Arms for Oil (Socialist Renewal) - Softcover

Michael Barratt Brown

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0851246982 ISBN 13: 9780851246987

Publisher: Spokesman Books, 2005

Synopsis

Why do one third of the world's arms exports - from the United States, The United Kingdom, France and Russia - go to one fifteenth of the world's peoples - all in the 'Middle East'? The obvious answer would be that the arms exporting countries want to protect the governments which control the oil supplies; and that is certainly part of the reason. Another reason could be the need of undemocratic, Arab governments for protection against their own people, or against Israel or Iran. But, the purchase of so many state-of-the-art aircraft and naval vessels seems hardly to be needed for that. The author, having researched the arms for oil business in some depth, has come to a rather surprising conclusion. The pressure comes from the arms exporters.
In each major arms supplying country, the author demonstrates that there can be found a cabal of ministers, civil servants, bankers and directors of companies in the arms business concerned to expand the arms sales by all means including massive bribes, often from state funds. And they are assisted by their links to the giant oil corporations. This may seem obvious in the Bush administration, but it can be found also under New Labour.

About this title

Synopsis:

It is a fact, an unfortunate fact, that economic relations between the West and the Arab and other Islamic countries could for many years be described accurately in just three words "Oil for Arms" or alternatively "Arms for Oil". This has a long history going back to the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire was broken up between the British and French Empires and client regimes were established in the newly created states. The Second World War brought in the American Empire, but the main purpose of all these empires was to control the rich oil reserves in the region. Arms were supplied as necessary to maintain the client regimes in power. This became essential if oil was to remain cheap. Not only does the "Middle East" region contain the richest reserves of cheap oil and gas, but the oil and gas in the other regions of current supply are due to run out during the second decade of the 21st. century. [Thus] competition for access to the remaining reserves of cheap oil and gas is likely to become stiff.

Even before the first Gulf War several thousand US military personnel were positioned in several of the Gulf states, and the Gulf War created the need for a massive US base in Saudi Arabia itself, which came to be deeply resented by such Islamic fundamentalists as Osama Bin Laden. Once any country adopted imported oil and gas as the main sources of supply of energy, such supplies had then to be kept cheap, and that meant exercising control over the resources and the security of supply. In this book it will be necessary to examine the hidden costs of reliance on cheap oil and gas by those countries which took that decision.

About this edition

• Publisher: Spokesman Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0851246982
• ISBN 13: 9780851246987
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 60