Oil 1 Peak Oil 21
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WarPeak oil will collapse low income states worldwide-we’re on the brink now. The resultant chaos will draw in larger countries, resulting in great-power conflict across the globe. Nader Elhefnawy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Miami, April, ‘8 (The Impending Oil Shock, Survival, Volume 50, Number 2, p. Ebsco) [Bozman] Some states, particularly in the underdeveloped world, may not even be able to obtain sufficient energy resources to keep their economies functioning. Less-developed nations differ widely in the energy-intensiveness of their economies as well, but given the relatively low resource productivity of many; their obsolete, poorly maintained or otherwise inadequate infrastructure; and their obligation to pay for high-priced oil in hard currency; low-income oil importers will be in an especially poor position. In contrast to developed states enjoying more developed institutions and better access to capital and technology, less-developed nations have fewer of the resources needed to adapt to new circumstances, and any price shock would weaken such resources as they do have.71 Indeed, with adequate supplies of energy priced out of the reach of consumers, businesses and government, basic services might fail and states cease to be viable, even as developed nations continue to get by. Any price shock would come in an environment already favouring state failure: recent years have seen stagnating growth in Latin America and Africa; the removal of a great deal of foreign support for weak governments (a process that started with the Cold War’s end); and continued population growth in the poorest regions, putting pressure on infrastructure and resource bases. Many of these problems will get worse rather than better, particularly the relationship between population size and natural resources such as water and arable land. The salinated and damaged farmland on which a third of the world’s crops are presently grown is a case in point.72 Aside from the expensive repairs such lands require, drip-irrigation and other methods needed to keep them productive are much more energy intensive than current practices. Not having access to the required energy may mean disaster. Moreover, there will be spillover effects, such as refugee flows and the emergence of havens for terrorism and organised crime, as in Afghanistan and Somalia. There is also the danger that where one state fails, another may move in, either formally or informally. These interventions may be motivated by a sense of threat (guerrillas using the territory of failed states as a base of refuge), or the sighting of an opportunity to grab territory and resources – both of which were factors in the numerous invasions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by its neighbours since the mid 1990s.73 The heightened risk of state failure will drive inreasingly desperate efforts to avoid it, especially given the lower efficacy of market-driven solutions in impoverished countries.74 Weak states may make ‘neo-feudal’ arrangements with sub-state actors like warlords, private militias and private corporations to shore up their positions. Alternatively, they may become more centralised and controlling, even totalitarian, and other, stronger nations may feel compelled to prop them up, despite the unsavoury character of their regimes.75 There may also be an increased demand for peacekeeping missions, demand that will likely overwhelm the ability of the major military powers to deliver; indeed, they have already been overwhelmed.76 The problem could become still more severe, not only because of more numerous crises, but because the lopsided conventional wars the major powers are most likely to fight require relatively few ‘boots on the ground’, while nation-building in the ever more populous and urbanised developing world requires larger numbers. Smaller countries are not the only ones at risk. The failure of large but economically fragile states on the model of the Soviet collapse is conceivable, and even more problematic at the global level, given that their size compounds their problems, making them more difficult to bail out or prop up, and introducing problems that are not a consideration with smaller states, such as the proliferation of sophisticated weaponry. The moment before a large nation collapses is especially fraught with peril.77 The Soviet Union made surprisingly little effort to resist dissolution in 1991, but there is no certainty that the next great power to go this way will not flail about dangerously prior to collapse. Great-power conflict is not out of the question; it may even be the most likely cause of conflict in the future, particularly if crises bring radical ideologies to the fore.78 Peak oil will create more and larger wars. Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, ‘4 (Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, p. 20) [Bozman]
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