powerful along with their accomplices in the private sector have created chaos out of order and used the depravity of each situation for their own ends as they played out their Faustian fantasies on the world. With their organized looting of nations, each new cataclysm preceded the charade of loaning `new money" to pay "old debts" and is ongoing to this day.

The number of victims in this book is startling, hence the play on words to Churchill's speech. As Bush and his wrecking crew are busily working on a script written long ago, their Iraqi exit strategy is most likely the balkanization of Iraq or imposition of "dollar democracy". Take your pick as either will suffice. And throughout the decades, the mother of all harlots is the system of fiat currency, which is the mechanism by which endless wars are financed while sucking the life of the tax paying middle class dry.

America has been hijacked by minds that have their roots in certain sociopathic ideologies that have gone out of their way to promote policies that lead to exploitation, inequality and despair. We were the first nation to free ourselves from British rule, and sadly in many ways. `A Century of War' shows just how much the former colonies have bought back into the very system our forefathers revolutioned against.

If you want to understand how the world economy runs and how it is dominated by the United States, why most of the `big events' in international affairs of the 20th century occured, why the US invaded Iraq, and why the US is threatening Iran, in short if you want to know the facts that are driving the headlines, READ THIS BOOK. This book is far from perfect, as I explain below, and you may not agree with everything that Engdahl says (I don't), but I guarantee that it will change your worldview forever.

The fundamental theme of this book is to describe the relationship between international monentary policy, banking, and the geopolitics of oil, and how the confluence of these three economic factors has central link between virtually all of the great events of the 20th century. Engdahl starts by discussing the state of the British empire at the end of the 19th century, the threat posed by the industrial rise of Germany, and the role that new technologies play in this rivalry. Central to this technological revolution is an energy revolution and access to oil. He described how the large banking conglomerates of NYC and London formed and grew in power as a result of WWI and their intimate link to oil. This is tied in to the growth of the US economy before and during WWII, and the supreme position the US found itself in after the war. There is a lengthy discussion about the Bretton Woods conference in which the world formally accepted a link between the dollar and gold. The most interesting part of the book is the discussion of the floating of the dollar in the late 60s and the relationship between the dollar and 1973 oil shock. Finally, Engdahl explains how manipulations of the price of oil and the strength of the dollar have been made over the last 30 years to carry out various policy objectives. There is some discussion of peak oil in the final chapter.

There are several serious drawbacks to the book. Most importantly, the author does a great disservice to this subject by stating or (more often) implying that everything that occurs is part of some vast, organized conspiracy. It could allow critics/skeptics to dismiss the otherwise strong arguments of this book. Engdahl states that certain people `mysteriously' die, or brings up vague connections between various participants, but never explores these in depth. Second, there are not nearly enough references in this book to provide independent evidence to support many of the claims. The author should have done a MUCH better job documenting independent sources for his claims. Third, there is way too much hyperbole in this book, the language is just way overblown: everything is enormous, catastrophic, etc. Even with all these negatives though, I still rate this as a five star book because I believe that Mr. Engdahl's central argument regarding the relation between monentary policy, international banking, and the geopolitics of oil is correct, and this is the best single volume source that explains how these are tied together and how they have evolved over the past 100+ years.

Incidentally, there are two somewhat peripheral point brought up by Engdahl that most 21st century Americans will find interesting. The economic choices made by the British empire over 50+ years as it declined from the late 19th century until it was definitively replaced by the US after WWII are now being made by the US. Second, if you want to know why the US invaded Iraq, and why we are trying to instigate a war with Iran, read this book. The issue had absolutely nothing to do with WMD, Saddam's war crimes, or violations of UN resolutions. The overwhelming majority of people have no idea why we went into Iraq, and more importantly what the stakes are if we fail. People may say that it is about oil, which is true, but not in the way people think. We may never see one drop of Iraqi oil in the US, yet we still invaded. Finally, if you are sceptical of Mr. Engdahl's claim, take a look at the book `Sunrise at Abadan' about the British and Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. Both countries were literally fighting for their lives, yet they committed vast resources to invade and occupy Iran. Richard Stewart (a retired major in the USMC) described how oil from Iran was absolutely critical to the British war effort.

Bottom line though - a shocking, eye opening book that I highly recommend, even if it is far from perfect.

We cannot improve on the review below. With the authors permission we ofer it here i the hopes it will encourage others to buy this book as well. EW

I've been continuing to read William Engdahl's, "A Century of
War: Ango-American Oil Politics and The New World Order," and
have it to be a uniquely revealing red pill. I thought I had
escaped from the Matrix, but here I found a whole new
coherence to actual reality that I hadn't known about. Lots of
things click into place more neatly, and Engdahl's scholarship
seems to be first rate.

I haven't been able to absorb it all on first reading, but
what I've learned so far is, I think, worth sharing. I'd like
to briefly trace a few parallel threads in British and U.S.
history. Many elements are involved, but the interesting thing
is how clear the picture becomes when the elements are seen in
their true relationships. The words below are my own: this is
my updated analysis after having been informed by Engdahl.

---

The first thread has to do with the evolution of capitalist
states in general, and in particular the relationship between
industry and banking. Not all capitalist states succeed in
following the full course, but those that have done so seem to
follow this basic trajectory. In particular, this has been
true of the U.S. and Britain.

In the first phase, the state becomes rich and strong by
industrializing, building up its infrastructure, and gaining
wealth through profitable trade arrangements. To the extent
that diplomatic or military initiatives are deployed in
support of these operations, they tend to focus on (1) opening
up markets and gaining access to resources needed by home
industries, and (2) maintaining position within the
geopolitical arena (aka competitive imperialism).

During this phase, the elites which dominate state
policy-making tend to include very strong representation from
industrialists, as with Herr Krupp, J.D. Rockefeller, the
early factory and mill operators in Northern England and
Scotland, etc. While the early days of phase 1 might be
characterized by sweatshop labor conditions, the later stages
tend to be characterized by high-employment and improving
living conditions for the general domestic population
(Victorian England, 50s USA).

In some cases, as with Germany and World Wars 1 and 2, a state
is prevented by competitors from developing beyond phase 1.
But if phase 1 develops fully, it breeds the seeds of its own
demise, ushering in phase 2. What happens is that accumulated
wealth increasingly concentrates in banks and related
financial institutions, out of the process of (1) financing
industrial development, (2) financing the wars that are
required to maintain geopolitical position, and (3) managing
deposits, settlement accounts, etc.

Phase 2 begins at that point where the wealth and influence of
the financial sector (Wall Street, The City) eclipses that of
the domestic industrial sector (Detroit, Manchester). The
focus of state policy formulation, which in phase 1 was
essentially the maximization of domestic industrial growth,
becomes in phase 2 the maximization of financial-sector
investment returns. Domestic industrial and infrastructure
development must now compete with other investment
opportunities.

Because of all the international relationships that financial
institutions have established in the course of supporting
industrial trade during phase 1, the financial sector is well
able to pursue its investment opportunities on a more-or-less
global scale. Investment in a less-developed state economy,
one on the up-curve of phase 1, can offer far greater returns
than investments in an aging domestic industrial sector.
Domestic industry deteriorates, unemployment rises, and the
domestic economy goes into decline - while the financial
sector continues to amass wealth. We see this in the rotting
smokestack industries of America's north east, and we saw it a
century before in the decline of once-proud British industry.

In phase two the mission of diplomatic and military
initiatives naturally shifts in alignment with overall state
priorities - supporting the interests of the domestic
financial sector. The mission is no longer to obtain raw
materials for domestic industry, but rather to open up
economies to investment, to control resources which have value
on international markets, and other objectives we'll be
looking at in a moment.

From these considerations we can begin to find a clear and
simple answer to the question: "Who are THEY? Who, exactly,
are these elites who supposedly run the world?". At the very
top of the pyramid of policy formulation, in today's world and
at past times as well, are the big banks. In particular,
today, we are talking about the wealthy few who control the
biggest and most influential financial institutions in New
York and London. . . . but that gets us ahead of our story.

---

The second thread has to do with with role of oil in world
affairs over the past century or so. Oil's central importance
has been multi-faceted and all-pervasive. For those of you
into chaos theory, we can see the impact of oil as being a
chaotic event leading to profound, non-linear, surprising
shifts in system dynamics.

When Britain was still at its height of influence, in the
years leading up to World War 1, its phase-2 elites had
already recognized that oil was destined to become the
lifeblood of a new kind of global economy - what we might
today call 'the energy economy'. This became abundantly clear
to them as British fleets were converted from coal to oil, and
the greater energy density provided clear strategic advantages
in terms of range, speed, payload, etc. Furthermore the
importance of airplanes was beginning to become apparent to
those with vision, and here oil was the only viable fuel
source. All sea fleets and airplanes, and for similar reasons
many other infrastructures globally, would eventually need to
adapt to oil to in order to maintain competitive productivity
and performance.

Armed with this foresight, it became clear to Anglo elites
that control over oil resources and oil markets would be the
key to maintaining the power of The City, while the British
Empire descended into decay, having lost its industrial
backbone. An elite fraternity (network) was assembled,
consisting of elements from British Intelligence, top banking
houses, and oil operators. Every oil executive running some
foreign business operation, for example, was at the same time
acting as an agent for British Intelligence, providing
valuable insider information about local conditions, and able
to provide cover and contacts for visiting intelligence
operatives. At the same time our executive would be accessing
investment funds from The City and depositing his profits in
select City banks.

This fraternity was kept highly secret, and it was able to
effectively coordinate the resources of British Intelligence
and diplomacy, strategic state policy, the investments of the
financial sector, and oil explorations, operations,
acquisitions, alliances etc. This was a clear example of what
we might a call a "secret government by conspiracy" - and in
typical British fashion, the fraternity operated as a
relatively coherent team, competently secretive, and
single-minded in pursuing its objectives. The supreme British
virtues - team-spirit, diplomacy, and theater (in this case,
acting & deception) - found useful application.

Oil was the central lever which promised control over the
future global economy, but the oil business itself was not the
main focus of interest of top Anglo elites in The City.
Control over oil was a means to a much grander end: control
over global finance.

To put it simply, the real goal of the The City was to retain
its position as the primary banking hub of global commerce, a
position it had gained on the back of Britain's phenomenal
phase-1 industrial and imperial achievements. With this goal
in mind, we can understand the importance of maintaining the
pound as the leading reserve currency, and we can see the
power that provides to the banks who control pound-lending
interest rates. By controlling oil and oil markets, the price
of oil in those markets, and the exchange currency, The City -
with a little help from its fraternal friends - would have
many ways by which to maintain its general dominance over
global finance.

Again, as in our first thread, we see parallel scenarios,
played out first by Britain and later by the USA. Each enjoyed
a remarkably successful phase 1 period, each made the
transition to phase 2 for very similar reasons, each
experienced domestic economic decay, and each ended up
pursuing a strategy of global financial dominance by means of
oil dominance.

---

For our next thread, we will examine the intertwining of these
parallel stories, the Anlo-American rivalries, the passing of
the golden baton of supreme power from London to New York, and
the establishment of a unique and enduring partnership
arrangement between the U.S. and Britain - a remarkable
accomplishment by British diplomatic and banking circles which
in strategic importance can be considered the equal of
Nelson's victory at Trafalgar. The public friendship display
between Bush and Blair is a more or less accurate cartoon
portrayal of the actual relationship enjoyed between elite New
York and London banking circles.

Britain's nemesis, as a national power, was World War 1. The
City's strategy of financial and oil dominance was being
threatened by Germany's phase-1 success and its growing
financial sector. This was worrisome, but The City could still
maintain financial dominance if it could control Germany's oil
supply. That's why Germany's Berlin-to-Baghdad railway project
was seen as a dire strategic threat by City observers. If
Germany completed the railway, and gained independent access
to Middle East oil sources, The City's financial dominance
would indeed be in jeopardy. Not only would Germany have its
own source of oil - and the ability to manage the cost of
production, the rate of extraction, and the price - but the
railroad would also open up a continental trading network that
would rival Britain's traditional sea-lane dominance, and
bring similar rewards to the new gate-controller. The mark
would threaten the pound in the reserve currency arena, and
German financial elites would become pretenders to the
banking-hub throne traditionally held by The City.

America figures little in this scenario so far. The rivalries
and collaborations between British and U.S. interests
continued at their own pace and in their own way separate from
the British challenges on its own side of the pond. Germany
and most of Europe were in Britain's 'sphere of oil
influence', and America had its own spheres. Already before
World War 1 we see a proto-cartel scenario on a global scale
among these two players

The City - with its fraternity of intelligence and diplomatic
operatives - undertook two projects in response to the German
threat. Plan A was to frustrate the Berlin-Baghdad rail
project by whatever means necessary. Plan B was to prepare for
war with Germany, making astute use of alliances to maximize
the probability of success and to shift the burden of warfare
as much as possible to others. Again, diplomacy shows its face
as Britain's strongest geopolitical suit, displaying itself
initially by its ability to build friendships and alliances,
while later displaying itself in the skill and timing by which
those alliances are later betrayed.

Britain orchestrated an elaborate network of secret
mutual-defense alliances, creating a hidden level of extreme
volatility that few knew even existed, and the extent of which
the Germans did not fully appreciate. The City and its
fraternity intentionally created a powder keg, kept it
concealed as a terrorist does his bomb, and arranged that when
the powder keg exploded everyone would be fighting everyone
else, and Britain would be able to deal with the war from its
traditional balance-of-powers perspective.

Plan A and Plan B intersected in the Balkans. That's where the
fraternity was making its last-ditch attempt to stop the rail
line, and the Balkans can be considered to be the geographical
focal point of the various secret alliances - midway between
the Great Powers and the Middle East oil reserves. Almost any
spark could have ignited the power keg, Britain had all of her
ducks in place, and whether or not the fraternity was behind
the Duke's assassination doesn't really matter - they might as
well have been and the outcome is the same whoever did the
deed.

The main forces at work on the ground here were Germany's
determination to complete the rail line vs. Britain's
determination to stop it. The unstoppable force of Germany's
ambition was colliding with the immovable object of The City's
hold on power. Two tectonic plates were colliding, and the
Balkans were right on the fault line, at a point of maximum
stress. We could expect the earthquake to strike there, and
the actual triggering event is in some sense an irrelevancy,
as is the particular match which might get tossed onto dry
grass.

Britain had arranged the inevitable earthquake, and had
created for itself a viable strategy framework for victory.
The alliances were more or less balanced from a military
perspective; accessing all-important oil would be difficult
for the German side, and Britain's sea dominance would
presumably play a key role in supporting its alliances,
defending its homeland, and in giving Britain maximum
flexibility in choosing its theaters of engagement. Germany on
the other hand, a much more straightforward and forthright
player, in nowhere near the same league as Britain
diplomatically, was comparatively ill-prepared for strategic
engagement. It would be depending on its own brute strength,
its more authoritarian style of alliance management, and
whatever war strategy it could cobble together in response to
the elaborate secret system the fraternity had so carefully
orchestrated. And it would need to devote much of its effort
to obtaining oil supplies.

---

There was however one tiny fly in The City's ointment. Not so
tiny actually. In the vaults of the British treasury,
unfortunately, the cupboard was bare. A dandy war had been
orchestrated by the fraternity, all the ducks were in order,
the strategy was viable, but a funding source was missing. For
want of a nail the horseshoe might be lost, etc., and Germany
might gain the upper hand after all.

Once again it is British skills in diplomacy and banking that
save the day, as regards proceeding with the planned war
project. In particular, the close fraternal connections
between certain top bankers in New York and London provided a
channel by which funding for the war effort could be obtained.
New York's J.P. Morgan became the exclusive broker for The
City in America, arranging financing, handling the
transactions, and managing Britain's procurements (food,
weapons, etc.) from sources on the U.S. side of the pond.
Morgan made money had over fist in all sorts of ways, his
agents like a swarm of mosquitos sucking blood, as he carried
out his all-important role in enabling The City to pursue its
war plans.

As the war continued on longer than anticipated, British and
allied debts grew to unprecedented heights. Morgan had
orchestrated the largest private financing deal the world had
ever seen. Many other banks and investors had been brought in,
creating a link between British victory and the continued
strength of the American economy. If Britain and its allies
were to lose the war and default on their loans, Morgan would
be left holding the bag, along with his network of investors,
and the U.S. economy would go into a tumble. Germany proved to
be more resilient and resourceful than the fraternity had
anticipated, and it became apparent that U.S. military
intervention would be necessary to assure victory and bring
the war, finally, to a conclusion.

The main obstacle here was a nearly universal isolationist
sentiment in the U.S., not only in the realm of public
opinion, but in top business and political circles as well.
Furthermore, among those with some measure of war fervor, at
least as many were pro-German as were pro-British. Germany had
presented no particular problems for America, and had been a
good trading partner, while Britain had been through the years
frequently a thorn in the side of U.S. interests, competing
for Latin American oil sources, and in other ways.

Such a challenge was not beyond the capabilities of the
fraternity, with its first-rank covert operatives, and with
typically astute British diplomacy running cover. Among the
primary British strategic virtues, I earlier forgot to mention
their genius in the realm of propaganda (a tradition we can
still witness any day on BBC). The City had links to Wall
Street, Wall Street had links to the big U.S. newspaper
chains, and we see the emergence of effective anti-German
pieces, chipping away at isolationist and pro-German views.

With Germany publicly claiming the right to attack any vessel
it considered to be of military relevance, the fraternity and
its American counterparts arranged for the Lusitania to sail,
with the public being told the vessel carried civilian
passengers only, while German intelligence was led to suspect
that armaments might be secretly aboard, as many claim was
actually the case. In coordination with this operation, this
arranged 'outrage incident', a coordinated media campaign set
the stage for anti-German hysteria, and was then fully
unleashed in the aftermath of the actual torpedo event. By
these and other means the fraternity, with the help of its
Wall Street collaborators and their media friends, American
opinion was brought into line with the necessities of pulling
Morgan's bacon out of the fire, assuring a British victory,
and thereby, somewhat indirectly, giving The City a new lease
on life. In the final analysis, the tail had wagged the dog.

---


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This fascinating book examines the huge role that oil played in the 20th century. The rival empires' struggle for the Middle East's oil was one of the causes of the First World War. Control of this resource was one of World War Two's great prizes.

The oil price rises of the 1970s made the North Sea and Alaska fields profitable and led to the petrodollar monetary system, based on speculation not investment, profit not production.

Oil money has always funded the environmental and anti-nuclear movements. The Rockefeller Brothers' Fund financed the 1970s Club of Rome report `Limits to Growth', which proposed a `post-industrial' policy, meaning `destroy industry and stop development'.

The oil-funded International Institute for the Environment and Development (board member Roy Jenkins) produced the book `Only One Earth', which also promoted `post-industrialism'. The German environmentalist Petra Kelly worked for the Ford Foundation-funded National Resources Defense Council.

Oil companies funded the Aspen Institute (board member war criminal Robert McNamara), whose operatives ran the 1972 UN Environment Conference. The Atlantic Richfield Oil Company funded Friends of the Earth, and bought the Observer to spread the anti-industry message.

In 1979, Thatcher and Reagan carried out the anti-industry programme, destroying industries and causing record debts and deficits, which pay Wall Street bond dealers and their clients record sums in interest income.

Vice-President Dick Cheney says, "You've got to go where the oil is", summing up much of world history since 1900. Sure enough, oil fuels imperial seizures in the Caspian Sea, Venezuela, Yugoslavia (which the USA and EU destroyed, leading to permanent US military bases in Kosovo, like Camp Bondsteel astride the pipeline route from the Caspian), and Afghanistan, a handy pipeline route, which Bush and Blair attacked and occupy.

Most important is the Middle East, where, as the group Project for a New American Century said, "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security." Now the US state intends to occupy Iraq and run its oil exports, permanently.

This book is a history of the world of the 120 years from the end of the 19th century to the first decade of the 21st century. It explores the role of oil in international politics, and how the drive to acquire its source (oil reserves) have driven wars, treaties, alliances, elections, coups, assasinations, and economies. Almost everyone of importance in the 20th century is somehow connected in this web of greed and deceit, including Churchill, Deterding, FDR, Bill Clinton, Hitler, and Bush. The author references other books, along with numerous primary sources such as interviews with government officials, corporate records, and treaties. By the end of the book, one gets the idea that the world most of us see is a lie, and that we are all pawns in a great game between powerful men.

I give this book 4/5 stars because for its subject matter, it leaves out several key facts and names. First of, there is zero mention of the Texas Railroad Commission. If one wants to understand how oil is controlled in the USA, one needs to know about the Texas Railroad Commission. Second, the book ignores the role played by Standard Oil in the rise of the Saudi royal family and its establishment of militant Sunni Islam throughout the Islamic world. To better understand this key factor, read the book "Cities of Salt". Third, there is no mention of the oil depletion subsidy, a key part of the US tax code that helped oil corporations grow so big, and whose attempted repeal costed two US presidents dearly; JFK and Jimmy Carter. Last, the book ignores the role of oil companies in delaying progress in US automative design in key fields such as fuel cell technology, battery technology, and solar powered cars. But all in all, even with its misses, this is a great book, and highly deserving of anyone's read.

First, I'd like to thank fellow Amazon reviewer S. Swink for suggesting this book in a comment he helpfully attached to my review of "Conjuring Hitler". That tip led me to read the most interesting and informative book I have read in a long time. As there are already 29 reviews, many of them very insightful, I will touch on topics that were not emphasised in the reviews so far. These are topics I've heard a lot about lately, but more by way of heated references than the informed discussion found in "A Century Of War". I will list a few of them.

* "Bretton Woods Agreements" - Engdahl explains the motivations of the Anglo-Americans behind the agreements and the central role of oil, which many discussions don't emphasise enough.

* "The New World Order" - Not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy fact. George HW Bush waxed poetic about the NWO until he was advised to tone it down. Rather than misquote the back of the US $1 bill, Engdahl explains what was actually meant by the NWO, at least at the time the term was current in the early 1990s.

* "Bilderberg Group" - Again, not a conspiracy theory. I quote an endnote to Chapter 9:
" 'Saltjöbaden conference' Bilderberg meetings, 11-13 May, 1973. The author obtained an original copy of the official discussion from this meeting. Normally confidential, the document was bought in a Paris used bookstore, apparently coming from the library of a member. "

In this book you will find irrefutable proof that the 1973 OPEC oil price "crisis" was the result of an elitist cabal, with the Bilderberg Group at the centre of the cabal. (And some reviewers complained about the lack of documentation!)

* "Trilateral Commission" - Founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, this is a very real and powerful group, indeed. Jimmy Carter, who nominally presided over what was then dubbed the "Trilateral Presidency", was selected by the Trilateraloids. By way of documentation, Engdahl lists the "Founding members of the Trilateral Commission (1973)".

* "Malthusian" - Now also "neo-Malthusian". I didn't understand what this reference to the Rev. Malthus had to do with modern economics until I read this book. Yes, overpopulation is a problem, but you don't solve the problem the way the neo-Malthusians in the IMF do it.

* "PNAC" - The Project for a New American Century, obviously not a conspiracy theory. I didn't actually see anything new about PNAC that isn't available all over the Internet, but Engdahl does weave the neocon policies into the fabric of his discussion.

* The fall of the Shah of Iran and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. - Perhaps most people have forgotten by now that the US engineered the replacement of the Shah with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It seems that the Shah was not only cutting deals to bypass the Anglo-American Seven Sisters to sell oil, but was also making deals to install nuclear power plants in Iran. (Sound familiar?) This move naturally had the fingerprints of the then National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski all over it. Brzezinski is also defiantly proud of provoking the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, which was perhaps the single most important factor leading to the demise of the USSR.

The second edition of this book (2004) seems to contain many new references, plus an new introduction and final chapter. If you have only read the earlier edition, I suggest getting the newer one. I would eventually like to see a third edition, in line with the changing political situation in the USA, and particularly in view of Engdahl's changed views on the source of oil since the publication of this book. He now subscribes to the a-biotic or abiotic theory, abandoning his prior belief in the peak oil theory mentioned in the final chapter of "A Century Of War".

Apropos the headline of my review, I found Engdahl's references to the "Trilateral Presidency" of Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski's role as one of Carter's primary advisors particularly timely. As the neocons are gradually exiting from central roles in government, control behind the scenes is inevitably shifting, perhaps back to a more left-of-centre public face. Zbigniew Brzezinski has re-surfaced lately as a darling of the Left due to his opposition to the neocon policy in the Middle East and his role as the primary foreign policy controller of Barak Obama. This book as helped convince me that Brzezinski's presence in this milieu is probably not a good sign.

I recommend keeping up with the latest articles by Mr Engdahl, which are easily found on the Internet. He now has his own website which you can easily find.

I also recommend some books that cover some of the topics in "A Century Of War" in more detail.

For a detailed look at the Anglo-American machinations against Germany after WW 1:
Conjuring Hitler: How Britain And America Made the Third Reich
What's so bad about the IMF? and details of the financial deal between the USA and Saudi Arabia in the mid-1970s:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Much on the US military empire:
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project)

Interesting, isn't it, how this book seemed to either receive four stars or just a few. The significance of the subject and the author's apparently detailed knowledge of it explain the five star ratings. You don't have to be paranoid to believe that the British and US pursuit of oil has driven world events for the past century, that characters offstage manipulate world events, that the great steering wheel of politics in this country has never really been connected to the Machine. That's the five-star part. The one star part is how these minutely-detailed sections on economic history and oil politics are broken up by patches of speculation--opinion, really--Engdahl presents as the truth. If the book were all opinion or if it were all dispassionate history, it would be easier to read without wanting to throw it against the wall. This story is important! Engdahl shouldn't have compromised his writing by making the sort of unsubstantiated claims that are believeable only because they appeal to one's worst fears: Did Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy intentionally devise Vietnam as a no-win war in order to boost employment in the defense industry? Or that the Eisenhauer Highway System was built for no reason other than to boost oil consumption? Or that Henry Kissinger intentionally touched off the 6-day War, and that the CIA intentionally "launched" the hippie movement....So many crazy "facts" demand more documentation than exists here. In the end, Engdahl sounds like some kind of stoned hippie politico, connecting the dots to produce a picture that's not quite there. History is complicated. Some of it we read in the newspapers. The big picture usually requires the type of thoughtful analysis that Engdahl starts to produce, then screws up with nutty claims. Too bad.

Look at history as taught at school, and later repeated by documentaries, and even reinforced by the news :

1. The first world war was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
2. Hitler was chosen by the German people.
3. The oil crisis of 1973 was produced by Arabs.
4. The Third World debt crisis of the `80s was produced by Third World leaders spending way too much.
5. The current presence of the US-army in Afghanistan and Iraq has something to do with terrorists hiding over there, weapons of mass destruction, dictators, human rights, democracy, etc. (It's hard to follow what the reasons officially are, since they change continuously.)

Forget it. Briefly summarized, the five above mentioned events are explained by the author to have happened as followed :

1. The first world war was in fact the first *Gulf War*. Germany was a rising economic power, rivaling the British Empire. They were a step away of building a railroad to Baghdad. That would have permitted the German Reich surpassing the British Empire in economic and military power.

2. Hitler was chosen by Wall Street first, before the German people could do likewise. Wall Street thought that it would be easier to have a strong dictator - instead of a democratic government - to put the burden on the people to pay off the reparations debts of the first world war. On top of that, the British Empire thought they could play the German Empire against the Russian Empire, and have them bleed one another to death. Not everything went following the original scenario...

3. After uncoupling the dollar from gold in 1971, a new standard was introduced : the oil standard. But the price of oil was too low. And the dollar was considered by Europe ready for devaluation. Wall Street chose another strategy : lifting the price of oil. Who won by the oil crisis of 1973 ? Everybody lost, except : (1) Exxon, becoming the largest corporation of the US, surpassing General Motors, and (2) the Wall Street banks. (Do you really think some small and military underdeveloped countries could change the world economy in this way without US approval ?)

4. Wall Street became rich with petrodollars, and then went on to lend those dollars to the Third World. Volcker lifted the interest rates in the `80s up to 20 %. The Third World went nearly bankrupt. Remember Mexico 1982. Who is to blame ? Mexico, or Volcker ?

5. Peak oil was the real motive for the US-army taking possession of the second largest oil reserves in the world. 9/11 was the pretext needed to make that happen... A complementary reason is that the US army is now setting up the stage for the next global arms race. By invading Afghanistan, a neighbor of China and Russia, the US is driving up once again the pressure on those countries.

This is a very important book. It radically changed my view of the events of the last century.