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Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict With a New Introduction by the Author [Paperback]

Michael T. Klare
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 13, 2002
From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia, Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations.

International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on.

A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Klare analyzes the most likely cause of war in the century just begun: demand by rapidly growing populations for scarce resources. An introductory chapter sets the scene, laying out the complexities of rapidly increasing demand as the world industrializes, the concentration of resources in unstable states and the competing claims to ownership of resources by neighboring states. Succeeding chapters look more closely at the potential for conflict over oil in the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian and South China Seas, over water in the Nile Basin and other multinational river systems and over timber, gems and minerals from Borneo to Sierra Leone. The strength of Klare's presentation is its concreteness. His analyses of likely conflicts, for example among Syria, Jordan and Israel for the limited water delivered by the Jordan River, are informed by detailed research into projected usage rates, population growth and other relevant trends. As Klare shows, the same pattern is repeated in dozens of other locations throughout the world. Finite resources, escalating demand and the location of resources in regions torn by ethnic and political unrest all combine as preconditions of war. Klare, an expert on warfare and international security (Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, etc.), presents a persuasive case for paying serious attention to these impending hostilities and furnishes the basic information needed to understand their danger and the importance of international cooperation in staving off conflict. (May) Forecast: Klare's message is important, but it probably won't be heard by many beyond readers of the handful of major newspapers that will review it.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In this tour d'horizon for prospective wars in the next few decades, Klare identifies the factors and the actors in several contested areas of Africa and Asia. Distancing himself from ruminators like Samuel Huntington, whose Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) maintained that cultural differences, such as between Muslim and Christian, will drive post-cold war international politics, Klare contends that power struggles over petroleum, water, gems, and timber will be the engines. Indeed, where oil and water are concentrated in Asia and Africa--the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, and the South China Sea in the former; the Nile, Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus River regions in the latter--Klare notes marked increases in military activity. Saber sharpening, rattling, and use have their provocations in increasing worldwide demand, driven by economic and population growth, for oil and clean water. Buttressing the text with tables attesting the finitude of both resources, Klare provides needed clarity on and a needed current-affairs summary of the issue. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 13, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0805055762
  • ISBN-13: 978-0805055764
  • Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

The book covers a wide range of topics in a very practical, matter-of-fact fashion. Lee L.  |  7 reviewers made a similar statement
I have read the first pages and its a great great book. shenzy  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 54 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Book's message drowned out by recent events March 15, 2002
Format:Hardcover
And it's a pity because Klare is on the right track with his analysis. Very early in the book he puts the issue into context. In a time of globalization with more and more countries industrializing, there is a concomitant increased demand for finite resources, which is exacerbated by growing populations.

To the extent that these resources are in unstable regions of the world, and many of them are, it poses a problem. The arguments about a convergence of resources, geography, and national self-interests seems to recall Europe of the last century and their "great game" of Middle Eastern conquests or their "Scramble for Africa." Some of the objectives are the same - oil and gems - but mostly the resources in question are simply essential to basic national existence - food and water. Klare's analysis is penetrating and supported with tables. His data seems to point to an inevitable conflict between Israel, Jordan, and Syria over the River Jordans' outflow. Similar population pressures impact the Nile, and Egypt's relations with its neighbors.

In contrast to the plausible and much more likely scenarios as portrayed here, shallow arguments such as Samuel Huntington's CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS are enjoying post September 11th renewed sales. Huntington has seemingly identified the problem, but many persons recognize his analysis as superficial and too generalized and his clash was never originally about terrorism. More to the point is the type of collapsed-state, money-laundering financed type of conflicts involving diamonds which Klare identifies as taking place in Sierra Leone and Angola. Here we have an intersection of Western corporate interests, strategic resources and local political considerations. These "conflict diamonds" are a topic of broad discussion in Matthew Hart's recent DIAMOND: A JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF AN OBSESSION. Here Klare sees them as illustrative of the type of resource over which future wars will be fought. In Klare's view they are more likely to live up to their other name - "blood diamonds".

RESOURCE WARS is a wide ranging, carefully argued, and very plausible portrait of where future battles will be, and what they will be about.

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72 of 80 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Ground Truth That Will Be Ignored May 31, 2001
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a very thoughtful and well-documented book that has been 20 years in the making--although it was actually researched and written in the past three years, the author is on record as having discussed water wars in 1980, and should be credited with anticipating the relationship between natural resources, ethnic conflict, and great power discomfort well before the pack.

He covers oil in particular, energy in more general terms (to my disappointment, not breaking natural gas out from oil, a very relevant distinction for commodities brokers), water, minerals, and timber. His footnotes are quite satisfactory and strike a very fine balance--unusually good--between policy, military, and academic or industry sources.

Sadly, I believe that this book, as with Laurie Garrett's book on the collapse of public health, will be ignored by the ...Administration, which appears to have decided that real war is only between states, that energy is something to be increased, not moderated in use, and that real men do not concern themselves with ethnic conflict, small wars, or scarcity of any sort in the Third World.

As I reflect on this book, and its deep discussion of the details of existing and potential resources wars (it includes a very fine illustrative appendix of oil and natural gas conflicts, all current), I contemplate both my disappointment that the author and publisher did not choose to do more with geospatial visualization--a fold out map of the world with all the points plotted in color would have been an extraordinary value--and the immediate potential value of adding the knowledge represented by this book on resources and the Garrett book on public health threats--to the World Conflict & Human Rights Map 2000 published by PIOOM at Leiden University in The Netherlands.

What I really like about this book is its relevance, its authority, its utility. What I find frustrating about this book is that it is, like all books, an isolated fragment of knowledge that cannot easily be integrated and visualized. How helpful it would be, if US voters could see a geographic depiction of the world showing all that the author of this excellent work is trying to communicate, and on the same geographic depiction, see the military dollars versus the economic assistance dollars that the U.S. is or is not investing. The results would be shocking and could lead to political action as the community level, for what is clear to me from this book is that there is a huge disconnect between the real threat, our national security policies, and how we actually spend our foreign affairs, defense, and trade dollars from the taxpayers' pockets.

A trillion dollar tax cut, or a trillion dollar investment in deterrence through investments in natural resource stabilization and extension? Which would be of more lasting value to the seventh generation of our children? The author does not comment--one is left to read between the lines.

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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling glimpse of near future June 1, 2004
Format:Paperback
Out of oil by 2050, or 2040 , or 2080 and shortages long before then. Potable water.. scarce now and getting scarcer (one of the roots of the 67 Arab-Israeli War was water rights). The facts roll over the reader, dispassionate and almost mindnumbing in detail. Population growing far beyond any capacity to maintain (The population of Ethiopia in 1950 was 18 million, the projected population in 2050 will be 212 million!)Civil wars, wars by proxy, the depletion and devastation of irreplacable old growth forests, rainforests, whole fragile ecosystems gone in a decade. And these are facts....facts no reputable scientist will argue other then exactly WHEN the resources will be finally depleted. The feeling I got at the end of the book was that we are all 'fiddling' as our world starts to burn.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Too much detail
This could have been an article. Includes more detail than required for an enjoyable read. Also a bit dated. OK.
Published 1 month ago by Linda
4.0 out of 5 stars A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW
I have been following the issue of resource depletion for a while now. I believe it to be the ultimate theme until the end of time/after the collapse of the global population. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Sonia
5.0 out of 5 stars Taking the red pill
Michael Klare showed how resource competition and scarcity has always been one of the major causes of wars. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Citizen John
5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT WORK
Thats an awesome book. Great service from amazon too. I have read the first pages and its a great great book. Economists should be reading this.
Published 19 months ago by shenzy
4.0 out of 5 stars A little outdated by now, but great insights beyond the media
Take a trip below the surface of media stories and find out what is going on behind the scenes of many well-known as well as many other unknown problems across the globe. Read more
Published on June 26, 2009 by Michael T. Hanley, CPA
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating reading
Absolutely incredible book on natural resource conflicts. This book opened my eyes to many issues I had never considered before. Read more
Published on June 12, 2009 by Jesse Taylor
4.0 out of 5 stars Through detailed, an important concept
Resource Wars presents an interesting thesis about the causes of up coming wars. The book is well written, through and detailed. Read more
Published on July 28, 2008 by railmeat
1.0 out of 5 stars No wars for resources
The author is unconvincing because he is wrong. He imagines an unidimensional, zero-sum world, which not the one we live in. Read more
Published on June 8, 2008 by I. Klein
5.0 out of 5 stars best characterization of the geopolitical framework of the Post-Cold...
copyright 2006 Kat W.

In Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict Michael Klare argues that the post-Cold War era can be best explained by a perspective that... Read more
Published on November 19, 2006 by Kat
5.0 out of 5 stars Power where does it all stem from...
This is a good book and it really opens your eyes to all the bickering that occures over the use of resources.. Read more
Published on November 2, 2006 by Neal Vanderstelt
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