Global Dynamics of National Security: Alliances and Resources - The Future Of Resource Conflicts: The Africa Pattern

Resource stresses abroad may well keep the United States on its toes in the next few decades, especially because they may make conflicts among regional powers more likely and more intense. Although involved parties may seek economic sanctions before resorting to military force, transborder resource conflicts are likely to occur.

The Middle East is of special concern to U.S. security planners. The great oil riches of the Persian Gulf states have inflamed border disputes between them. Water scarcity is also a problem in the Middle East, especially in the westernmost part of the region where most water comes from the Jordan and Nile rivers. Here, national populations are expected to soar in size, making water supplies increasingly scarce. The existing political ill will between nations and groups may easily increase and lead to conflict. Now that the United States is maintaining a presence in these regions, the low likelihood of success of an outright resource or territorial grab might discourage sovereign states from contemplating aggression.

The Middle East is not the only region where resource conflicts are likely. Civil wars in some of the African states have been caused by wars over natural resources, including water, land, diamonds, oil, minerals, and timber. These wars have taken their toll in the form of millions of deaths. For example, coltan is a mineral used in cell phones, DVDs, and other electronic products. Mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African nations, it has created problems as conflicts arise over ownership of rights. Governments, rebel factions, and other entities have confronted Americans and others involved in importing coltan, diamonds, and other resources with increasing resentment.

In Nigeria, where several U.S. oil companies have operations, there have been serious conflicts involving protesters concerned with environmental and health damages they say have been caused by oil-related activities. Protesters also feel that, despite what they were told about the economic benefits of oil production for their villages, corrupt local governments and the oil companies have been the only beneficiaries. In the meantime, they have received little or no compensation for environmental damage and ill health that has resulted from oil-production activities.

Additionally, human-rights abuse charges have been made by Nigerian citizens and by international human rights organizations, which believe that the oil companies have been complicit in the violent repression of protesters. If not directly involved in such abuses, the oil companies have failed in their responsibility to prevent or publicly oppose such abuses, opponents say. In one particular incident on January 4, 1999, for example, Nigerian soldiers using a Chevron helicopter attacked villagers in two communities, killing at least four people and destroying most of the village structures and homes. (In March 2004 a U.S. District Court judge ruled that ChevronTexaco can be held liable for its subsidiary's involvement in the Nigerian raids.) Other protests, including the takeover of a ChevronTexaco oil plant by protesters in 2002 and the kidnappings of foreign workers in oil-producing areas, demonstrate the potential threats to Americans in the region and to U.S. interests abroad.