Full Title: "A Century of War ~ Anglo-American Oil Politics And The New World Order"
Pluto Press, London - Ann Arbor MI
Revised Edition - 1992, updated in 2004
270 pages + notes and appendices
ISBN-13: 978-0-7453-2309-1
When George HW Bush commented in his first SOTU address that he was "ushering in a New World Order" I seriously doubt most of the American public listening to him understood the real significance of that statement, nor its implications. A Century Of War lays it all out, from beginning to end, in a clear and easy to read form.
From the Preface to the 2004 updated version of A Century of War:
"The fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 1980s and the collapse of the Soviet Union were hailed by many as the dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity. Some authors, such as Francis Fukuyama, proclaimed it as the beginning of the end of history. The entire world seemed to open to economic cooperation, to investment, to democratic ideas. Trade barriers fell, doors opened. Little more than a decade later, the optimism was long forgotten as the outlines of a very different world were emerging.
As this preface to the new edition of A Century Of War was written, the world was mired in a bloody series of wars, the most serious being in Iraq. It soon became clear to the world that the decision of President George W Bush to go to war against Iraq had little to do with the threat of weapons of mass destruction. It was also increasingly clear that the US agenda in Iraq had little to do with the proclaimed effort to 'bring democracy' to a once despotic Iraq. That naturally raised in many minds the question of why the United States put so much of its credibility, of its reputation, of what some call its soft power, at risk, for apparently so little. The answer to the question was a short one: it was about oil. But not about oil in the simple sense many believed. This war was not an issue of corporate greed. It was about power, and geopolitical power above all."
More below the squiggle ... ;-)
Engdahl begins the book with England in the 1890s at the height of Empire. He continues on through the book, weaving the tale of how banking, oil, commerce, shipping, and military power have been utilized to establish and shift political dominance throughout the world. The role of gold, in the early days, shifted as the discovery of oil and the establishment of petroleum based transport systems began to take hold. Bankers and merchants were the heart of Empire, and the military was their enforcement arm.
From the repeal of the Corn Laws of 1846, the City of London (bankers and merchants) launched the idea of 'free trade' and ended the protectionism for English farmers, which destroyed domestic agriculture as prices for local produce plummeted against foreign imports. 'Buy cheap, sell dear' became the mantra, and consumption became the purpose of production. Britain, became a gigantic trader ... a philosophy which haunts us here in the US to this day. This was the shift from Empire to feed Britain, to Empire to control the world through commerce and trade (economic control).
Engdahl takes us through the history of commerce, and the labyrinth of politics, commerce, and conquest of goods and resources for production which brought Britain into conflict with most of the world to maintain its trading Empire. The advent of rail transport had its impacts, as did the development of mechanization of production. Competition began between Britain and Germany over iron and the development of electrical generation good, and later spreading to chemical and fertilizer production, iron, and machines. By 1907, harvesting machines were very big business to increase global yields in production of grain and other crops for global markets. The financing of all this industrial and trade expansion, was also a giant business, and central to the success of all others. Bankers had tremendous control as a result. Infrastructures for rail were costly, shipping expansion, factory and production, all required bank support and involvement, which gave them a large voice in the direction of national trade (and by extension, all other) policy.
In 1870, when John D. Rockefeller created the Standard Oil Company, it was to exploit the market for lamp oil products. Petroleum had little use before then beyond lamps and patent medicines. The invention of the internal combustion engine, and the gradual shift from coal and steam to oil and petroleum fueled engines for shipping and other transport, threw open the door and launched the quest for more oil to develop, expand, and support the expanding trade Empire. The fight for oil was on.
WW-II brought even more pressure to the oil business, as now it was not only a vital resource for commerce, it was also a vital resource for waging (and winning) wars on a global scale. WW-I had brought about the introduction of mechanized warfare, but WW-II brought it into the foreground, for as both the Axis and Allied powers well knew, without oil victory could not be achieved.
That was the beginning ... and a brief sketch of the starting point for Engdahls book. It is a really great read, and quite a page turner. It leads us through the history of middle east oil discovery, and its critical value as a war material as well as the foundation for global shipping in commerce, and how the banks and oil companies exist in symbiosis for all intents and purposes. Engdahl describes the economic conditions and disasters that led to WW-I, and follows through to the present ME crises. He throws open the doors to the back room dealings of the bankers and merchants, and their involvement in the supply and support of the war machine itself, and later of government and policy as well.
In 1945, the focus of war shifted. War was now to be waged economically as well as militarily, and banks and commerce became the new weapons in that war, with oil a central focus. At Bretton Woods NH in 1944, the Anglo-American "New World Order" economic and monetary plan was hashed out and set in motion. This was the beginning of the IMF and World Bank, with the original GATT trade agreement to regulate 'free trade' conditions. The mechanisms for global monetary controls and warfare were now in place. The US and GB would control the World Bank and IMF, and the US dollar was set as the global reserve currency based on the $35 per ounce of gold standard set by FDR in 1934.
The post war ERP and the Marshall plan (1947) brought US oil companies into control of major portions of the global oil production, and by supplying aid dollars to buy the oil, we were competing head to head with the British oil giants of the day. By 1947 fully 1/2 of western Europe's oil was being supplied by the 5 US oil companies.
As Engdahl weaves his tale, we begin to see clearly how banking and oil have been inextricably woven into the fabric of everything we have done in our global expansion to this very day. From Europe to Central and South America, to Suez, to Iran, to Viet Nam, to Kuwait and Iraq, oil and financial concerns have driven our actions. Control of oil, and maintaining financial power and domination have set the stage for just about everything we've undertaken on the world stage. The real war was behind the scenes, the actual wars (and all their carnage) were only pawns in that game.
I really enjoyed reading this book, as it clarified a lot of history and brought a lot of the pieces together in new ways. I highly recommend it to those who are interested in history, and/or the real politics of this world. I watched a lot of this unfold from the Eisenhower administration (when I first got interested in politics) onward, and while I thought I had a lot of it figured out, Engdahl filled in all the missing pieces and completed the picture for me very well. This book should be required reading in every High School in America IMHO.