Jerome a Paris's
energy diaries must have been on my mind when I read a few days ago about
Rumsfeld in Afghanistan to discuss permanent US bases, because I made a connection.
Eh? Afghanistan has no oil. What are you blithering about?
It's all under the fold....
Think worst-case scenarios. Think China
sending out the Red Army to bring some more oil home. Some of China's neighbors have production surpluses, but not nearly enough to slake their growing oil thirst. So the obvious place to go is the Mideast, perhaps Iran in particular.
But how do they get to Iran? I grabbed a globe. Kazakhstan seems like a likely route, but it's the long way around, Russia might get involved, Kazakhstan might ask us to get involved -- and although they unloaded the nukes they inherited from the Soviets, who's to say they didn't keep a couple off the books? The other way, through Pakistan and Afghanistan (or directly through the narrow Afghanistan corridor giving them a common border with China) would involve marching through some seriously rugged terrain -- and Pakistan has nukes and might use them to preserve their sovereignty.
But if Pakistan gave China passage rights (not completely inconceivable; they were allies back in the 60s and 70s), the Red Army would still have to go through Afghanistan. And now they would face a tripwire force of US soldiers, more or less permanently stationed in Afghanistan and perhaps armed with neutron bombs (about the only way to blunt a "human wave" assault when you're outnumbered by thousands to one). If the Bush-leaguers felt it necessary to stop a Chinese advance through Kazakhstan, having bases in Afghanistan would be all but necessary as well.
Removing the tinfoil hat for a moment, it's unlikely that China will invade the Mideast. There are too many obstacles, and the government could impose fuel rationing on the populace with the stroke of a pen. Given China's push to deploy pebble-bed reactors, it's not unlikely that they'll also push all-electric cars and reserve oil for more pressing needs.