While these kinds of major theater wars, I would argue, are unlikely, except in
very, very limited circumstances, we do have
to consider what would these struggles be about.
And I think in this way we are moving away from the 20th Century.
They're unlikely to be about ideologies, and despite Samuel
Huntington, they're unlikely to be about civilizations fighting each other.
They're very likely to be about the oldest source
of war and that is the fight for resource.
Here, for example, is a map of the oil reserves across the world.
The gas reserves would look a little bit different, but fairly much the same,
with a much larger presence to the United States, but let's just look at oil.
Is it any coincidence that
this is the hottest military zone of the planet?
is it any coincidence that this is where the military attention of
practically all militaries, that are relevant to
a global sense, are focused.
This is where the oil is.
This is the lifeblood, in a sense, of the modern world and it is here, the most
likely place, where you will have this fight for this control of resources.
Here, the western hemisphere is particularly well positioned in that
the United States and its co-continentals, in a sense,
possess enough oil resources, especially when you link up with
Western Africa, to be able to survive some kind of autarky.
The critical, the critical customer for this kind, for
this world of oil is both the Europe and Asia.
So, here is a possibility that at one point or another,
these two halves, in a sense, skirting this zone may
involve themselves in some kind of struggle, in order to, again,
gather what is the equivalent of the lifeblood of the modern world.
In the 21st Century, battles or wars might actually come
for the pursuit of a different liquid and that is water.
Water, like oil, is not evenly distributed around the world
and what we can find is zones of potential drought.
Zones where the water availability will be extremely limited.
There's obviously this part of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, but we have
to take into account particularly the Chinese need for massive amounts of water.
China actually possesses quite a bit, but it
also has a massive population and huge industrial needs.
So, China might find itself as a, might find
itself in need of expanding, not for ideological reasons, not for
geopolitical reasons, but simply in a massive search for this resource.
This illustrates the same point using a slightly different technology and again,
notice this zone of dryness here and whether this zone,
in a sense, will develop more local fights for control over water.
These could be combined in the case of Middle
East, with more global struggles over control of the oil.
Note again, the wealth of the Western Hemisphere.
The Western Hemisphere has been given massive amounts of resources and
minerals and petroleum and oil and gas, but particularly in water.
South America in particular, has massive water reserves, so
we could imagine the future in which the continent either
becomes a global hegemon, thanks to it's control
of this resource, or it becomes a zone of conflict.
The most likely source of conflict, of this kind of major theater
war, will have to do with the consequences of global climate change.
We are seeing a world whose geography is being transformed.
We're only beginning to understand what the, possibly
military or political, consequences of that will be.
We are aware, or increasingly aware, of what the human consequences
are going to be, what the economic consequences are going to be,
what the physical consequences are going to be, but I think we
increasingly have to wonder how these
will translate into possible military struggles.
As zones become too difficult to live with, as
you get massive movements of, your refugees.
Can we imagine in a sense, a form of conflict in which those
countries that have the resources and have the good luck not to suffer too
much from climate change, have to protect themselves in a sense, from those
whose populations can no longer exist in their own territory and they must move.
So, I think the fight for these struggles, the
fight for these resources, but particularly the fight to deal
with the consequences of this massive climate change, are
going to be shaping, in a sense, the global map.
We're unlikely to have the kinds of conflicts, again,
associated with major theater wars, but I think we have
to consider that there might be a fight,
in a sense, for the very, very resources for life.