Resource wars turn all other impacts

Resource wars turn all other impacts

Loss of natural resources create intractable security threats – poverty, ethnic violence, insurgent attack

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According to an analysis by the United Nations, at least 11 violent conflicts since 1990 have been fueled in part by the degradation of renewable natural resources.⁵ While this is a concern in itself, the incidence of resource-driven conflicts may only grow if natural resources become scarcer over time, commensurate with population growth and unsustainable patterns of development. As the global population steadily climbs toward a projected nine billion in 2050 and global levels of consumption increase dramatically,⁶ this growth is increasing demand for natural resources and putting unprecedented pressure on the global natural resource base. How we define security must account for these factors, and efforts to ensure U.S. interests must also address natural resource degradation. Of course, the natural resource trends discussed in this report are not by themselves threats. Natural resource degradation does contribute to poverty, migration, resource competition, weak social institutions and other trends that more directly feed intrastate conflicts such as ethnic clashes and insurgencies in developing countries. However, scholars since the end of the Cold War have suggested that these variables are complex and the progression from natural resource scarcity to conflict is far from inevitable. Societies can and do avoid what one scholar calls “demographic and environmental stress” as a partial cause of conflict. Countries with higher levels of political inclusivity and lower levels of ethnic, religious or other social divisions can more easily take action to overcome such stresses.⁷ But in states with many social divisions, where some groups are not included in decision making, natural resource degradation can play a larger role in creating the conditions for civil conflict: instability and weakened states that can undermine regional stability, affect trade and cause refugee and other humanitarian crises that sap the military, civilian and financial resources of developed countries.⁸ One military scholar has characterized natural resource scarcity as one of a handful of systemic vulnerabilities that, left unaddressed, have the potential to combine and intensify over time, creating intractable security threats that defy traditional security responses (e.g., a military response akin to conventional combat operations).⁹ Security forces may struggle to respond adequately to ethnic violence, for example, or highly asymmetrical attacks by small groups of insurgents. It is difficult to know exactly what role natural resource degradation plays in these types of conflicts, but it is plausible that they could become a more important factor as natural resource scarcity worsens. These types of conflicts and instabilities might never be as conspicuous as interstate wars, but they could seriously compromise the security of the United States and its allies. Resource-related civil conflict and instability particularly affect developing nations because local communities and groups depend to such a great extent on natural resources for their economic growth and, often, subsistence. Additionally, developing countries sometimes lack political and social institutions resilient enough to cope with these challenges

***Oil Impacts***

Turns heg

SBSP is key to break oil dependence which is key to US leadership

Bonnici 9 (Alex Michael Bonnici Ph.D, Presenter and European Union Liason for the NSS, “Solar Power Satellites: The Yes Case”, http://www.discovery-enterprise.com/2009/01/solar-power-satellites-yes-case.html, 1/20/09) SV

The answer to this question is a resounding yes! And, may this answer reverberate throughout the scared halls of Congress and the parliaments of the free world. The time is now for the governments of the United States and the free world to commit themselves to the development of space based solar power in earth orbit or based on the lunar surface. This commitment has been long overdue and the United States of America and its allies have waited far too long to take a real and major concerted leadership role in the development of this vast untapped resource. A commitment to space based solar power is vital to the long term national security, economic and environmental concerns of the United States and the world. America and the rest of the free world can no longer afford to remain the economic and political captives of nations and despotic regimes that neither share our democratic values nor love for individual human liberty. Yet our political adversaries control the strategic mineral and energy resources vital to our economic growth and prosperity. The United States and the free world can no longer allow themselves to remain bound by this status quo and must seek to change it. America in particular must not relinquish nor endanger its leadership role as defender of the free world by making political and diplomatic compromises with these autocratic nations. And, neither should it allow itself to be forced to engage in reckless military actions that would compel other nations to question America’s real commitment to democratic values throughout the rest of the world in order to secure its hold on these resources. The United States of America and the nations of the free world must commit themselves to a long term program of energy independence and give up our debilitating addiction to Mid-eastern oil and our dependency on strategic minerals located in the most politically unstable and volatile regions of the World. For the whole of the preceding century and the first decade of this century we have been almost entirely reliant on fossil fuels. That was fine when fossil fuels were cheap and the full impact of their use on the environment was never fully understood. But, now it has become crystal clear that there are many hidden costs involved with our sole dependency on oil and other fossil fuels. These hidden costs are not just environmental but, as outlined above geopolitical and military in nature and effect the short and long term economic and political stability of the entire world.

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