Gilliard on Colonial Warfare

Ashanti War (1873-4) Prah Bridge
The bridge included prefabricated spans and cribs constructed in Chatham for the occasion.
(Watercolour: Lieutenant Colonel H M Sinclair 1900)

Steve Gilliard was a tough minded and knowledgeable historian. I found his writing an inspiration, and there is something worth learning in each of the essays in this series. boor over at DailyKos has put together links for the complete set. I copy the links here so you may share them, and also so I’ll have the links handy to refer to myself.

Part 1 Things Fall Apart…

part 2 Savage, Bloody Affairs Filled With Massacres

part 3 A Bloody Affair on Both Sides

part 4 The Creation of the Belgian Congo

part 5 The Collapse of Beligian Rule

part 6 The UN and Congo

part 7 How did Indonesia Become a Colony?

part 8 Indonesian War of Independence

part 9 The Colonial Efforts of the Dutch were Fairly Bloody

part 10 The Bloody End to British Rule in Kenya

part 11 The Single Worst Massacre in Colonial History (Amritsar)

part 12 The Indian National Army

part 13 The Partition of India

part 14 The French Repression on Madagascar

part 15 Keeping the Natives in Line (Vietnam)

part 16 The End of Colonial Rule in Vietnam

part 17 Civilizing the Algerians

part 18 In the world of Beau Geste (Algiers)

part 19 Egypt’s riches have long been a source of colonial envy and desire… (France)

part 20 Egypt Continued (Turkey and Britain)

part 21 Egypt continued (Britain)

part 22 Egypt continued (Britain)

part 23 The Suez Canal

part 24 Can We Keep Our Colonies, Sir? (Middle East)

part 25 Algeria 1

part 26 Algeria 2

part 27 Algeria 3

part 28a Algeria 4 The Question of Torture

part 28b Algeria 5 The Legacy of Torture

part 29 Algeria 6 The War of the Algerians

part 30 Algeria 7 De Gaulle

part 31 Algeria 8 De Gaulle

part 32 World War I And The British Mandate

part 33 The Middle East

part 34 Imposing Brititsh Will on the Iraqi people

part 35 The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap… (T. E. Lawrence)

part 36 The 1941 Iraqi Coup

part 37 The Last Time (1941) Iraq Was Invaded

Under Bush the United States has opted for a policy of imperial domination of the whole planet. In other words, the world is a US colony. AFRICOM is part of this. They call it Full Spectrum Dominance. And this policy is the reason that the State Department and USAID, are being subsumed under the Pentagon, rather than operating independently in Africa. Diplomacy, economic, and political activity, are all dominated by the Department of Defense, the imperial operator in US dealings with the world.

In Africa, this new colonial imperialism is to secure African resources, oil, coltan, gems, etc, but primarily oil. The US has failed to learn two critical historical points, Gilliard writes:

Colonial occupations almost always cost far more than planned and produce negative earnings for the invader. Occupying Iraq and Afghanistan now costs at least US $6 billion monthly. The costs of garrisoning and running colonies usually exceeds what can be looted from them.

It’s always cheaper to buy resources than plunder them. The Soviets thought they would pay for their invasion of Afghanistan by stealing its natural gas. The Washington neo-conservatives who engineered the Iraq war ludicrously claimed its stolen oil would fully cover the costs of invasion and occupation.

There are many ways to pay for things, and sometimes the cheapest is money.

b real Says:

January 5, 2008 at 2:45 am

you quote steve stating that “It’s always cheaper to buy resources than plunder them.”

however, this misses the rationale behind the u.s.’ 2001 national energy policy aka the cheney report. primarily it has to do w/ the need to significantly increase production capacity (& secure the flows) in producer nations in order to meet projected u.s. & international demand in the next couple decades. analyses show that the current levels of production worldwide are insufficient to deliver the bpd needed to maintain demand & most of the producing nations neither have the infrastructure nor the technical capabilities to boost production in the immediate future. and many are not willing or likely to open up their industries to outside investors to make it happen at the volume needed.

as michael klare outlines, in his 2004 book blood and oil: the dangers and consequences of america’s growing dependency on imported petroleum,

the [Cheney] report makes thirty-five foreign-policy recommendations — one-third of its total proposals — on how to facilitate America’s acquisition of imported oil. Most of these recommendations are region- or country-specific ideas for enhancing our access to particular sources; but the overall thrust of the report is on removing the economic and political obstacles to overseas procurement. Indeed, the Cheney report can be read as a sort of grand blueprint for American foreign policy, calling as it does for a vigorous effort, led by the president himself, to bolster our ties with oil-rich countries and expand our presence in key producing areas.
…
The Cheney report is relatively mum on how much oil the Gulf states will have to pump to meet the growing demand. But other government documents and reports are more forthcoming; for example, projections of global energy patterns released in 2003 by the Department of Energy show that the major Persian Gulf oil producers — Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — will have to double their total daily output between 2001 and 2025, from 22.4 to 45.2 million barrels, to satisfy projected American and international demand.

It is not at all certain that the Gulf countries can meet these expectations. To even come close, they will have to attract much more capital than they can raise internally for necessary infrastructure improvements — new drilling rigs, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, and the like. With this factor in mind, the Cheney report calls on the president and other U.S. officials to “support initiatives by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, Qatar, the UAE, and other suppliers to open up their energy sectors to foreign investment” — an uphill struggle at best, given these states’ ingrained resistance to foreign ownership of their assets.

…

..the Bush-Cheney team could only draw one conclusion: that, on their own, the Persian Gulf countries had neither the will nor the capacity to increase their petroleum output and protect its outward flow. If the administration’s energy plan was to succeed, the United States would have to become the dominant power in the region, assuming responsibility for overseeing the politics, the security, and the oil output of the key producing countries. The buildup of American power and influence in the area that had begun with Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower would have to be taken to an entirely new level.

so it’s not a question of paying for the oil already being produced, it’s about ensuring maximum extraction & energy security. making sure that enough oil will be there to protect western economies & societies.

the NEP also stressed the need for diversity, that is, not relying just on the persian gulf producers in order to increase production, and the report names eight specific countries deemed integral to u.s. energy security — mexico, venezuela, colombia, russia, azerbaijan, kazakhstan, nigeria, and angola.

the african countries are seen as especially important because they are the countries where “net output [will] grow significantly faster than [local] consumption (91 to 35 percent).”

as we’ve witnessed, angola is really experiencing the infrastructure/investment boom currently; nigeria not as much due to the instability in the delta.

HOWEVER

the scramble is on!!! add another game piece to the board

an article friday in the financial times:

Gazprom plans Africa gas grab
A senior Nigerian oil industry official, who declined to be named, said the company was offering to invest in energy infrastructure in return for the chance to develop some of the biggest gas deposits in the world.

The Russian move is part of a courtship that saw Vladimir Putin writing to Nigeria’s leader, Umaru Yar’Adua, last year to seek energy co-operation.

…

“What Gazprom is proposing is mind-boggling,” the Nigerian oil official told the Financial Times. “They’re talking tough and saying the west has taken advantage of us in the last 50 years and they’re offering us a better deal … They are ready to beat the Chinese, the Indians and the Americans.”

Gazprom representative Ilya Kochevrin confirmed the talks with Nigerian officials. “We made a decision to go global in terms of acquiring assets and developing strategy outside Russia. Africa is one of our priorities,” he said.

Any move by Gazprom to establish itself in Nigeria, long dominated by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil, would reinforce a global trend of state-backed energy companies challenging western rivals.

Crossed Crocodiles Says:

January 6, 2008 at 12:29 am

When I copied Gilliard’s statement I had a feeling something was missing. After all, the developed world managed to develop by using military aggression and colonial occupation to exploit the resources of the less developed world. So the military adventurism and colonial exploitation must have paid off. Increasing production, which I’m sure happened in the examples I can think of, would be the key.

I was in the library, so I grabbed a copy of Klare’s book.

As to Gazprom, Yikes! I suppose it shouldn’t really be a surprise. We need some really sharp and nimble footed leadership in Africa to negotiate this minefield. The Kenya election is devastating in that regard, for Kenya, and in the wider context. (Thanks for the Pambazuka tip.) And they were mocking Kufuor in the GhanaWeb discussions as not knowing what to do regarding Kenya without being told.

The best advice I can think of is look alive, here come great flocks of vultures.

Crossed Crocodiles