HoI3 or DD-Mod Proposition: Peak Oil Scenario

[himbim]

1) Here's the real situation:

I think the most probable cause for another world war or a war in general is that we're running short (not running out) on oil. The war in Iraq was only the beginning of that. The US would have also taken Iran's natural gas reserves (second largest in the world) if they hadn't had so much trouble in Iraq.

With Nato and Shanghai Organisation for Cooperation there are two big blocks that need the middle eastern and central asian oil/gas to fuel their economies. The time when it was enough for all of us are ending now, thats why the price of oil is rising fast. We want more oil, while there will be even LESS in the future, according to a geological theory, which is more and more accepted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil


2) Here's what I propose for HoI3 to rebuild that situation in the game:

Oil & Economy:
A modern Day Scenario, which starts with the invasion of Iraq, just like the already existing MDS. But the role of Oil should be more realistic, not only to fuel the war machinery itself. You should have a slider setting how much of your oil you'll give your people (the rest will be reserved for the military, like it is in the game already). If you don't give them enough oil, your IC will be decreased, and you'll also get an increasing dissent.
There should be research projects which reduce the needed amount of oil.
Infrastructure would be best divided into two numbers: First that runs on oil, like roads, and secondly that which uses electricity like electric trains. The combination of those should also determine how much oil the country needs, so for example the US will obviously need a lot.

Oil Production:
Oil production shouldn't be constant, but it should change, like it will change in reality to. For the US, and the North sea that will mean a soon decline, later for Russia and the middle east. In some regions the Oil production would increase a bit, like Alberta in Canada or Angola. Since natural Gas Reserves can be liquified and used like oil, the can practically treated like oil in a modern day scenario. For the game that would mean an increase in oil production in Iran and Central Asia (Yeah, that's why this region is so important in policy).

Another thing is coal liquification to replace a bit oil. This was used by the Nazis in WW2. The game could offer to bild these plants as province inprovements. But the can't fully solve the problem, since coal is limited as well (but nut as scare as oil).


3) Why I think that would be fun to play:

-It's the real game, that the bad guys like Dick Cheney are playing.

-In the game it would be essential to control enough oil, to maintain the full IC and polical stability. But as the sum of the oil supplies slowly starts to decline slowly from ~2012 on, most planes and tanks would only be useful if you control more of the oil, than "your share". So if you can disconnect the enemy from it's oil, it basically kicks him back to the stoneage slowly: His IC declines, his IC needs to be used more for the consumer because they get angry about having no gas, and if you hold him long enough from his oil, even his military gets paralysed.

 

[dermeister]

If you want to make an environmentalism mod sure, but the idea of peak oil is bullshit. Every decade some demagogue claims we have 10 years left.

The oil under US Federal land and the Vietnamese islands alone gives hundreds of years of oil.

As for the Iraq stuff, that's just partisan political speculation. You might as well have accused Nazi Germany of invading France for the Wine or the French Empire of invading Russia for the Vodka.

 

[himbim]

1) Peak Oil isn't about environmentalism at all.

2)

If you want to make an environmentalism mod sure, but the idea of peak oil is bullshit. Every decade some demagogue claims we have 10 years left.

Well you've just profen that you've got no idea what the message of peak oil is: Nobody says we've ten years left. But there will be less oil coming from the ground than today in a few years. Thats a geolocical theory which is pretty much proven. The only diskussion is about the "when" not about the "if".

And that alone is enough to bring the US economy down to it's knees since they're so dependant on cheap oil.

For Iraq, the Peak of Oil Production is predicted for about ~2018, so invading the last big oil producer that will be left, might not be a coincidence.

Your comparison with Nazi Germany an the French wine is a poor one, since Germany can survive without French wine, while Americans wouldn't be able to get to work, heat their homes and so on . . .
Oil might be only a small part of the gross domestic product, but we can't live without it.

The oil under US Federal land and the Vietnamese islands alone gives hundreds of years of oil.

Well that is ridiculous. Did you read that in the "Bild-Zeitung" ? Or the "Spiegel," the "Bild-Zeitung" for the better off people ? No, seriously who tells such fairytails, where did you get that "information" ?

 

[unmerged(58104)]

Hey, if you want to make an environmentalist mod with your nice political agenda go ahead. No one will stop you.

I think the most probable cause for another world war or a war in general is that we're running short (not running out) on oil.

Although a lack of resources would be a cause for a future war, it's not inevitable or the sole reason.

The US would have also taken Iran's natural gas reserves (second largest in the world) if they hadn't had so much trouble in Iraq.

And Dick Cheney told you this at your latest dinnerparty? Prove? Evidence?

For the game that would mean an increase in oil production in Iran and Central Asia (Yeah, that's why this region is so important in policy).

Slightly pedantic. Thanks for the politics 101!

the real game, that the bad guys like Dick Cheney are playing.

You are aware that Dick Cheney is still vice president in the USA? Maybe some Americans could take offence to you insulting one of their leaders?
You don't see any Americans here calling Angela Merkel a b****?

And that alone is enough to bring the US economy down to it's knees since they're so dependant on cheap oil.

And luckily, only the American economy, since every continent is an island and nobody trades with one another! :wacko:

For Iraq, the Peak of Oil Production is predicted for about ~2018, so invading the last big oil producer that will be left, might not be a coincidence.

Again, let the conspiracies fly!

Well that is ridiculous. Did you read that in the "Bild-Zeitung" ? Or the "Spiegel," the "Bild-Zeitung" for the better off people ? No, seriously who tells such fairytails, where did you get that "information" ?

Ok, someone goes through the hardship of reading your entire post and tries to give a non-insulting reply and you can only mock him/her?

It looks to me like this whole post of yours about 'improvements' is political first, game second. You also have a obsession with the USA which isn't healthy IMHO.

 

[Vortex79]

Peak oil is not questionable, timing of peak oil is. The Precambrian period only compressed so much foliage into coal and oil. We also can only get so much out of the ground.. so fast.. of course, this scales with technology. I predict we'll find a way to synthetically reproduce oil before it becomes a much more severe problem; that or we'll finally do the great push to try to make Fusion viable, but all the same I have no doubt prices will escalate as the folks in the commodities and global markets buy up and hoard the supplies as investments.

Petrochemicals are like economic insulin now. Have your nation, if it's huge and in need of mobility and burning fuels, try to live without it.

Suppliers, even if we get synthesis technology, are under no real pressure to provide more and decrease their margins. It is monopoly by necessity.. supply side automatic victory.

 

[dermeister]

1) Peak Oil isn't about environmentalism at all.

peak+oil+environmentalism
Results of about 295,000 for peak oil environmentalism. (0.07 seconds)

2) Well you've just profen that you've got no idea what the message of peak oil is: Nobody says we've ten years left. But there will be less oil coming from the ground than today in a few years. Thats a geolocical theory which is pretty much proven. The only diskussion is about the "when" not about the "if".

In 1914, the US interior ministry said there was only a ten-year supply of oil left; which it raised to 13 years, 25 years later in 1939, although there seemed to be enough to go round in world war II. And in 1951, it told the world, straight faced, that oil would definitely run out, this time, by the mid-1960s. In the 1970s, US president Jimmy Carter announced that “we could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”

And that alone is enough to bring the US economy down to it's knees since they're so dependant on cheap oil.
For Iraq, the Peak of Oil Production is predicted for about ~2018, so invading the last big oil producer that will be left, might not be a coincidence.

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country Mar-08
CANADA 1,727
SAUDI ARABIA 1,535
MEXICO 1,232
NIGERIA 1,138
VENEZUELA 858
IRAQ 773
ANGOLA 375
ALGERIA 232
ECUADOR 231
BRAZIL 188
KUWAIT 178
COLOMBIA 120
RUSSIA 108
CHAD 101
UNITED KINGDOM 95

Coming in at a close 6th past Angola; Iraq, ladies and gentlemen!!! The crowd goals wild!

Your comparison with Nazi Germany an the French wine is a poor one, since Germany can survive without French wine, while Americans wouldn't be able to get to work, heat their homes and so on . . .
Oil might be only a small part of the gross domestic product, but we can't live without it.

Not only has Iraqi oil production gone down since the invasion, but world prices have gone up.

Well that is ridiculous. Did you read that in the "Bild-Zeitung" ? Or the "Spiegel," the "Bild-Zeitung" for the better off people ? No, seriously who tells such fairytails, where did you get that "information" ?

Time to take you to school. Bring your notebook and a pen.

US Unproven Reserves
The United States has the largest known deposits of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 2,500 gigabarrels of potentially recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current rates for 110 years. However, oil shale does not actually contain oil, but a waxy oil precursor known as kerogen. For this reason and because there is not yet any significant commercial production of oil from oil shale in the United States as of 2008, its oil shale reserves do not meet the petroleum industry definition of proven oil reserves.

Spratly Islands
There are multiple reasons why the neighboring nations would be interested in the Spratly Islands. In 1968 oil was discovered in the region. The Geology and Mineral Resources Ministry of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has estimated that the Spratly area holds oil and natural gas reserves of 17.7 billion tons (1.60 × 1010 kg), as compared to the 13 billion tons (1.17 × 1010 kg) held by Kuwait, placing it as the fourth largest reserve bed in the world.

Peak oil is not questionable

Sorry I offended your god.

Ok, someone goes through the hardship of reading your entire post and tries to give a non-insulting reply and you can only mock him/her?

Freedom loving, gas guzzling dittos from the land of the North. Go USA!

 

[himbim]

1) I can't really explain everything in detail but there you go, even the SPON finally checked it:

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,554587,00.html

-It really doesn't matter who gets the oil form where, taht can be changed overnight if its necessary, so the fact that the US does't get much oil from iraq isn't an argument. Important is who needs how much and who produces how much, and most important: who will produce how much in the future.

Not only has Iraqi oil production gone down since the invasion, but world prices have gone up.

-Well that only shows that it didn't work, in fact a lot of the terrorist attacks aim at the oil infrastructure and its guards, but that detail is rarely mentioned in the news.

-To the reserves: As you quoted, they an "unproven". It's not clear if the can be produced without putting more energy into them, than they contain, there is a reason why they are not already developed.

@Vortex79:

Of course we can produce systhetic oil, especially from coal and biomass. But that won't ever deliver the enourmous amounts we are using today. The biomass is limited because we need to eat to (and there will be less due less fertilisers and pesticides also mad from oil....), and building enough liquification capacity for coal will use lot of our (using HoI - language) IC. If we do that on large scale even coal may become expensive some day.
So that can help with the problem, but not solve it.
And well fusion: ~20 years until the ITER is built. Lets say it works an the figure out how the have to build a real fusion plant within 5 years (which would need to be even bigger than the ITER), another 15 years until that's ready, and maybe then we have something we can produce in series (a far to optimistic assumption), thats 40 years form now. So thats a possible solution for the next generation, not for our problems.

 

[telesien]

oh crap! Malthusian trap all over again. first food, than coal, now oil.... when will people learn?? there is no such think as global catastrophy because of lack of something.....
btw. this thread seems too political for me and some moderator should look if it is not ready to be locked

 

[dermeister]

oh crap! Malthusian trap all over again. first food, than coal, now oil.... when will people learn?? there is no such think as global catastrophy because of lack of something.....

*applause*

btw. this thread seems too political for me and some moderator should look if it is not ready to be locked

That's because it's a political environmentalist-worldview mod.

 

[himbim]

Well I wanted to make it about how the real situation could be rebuilt in the game. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be interested.

Think about it in therms of the game. What would happen if one block, Nato, or SCO would conquer the middle east, and take all the oil and natural gas for itself?
In the actual game the lack of oil would just reduce the ability to move tanks and planes a bit. That's totally unrealistic. In reality the standard of living, the IC and some other things would go down, just like in the two oil crisis we had, but e few times harder.

 

[unmerged(58104)]

Well I wanted to make it about how the real situation could be rebuilt in the game. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be interested.

Think about it in therms of the game. What would happen if one block, Nato, or SCO would conquer the middle east, and take all the oil and natural gas for itself?

You are aware that probably around 70% + of the world's spending on military is annually done by NATO members?

The fact that nobody seems interested in your idea is because of your tone, in case you haven't realised that yourself by now...

-Well that only shows that it didn't work, in fact a lot of the terrorist attacks aim at the oil infrastructure and its guards, but that detail is rarely mentioned in the news.

IMHO the USA is winning in Iraq as long as they don't do anything stupid. Iraq's economy is growing every year too. If anything the mainstream media hasn't reported about American successes, especially since the surge.
An example is how the Mahdi surrender has been reported.
But that's my opinion and you're free to your own.

In the actual game the lack of oil would just reduce the ability to move tanks and planes a bit. That's totally unrealistic. In reality the standard of living, the IC and some other things would go down, just like in the two oil crisis we had, but e few times harder.

This however isn't such a bad idea. In WWII the civilian economy wasn't really connected to oil. Nowadays you're correct that everything needs oil, if only for transport around the world. That's definitely one disadvantage of globalism.

How about something like 10% of your IC for non-military oiluse?
If you had 500 IC as the USA, you'd need 50 oil a day for example to fuel your economy.

-To the reserves: As you quoted, they an "unproven". It's not clear if the can be produced without putting more energy into them, than they contain, there is a reason why they are not already developed.

You're not taking into account that because of technological advances and rising oilprices oilreserves oilreserves which weren't economically usable ten years ago are so now.
That Alaskan shale is a nice example of this.

Even though oil is probably the most important fuel, there are also others. Transport for example could be done more by rail instead of road; trains can run on electricity won by coal/gas/nuke plants. These resources are also ofcourse all finite.

 

[Junker Egge]

himbim you are paranoid. Do you honestly believe that the US invaded Iraq because they want to grap all the oil? Do you know how expensive the war is? That never pays off. Your anti-americanism is soooo typical German. Fortunately most other people don't know that there are so many of us who think that way.

If you really want to make such a mod could you at least stop insulting other nation's politicians? Do you honestly believe that Cheney is a "bad guy" compared to all the other politicians out there?

 

[himbim]

Hi GoforitPanzer,
thanks for that post, now we have a real discussion.

Even though oil is probably the most important fuel, there are also others. Transport for example could be done more by rail instead of road; trains can run on electricity won by coal/gas/nuke plants. These resources are also ofcourse all finite.

Yes, and i think that's what we should be doing right now. I might add that germany produces 14% of its electricity renewable, and that's growing about 1% each year (at high, but affordable costs).
And yes for all other ressources the "range" iss longer,I'm pretty sure the order iss: Oil, Gas, Uranium, Coal; So switching to another one buys some time.

You're not taking into account that because of technological advances and rising oilprices oilreserves oilreserves which weren't economically usable ten years ago are so now.
That Alaskan shale is a nice example of this.

I am taking that into account, but i think the effects of that a overestimanted: It's in the big field that can produce oil with low costs per oil, so the additional amount of oil that becomes worth drilling for gets smaller the higher the price gets. Extreme Example: Think of the oil field which do not pay off at 200$ a barrel but at 300$. I bet that wont be much.
83% of our oil come from the 250 biggest fields on the planet, so the small ones will have some effect but cannot replace the few big ones.

IMHO the USA is winning in Iraq as long as they don't do anything stupid. Iraq's economy is growing every year too. If anything the mainstream media hasn't reported about American successes, especially since the surge.
An example is how the Mahdi surrender has been reported.
But that's my opinion and you're free to your own.

I am aware of that, and i agree. What I wanted to say, what didn't work was their plan to have a war without costs, that paid itself from the oil sales.
I am in fact very happy for the people of iraq that the situation is improving. While I say they have started the war to control the oil, I also think they're responsible the maintain order there and should therefore even send more soldiers if the situation requires it.
By the way, if anybody doesn't believe it was about the oil, what was it then about ? Weapons of mass destruction ? Even Greenspan admitted that it was about the oil. If it had been about security they would rather have attacked Iran or North Korea (I'm not saying they should have done that, but then I could believe them).

How about something like 10% of your IC for non-military oiluse?
If you had 500 IC as the USA, you'd need 50 oil a day for example to fuel your economy.

-I guess it's the other way round: About 90% civil and 10% military use. In fact the US Airforce iss planning to shift their jets to synthetic fuel made from coal or natural gas, so in the future it could be only the civil sector that is dependant on oil. I realise, in order to implement that in the game, the oil production number would have to be much higher, for example 10 times higher.

-I would be easier to program to make 1 IC use x of oil per day, like the other ressources, but it wouldn't be realistic. Different countries have very different oil demands. For example Germany uses far less oil per IC than the us. UK is even better (due very high gas taxes). An compromise could be: Set IC to use x of oil and make an offmap need of oil for every country that fits to its oil demand.

-The role of oil is absolutely well done in the Game for WW2: There iss a limited converting capacity from coal (Energy) to oil, like there was. So it's one goal of the war for Germany to get to Baku, like in the real world. Back then in WW2 the oil was (at wartime) mainly a military factor.

But as soon as you install a Modern Day Mod, that Model is ridiculous.

You are aware that probably around 70% + of the world's spending on military is annually done by NATO members?

I am not getting, how thats a response to what you quoted. Could you explain that a bit further?

I want to mention that I don't trust sch numbers, since a chinese gun might be in there with a smaller amount of money than a german one, but it can shoot you just as dead.

 

[unmerged(58104)]

This is derailing enormously, shouldn't this be in OT or even historical?

-The role of oil is absolutely well done in the Game for WW2: There iss a limited converting capacity from coal (Energy) to oil, like there was. So it's one goal of the war for Germany to get to Baku, like in the real world. Back then in WW2 the oil was (at wartime) mainly a military factor.

But as soon as you install a Modern Day Mod, that Model is ridiculous.

I agree that the oil model used in vanilla HoI2/DD fits well but suits a MDS less.



Regarding this question:

I am not getting, how thats a response to what you quoted. Could you explain that a bit further?

this:

You are aware that probably around 70% + of the world's spending on military is annually done by NATO members?

was an answer to this:

Think about it in therms of the game. What would happen if one block, Nato, or SCO would conquer the middle east, and take all the oil and natural gas for itself?

What I meant by it was if as you suggest, the Western fascist countries, enemy of the proletariat that are members of NATO were truely so as you depict them, then we would all by now live in a Starship Troopers like world, with a single government under NATO control.
Even your own country Germany nowadays nearly outspends Russia...

I want to mention that I don't trust sch numbers, since a chinese gun might be in there with a smaller amount of money than a german one, but it can shoot you just as dead.

Yes, that is correct. But the average Chinese conscript will also be less trained and less well equiped than the average professional, say German, soldier.
Just like most NATO members have airforces which train 10x as much as the average pilot in a third world country that flies a MiG-23 or so.

 

[himbim]

-I understand your posting the way, that you're basically saying: A MDS doesn't make a lot of sense, because the western countries have a to good military?
In that case I suppose to set the scenario a few years in the future, it think in 5 or 10 years the military budgets will be more "balanced". I bet the US won't be able to keep their military spending that high, once the recession (partly caused by their oil dependence, maybe mainly because of the subprime bubble) hits them.

But let's get back to my proposition about the game:
Even if you don't believe it or you are not sure if peak oil is a big problem (or don't wanna believe like Homer Simpson said: "That can't be true honey, if it were I'd be terrified."), it's still a great setting for a game. And a battle for the middle east and central asia would also change the nuke problematic of a MDS: The goal wouldn't be so much who has how much territory with how much value, but it would be who controls how much ressources, and is able to keep his country up and running.
-Therefore the middle east would best be divided into a few more provinces.
-I think the development of the oil production could easily be implemented by events.
-It would be necessary to get the AI to focus on the oil producing provinces, at least as soon as it has problems to fuel its IC.
-Giving more VP to the Oil producing provinces would be approproate. The actual MDS already does that a bit, so the worlds biggest oil field "ghawar" in saudi arabia has 10 Points. Would that helf with the AI? Does the AI target the VP ?

 

[unmerged(38037)]

Its pointless. Cause you can just make oil from coal and other energy sources. So the energy conversion will be more than enough in HOI2 and in RL. Just depends on what you use. Germany had no oil and used coal during WWII. So its do able.

Second its again pointless to have a war over oil. When there is peak oil, you would burn a bunch of oil to just get oil. Its ridiculous.

 

[himbim]

Cause you can just make oil from coal and other energy sources.

My point is: That worked in WW2 to fuel some tanks and planes - and that was already expensive and in the end the fuel was a scare resource for germany anyway. The liquification plants are not some cheap little equipment. Building enough of them to replace a serious amount of the enormous amounts of oil we use today would use a considerable amount of IC of a country, especially for the US. At some point it would also make coal scare since we use more oil than coal today - so a doubling or tripling in coal production would also be necessary.

You see it can be done and work for one or two decades (in the (very) long run it would hasten a "peak coal"), but it won't be easy and cheap. My guess is, the costs for the whole economy would be like a big war.

By the way: It will probably be done, the only company's shares who has that skill at the moment, south afrikan "sasol," are rising a lot these days.

Second its again pointless to have a war over oil. When there is peak oil, you would burn a bunch of oil to just get oil. Its ridiculous.

Well even with the high oil use a a modern military that could pay of very well, if it wasn't for the terrorists that attack oil fields, pipelines, refineries. By that they alienate potential investors, so the production stays low.
But look where the worlds largest oil and gas reserves are and look where the US military is. Even the German "Bundeswehr" is in Usbekistan. I think the "war on terror" is a masquerade for the war for energy supply. If you don't believe that give me better explanation what the Iraq war was for.

 

[dermeister]

I think the "war on terror" is a masquerade for the war for energy supply. If you don't believe that give me better explanation what the Iraq war was for.

In this case I will defer to the Christopher Hitchens Doctrine:

A state may be deemed or said to have sacrificed its sovereignty:

1. If it participates in regular aggressions against neighboring states or occupations of their territory;

2. If it violates the letter and spirit of the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in other words, fools around promiscuously with the illegal acquisition of weapons of mass destruction;

3. If it should violate the Genocide Convention, the signatories to which are obliged without further notice to act either to prevent or punish genocide; and

4. If it plays host to international gangsters, nihilists, terrorists, and jihadists."

Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime was guilty on all counts:
1) The invasion and annexation of Kuwait, a member state of the U.N.
2) The use of gas weapons, Osirak.
3) Gassing of the Kurds.
4) Financing of Palestinian terrorists and various thugs.

In the 20th century, from the cold-war onwards, the US had a Kissengerian foreign policy: do what's morally right only if it doesn't cost too much and doesn't cause too much "instability".

The epitome of this was the US halting once Kuwait was liberated in the Gulf War and leaving Saddam Hussein in place.

From GWB's "War on Terror" (a terribly stupid name, but that's another problem) onwards, the idea of doing what's "right" only if it's easy was dropped in regards to the middle east, and the US decided to attempt to spread democracy as a way of pro-actively fighting the ideology of Islamo-fascism. No more morally bankrupt Kissingerian two-timing bullshit.

That is why the US did what it did.

Now that you have the alternative to your "theory", let's see how yours holds when tested against history.

Thesis: The US invaded Iraq for oil.

1) The US didn't invade Iraq in 1991 when it had the chance. If the US wants oil enough to invade, it would have done so when it was that much easier.
2) The US invaded in 2003 fully expecting every Iraqi oil field to be set on fire, which happened in many cases. Furthermore, instability in the region would obviously cause financial markets to up-bid oil.
3) Iraqi oil production is lower than before, and is all on the world market.
4) The war is costing the US far more than the advantage of having Iraqi oil on the world market. For the cost of the war, it could easily have subsidized oil prices as do China and India.

Thus, the idea that the US invaded Iraq to "take their oil" is patently absurd. It fails on every account. The facts don't fit the theory in every way shape and form.

We must thus apply Occam's razor - the stated neo-con ideology of spreading american-backed democracy and GWB's reversal of Kissengerian policy is sufficient to explain everything the US has done.

QED

 

[himbim]

First, a wanna saw, ok thats an exaplanation. Thanks for writing it down, now I understand why you don't believe me. But to convince me I'm wrong, it isn't sufficient.
Here's my comment on your explanation:

To the crimes of Saddam Hussein I must say: They where already done, so when the invasion was made, it could only prevent other crimes he potentially could have comitted in the future, no ongoing genocide or similar was stopped (ok there where innocent people in prison but even some Nato countries like turkey or the US itself have that).
So there are of course arguments to put Saddam out of office, but with that attitude you could invade lots of countries. So I don't believe it was a coincidence that they picked the one country which had lots of oil left in the ground (partly because of the oil embargo in Iraq). The first thing the troops secured was the oil fields, and they disappropriated the russian oil concessions in iraq. Now US and UK companies have that business.

1) The US didn't invade Iraq in 1991 when it had the chance. If the US wants oil enough to invade, it would have done so when it was that much easier.

Well back then oil was abundant and cheap. In fact that would have been the right opportunity to attack, because the Shiites where rioting and had the expectation of getting aid by the US. But a bad guy in a far country is like a joker: If you're in trouble at home you can start some trouble there to distract from it.

[qutoe]3) Iraqi oil production is lower than before, and is all on the world market.
4) The war is costing the US far more than the advantage of having Iraqi oil on the world market. For the cost of the war, it could easily have subsidized oil prices as do China and India.[/quote]

I think they didn't see that coming when they started the war, so its a failure.
It's not my opinion that war is an efficent way to ensure energy security, but it looks like that's cheney's agenda.

 

[dermeister]

To the crimes of Saddam Hussein I must say: They where already done, so when the invasion was made, it could only prevent other crimes he potentially could have comitted in the future, no ongoing genocide or similar was stopped (ok there where innocent people in prison but even some Nato countries like turkey or the US itself have that).

By that logic those guilty of past war crimes shouldn't be tried; in 1946 no Nazi was actively committing genocide, so why have the Neuremberg trials? Signatories to the Geneva convention are compelled to act at any time as soon as possible against those responsible for past and present genocide.

So there are of course arguments to put Saddam out of office, but with that attitude you could invade lots of countries.

This is absolutely true. For example, neo-conism holds that invading the slave state of North Korea is morally correct at any time for any reason. On the other hand, the Korean peninsula would be obliterated. Thus, while Kissengerian philosophy would conclude "don't do anything", Neo-conism concludes "do as much as possible as soon as possible whenever possible while weighing the consequences, but not being afraid of a bit of instability in exchange for a lot of "good").

So I don't believe it was a coincidence that they picked the one country which had lots of oil left in the ground (partly because of the oil embargo in Iraq). The first thing the troops secured was the oil fields, and they disappropriated the russian oil concessions in iraq. Now US and UK companies have that business.

Of course they'd try to save the oil fields, but they knew Iraq oil production would go to shit no matter how hard they tried. In fact they were so scared of Baathism, they thought they'd fight massive Baath loyalist guerrilla militias and have a lot of problem with oil sabotage.

Well back then oil was abundant and cheap. In fact that would have been the right opportunity to attack, because the Shiites where rioting and had the expectation of getting aid by the US. But a bad guy in a far country is like a joker: If you're in trouble at home you can start some trouble there to distract from it.

1) As you said, there's plenty other "jokers"
2) The whole US congress voted bipartisan for the Afghan war, and Bush was at like 60-70% approval post-9/11.
Thus, this joker logic is self-defeating.

I think they didn't see that coming when they started the war, so its a failure.
It's not my opinion that war is an efficent way to ensure energy security, but it looks like that's cheney's agenda.

Actually Cheney and Rumsfeld had been on the invade ASAP neo-con side ever since 1991. They had always intended to do it whenever however as soon as possible, but couldn't in 91 since GHWB went against it. In fact, even the American "left" was for regime-change (Iraq Liberation Act). You can still find YouTube clips of Al Gore blasting GHWB for not finishing the job in the early 90s.

The Republican Party's campaign platform in the 2000 election called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act and removal of Saddam Hussein; and key Bush advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld’s Deputy Paul Wolfowitz, were longstanding advocates of invading Iraq, and contributed to a September 2000 report from the Project for the New American Century that argued for using an invasion of Iraq as a means for the U.S. to "play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security..."

As you can see, the Neo-con ideology of exporting the american revolution is still the simplest cleanest most obvious answer.