Patton complained to his superiors that a lack of oil meant he was ill equipped to win the war. He also observed that the Germans were licked when they started using horse-drawn carts. Oil gives people an economical and technological advantage. It has always been an important part of economies, although the type of oil changes frequently. In fact, Patton was stopped only because his forward units ran out of gas. The person who controls the oil essentially controls the world.
Before the advent of fossil fuels, nations went to war over special kinds of oils. From perfumes to olive oil to other kinds of fatty acids and derivatives, men waged war over natural resources, in particular the fats they could extract. Tribes fought over food, chiefly for the fat with which to subsist during winter or with which to line clothing and shelter against the elements. Traders fought over routes on which spices and oils were shipped or on the sources themselves. War seems to always pit organic organisms against each other over organic materials.
Unknown to many people, Japan went to war against the west in 1941 over oil. Japan has very few natural resources, being a series of isolated volcanic islands relatively young in age, and so her imperial ambitions intended to extend her reach to the mainland in order to access the raw materials there. Interested chiefly in fossil fuels, Japan knew that industrialization depended at least at that time on access to coal, oil, and natural gas, which China had in plenty but had not developed. This is why the western nations reached industrialization earlier, because they developed their organic fuel resources and belched carbon into the air.
After the second world war, expansion chiefly depended likewise on access to organic carbon fuels. The first time gasoline spiked near $4/gallon in the USA it was blamed on China’s industrial revolution. Our electricity prices in Vegas vascillate widely despite the presence of Hoover Dam because most of our electricity comes from Ried-Garner coal rather than from hydroelectric or solar plants (which are a paltry 0.2% of the total energy generated). The oil embargo prompted shortages in the 70s leading to 55mph limits, and the liberals constantly blame Bush for going to war in Iraq for oil. It was probably one of the reasons he went, but I don’t think we got the price reduction we should have.
In our modern day, war remains about oil. I am convinced that President Obama opposes the Keystone pipeline as a means to justify continued war. As long as we cannot access Canada, which has never really been at war with anyone, we have to deal with dangerous nations adverse to our way of life. He wants us to have to deal with our enemies rather than rely on ourselves. For this reason, they continue to disenable raw materials in ANWAR, oppose fracking, delay refineries, ad infinitum, so as to keep the USA from access to its own organic carbon sources as a means to control us. Recent EPA edicts for cap and trade are aimed at rolling back American industrialization so as to weaken us and make us more dependent on him and his ilk to save us.
Whether the war is waged on industry or against nations, war seems to really always be about oil. From the time when Cain slew Abel because his sacrifice had better oils to the present day to memes about other planets proven to have oil suggesting the US invade, control of oil hinges on control of the world. We go after oil as a lubricant, as an insulator, and even for plastic. This is why London and China have such desperately abhorrent pollution levels, because London was the historic center of the industrial revolution, and China has become the modern equivalent. They are not subject to restrictions on pollution, meaning anything we do in America is irrelevant. Our world revolves around products we make from oil. If you want to control the people, you control what products they have, meaning you control the oil. For all their ignoble talk about protecting the environment and promoting peace, Obama could be called the Polluter in Chief and the Warmonger in Chief, titles his supportive sycophants conveniently choose to ignore. Like the oligarchs before him and those yet to succeed him, he is out to control the world by controlling your access to oil and its derivatives.
Oil gives you options. Oil made the computer, shoes, bottles, Styrofoam, and a whole host of other products possible. They want to control the money, the power, and the people, and they know that to do so they must control the oil, even if all they can manage is deny your access to it or dictate from whom you must buy it. Our progress depends on this very strange organic substance. Until we can find a substitute, the course of events and our prospects to succeed in the world will continue to hinge on access to, control of, and products made from oil.
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