** samclem** asked:
You bet, although I said partially.
From bin Ladin’s 23Feb98 fatwa:
Re the OP, if forced to state one cause of all wars I would say “population pressure”, but I grant that phrase is not much more edifying than “economics”.
I have stated this in other posts. OBL is no rookie when it comes to finance, money laundering, shell companies, money transfers, etc.
It is very likely as a secondary goal that OBL has put on significant short positions to capitalize on global stock market reactions to the terrorist attacks. He could easily net tens of millions of dollars without raising eyebrows.
The language of economics and politics is how we express our motivations; they are not the cause, only the expression.
To say that the terrorists have “politial” ends or “economic” reasons for wanting America out of the Middle East is begging the question. Ecomoics is defined as the study of conflicting wants and needs: thus, as someone said above, it pretty much encompasses everything. Politics is the organized method of assigning behavior. It is an extension of philosophy whether or not people explicitely espouse a strict philosophy. It is its own context.
Everything can be explained in terms of economics and politics. These are not the cause, but the expression of philosophical goals and conflicting wants and needs.
It is essentially difficult to argue against Marxism and Randians because they espouse a strict tautology, and begin with the premise that the means of expression are the cause of expression. I think that is in error.
Think about this scenario. Osama places calls shorting European insurance company stock (knowing that the NY markets will be forced to shut down). Then those companies have to pay a tremendous amount of coverage because of the destruction of the WTC. The stock plummets in the European market, and Osama makes out with a huge profit. Who says capitalism isn’t good. Farfetched? Well, the German version of the SEC is calling the American SEC for help in investigating a Munich holding company that sold off all of its stock on insurance companies on Monday.
You have not dug deep enough.
It is my experience that sociologists are generally complete morons who have an unhealthy fixation on Marx and are always willing to contrive some pseudo-profound conclusion in his honor (or otherwise simply bash capitalism).
Like someone else said, “economic” causation is so vague and easily manipulated that anything can eventually be described as being economically determined. The same is true for other area-specific flavors of determinism such as “geographic” determinism.
The very existence of the Balkan states owes much to “pure” economic and political factors - I guess you could easily go back to the Austro-Hungarian empire and its dissolution, plus the power struggles of the Great War, to find out why these states were divided in the ways they were.
The US involvment in the Middle East has lots to do with oil. Marx made the point that it is only when the workers take over the means of production that the world will be able to produce enough material goods to satisfy the needs and wants of the populace. The oil is in the Middle East; America needs lots of oil; therefore (perhaps) America needs to ensure that the political and economic situation is such that it can get the oil it needs from the Middle East.
I’m not at economist, but I am a philosopher (although not a marxist) - and I reckon there’s still a way to go to show that this whole hideous business has nothing to do with money.
Quick final observation: countless states over the last 10 years have illegally taken land from other states. The only time the US decided to get properly stuck in was in Kuwait - a cynic might suggest that this had more to do with oil and less to do with “doing the right thing”…
Just my thoughts.
Rob S.
Most of the wars/armed conflicts that took place this century have been about oil.
Japan’s oil supply came from the United States until July 1941. In 7/41 we cut off their oil. Their oil stocks dwindled. They said “What the fuck?” We told them to lay off China. They bombed us instead.
Roosevelt “illegally” helped England with Lend/Lease and it’s probable that all of this was done because he wanted to bring us into the war…
… for the same reason that Germany didn’t do a damned thing to protect Italy when we were sacking it. Germany didn’t protect Italy because Rommell was invested in North Africa. Why North Africa? The US committed more forces to NAf than to Europe as well…
Because Rommell was pushing towards the oil there, which Britain and the US controlled at the time. It’s the thought of all those fascists and Nazis sitting on the oil that made us jumpy.
Let’s face it, we live in a revisionist country, and our involvement in most of these international conflicts is not seen by the world as we are taught to see it ourselves here. I think the same holds true for our involvement nearly everywhere in the world abroad – where the US is not unknown to be something of a bully and a meddler.
- Jon
Let’s not forget that deranged viewpoints add fuel to the economic (or geologic! 
) causes of war. Hitler hated Jews, and not just because they were consuming scarce resources more than other Germans or Europeans were. Osama bin Laden hates America not just because it meddles in Arab politics to protect oil, but because he cannot tolerate infidels (or so he says).
With this in mind, I wonder if someday, when all scarcity is eliminated (think Star Trek), there will still be wars fought by wealthy, influential people with irrational personal grudges.
Quite true. Perception might be inferential, but cognition is by reference. We can’t describe something without using our preexisting ideas as a starting point.
Chimpanzees are not warlike by nature, some would argue that only humans are. But in situations of territorial stress, it is not unheard of for one chimp band to attack a weaker neighbor and capture their land and females.
Now the Marxist’s might argue that land and females are an economic motive, and not being skilled in dialectic, the chimps would be hard pressed to disprove them. But you have to suspect that at that point the Marxists would be projecting an explanation rather than looking for one.
I thought Congress declared war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Is there some reason you find this factually incorrect?
If you distrust the history books as revisionist, where do you get your information from?
Here are a few more wars/armed conflicts, chosen at random from my memory:
WWI
Vietnam
Korea
Falkland Islands Conflict
Indo-Pakistan War
Arab/Israeli Wars (War of Independance; Six Day War; Yom Kippur War, etc.)
It seems to me that these conflicts were not “about oil.” Even the Arab/Israeli conflicts, which resulted in certain oil issues, were arguably not “about oil.” Certainly the land that makes up modern Israel is not a big source of oil.
But my knowledge is admittedly limited. If you have time, please explain how the above conflicts were “about oil.”
Or, if you think I have chosen a biased sample, please list some other major conflicts that were “about oil.”
Or, if you think I have chosen a biased sample, please list some other major conflicts that were “about oil.” **
[/QUOTE]
The Gulf War?
Perhaps the claim that “all” wars are “about oil” is overstated, but I think the point in the OP was to ask if there are any conflicts which did not have “economic determinism” as a basic root cause.
The Great War was about political/economic power in Europe. Vientnam and Korea, while perhaps ostensibly “anti-communist” crusades, seem to me to have their roots in the US fear that the spread of the USSR (the ol’ ‘domino’ idea) would undermine US (primarily economic and politcal) influence in the world at large.
The Arab/Israeli issue I don’t know much about, but I get the impression that it was mainly about land aquisition (dressed up in ideological language). The same applies to the Indo-Pakistan conlict - dunno much about that either.
The Falklands is perhaps the hardest to pin down - in the early 80s Britain was pretty much ready to off-load the Falklands as an unneccesary burden, but the newly elected Junta in Argentina saw ‘taking back’ the Falklands as a good way of boosting their popularity. The Falklands have almost zero economic worth and only minor strategic benefits, so the main motivation for the Argentinians re-aquiring it (and then the British insisting on keeping hold of it) was a matter of ‘national pride’.
You could perhaps argue that the political ‘feel-good factor’ which either side would enjoy if they suceeded would mean an economic boost, but certainly on the face of it (as Jorge Luis Borges succinctly put it) “the Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb”.
I’ll most definitely grant you that oil was an important factor in Desert Storm.
Isosleepy is right. Since everyone has to earn a living, it’s trivially easy to tie any sort of behavior to economics. Saying wars are linked to economics is about as insightful as saying wars are linked to people, or to violence.
The deeper question is why people are capable of earning their livings peacably most of the time, and only occasionally resort to war. (Why doesn’t Illinois declare war on Wisconsin? Surely they could find good use for Wisconsin’s land and vital cheese and beer supplies.)
If you asked the people who waged the 20th century’s wars why they did it, the vast majority would would reject the notion that it was done for naked economic gain. Most would say they did it for nationalism, or ideology, or religion.
Marxists would say those explanations were nothing more than expressions of false consciousness. But a century of history have shown that the Marxists have a lousy track record when it comes to predicting human behavior. So why not accept the participants’ testimony at face value, and admit that nationalism, ideology, and religion are driving factors in national conflict?
Hmm…do civil wars count? Because the various stages of war in ex-Yugoslavia would hardly qualify on economic grounds, at least for me. It was definitely about nationalism, and more specifically about individual leaders (ie Tudjman and Milosevic) insidiously nurturing and exploiting nationalism for their own self-interest. I suppose you can say that self-interest=power and money, and there’s your economic link, but I find that a really weak link. If the war were for $$$, Slovenia certainly would not have gotten away as easily as it did. There was nary a fight in that country when they seceded. IIRC, it was a 9-day war, which Slovenians have described to me as a staring contest.
Very nice, Wumpus. In the end, we all want much of the same stuff. We concoct ideologies to justify our means of getting them. Capitalists promote freedom and honesty in peaceful dealings, Marxists promote freedom and honesty through forced economic and social equality. Theocracies and monarchies rely on religious hailings. Its all the same: trying to set up a political framework with which to get the stuff you want.
Whoever gets the most stuff wins? Well, seeing as they’re all pretty much arbitrary standards anyway, that’s as good of a measure as any.
Of course, and they had their followers who were acting in their self-interest as well.
Ennui, it is the opinion of some people that we really are just talking chimps. I have a hard time arguing with that sometimes 
The Arab Israeli conflict is all about oil. Who armed them but us and the USSR? Why did we arm them? The same reason we fought there during WWII… everyone else in the world went meddling in there because of oil. Otherwise it’s simply a landgrab. When Egypt closed the straits to Israel, it basically cut off Israel’s oil supply from Iran… and that’s how they forced them into a war.
The Indo-Pakistan war I admittedly do not know enough about.
Your random memory doesnt count the Gulf War, the most recent armed conflict in my memory, which was all about oil. When we “liberated” Kuwait, we restored their government where 10% of Islamic men actually vote. But the oil flowed freely like wine.
Vietnam was about communist containment, as was Korea.
The Falklands hardly rates up there with the rest of them… that was just an English action against the Argentinians and didn’t really involve most other folks.
- Jon
Why did we arm the Contras? Why did the USSR arm third-world countries on three continents?
If that’s true, then any military action that involves a blockade is about oil. Besides, that doesn’t explain the '47 war or the '73 war.
And in any event, besides the blockade you refer to, the 1967 war was precipitated by several other events:
(1) The large scale buildup of Egyptian forces on the Sinai penninsula;
(2) The expulsion of UN peace-keepers from the area (by Egypt)
(3) The joining, by Jordan of the Egyptian-Syrian alliance, and the placement of Jordanian troops under Egyptian command;
(4) The placement of troops by Iraq, Algeria, and Kuwait.
Do you honestly believe that if all of the above things had been done, except that there had been no blockade, there wouldn’t have been a war? Do you think that the Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Algerian troops were just in the area to hang out?
Ok, let’s assume that oil was not a big issue in that war. (I don’t know either, and I’ll be happy to entertain an argument)
As I said before, I fully concede that oil was a major issue in Desert Storm.
Ok, so we agree that oil wasn’t a big deal in these two.
I agree that the Falklands wasn’t that big compared to certain other conflicts.
But you said this:
Were you referring only to major wars/armed conflicts? And do you agree that WWI wasn’t “about oil”?
Oh, please. Most nations (and, for that matter, religions, political parties, ethnic groups and what-have-you) whitewash their histories. Americans are hardly unique or unusual in that respect.
And why, exactly, should I consider their points-of-view more factual, unbiased and undistorted than ours? Is it possible that they resent the big bully (the U.S.) because he won’t let the little bullies (them!) stomp all over somebody else? Do you think that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had a more honest, unbiased and undistorted view of the second world war than Americans? Did the scholars, journalists and school teachers of the Soviet Union tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the Cold War? Do you really think that North Korea’s view of the Korean conflict is absolutely truthful, entirely unprejudiced, and not the least bit slanted or twisted? Do you really suppose that Saddam Hussein’s take on the history of the Gulf War would somehow be less biased and more truthful than the average American’s view of the war?
Come off it, man. Everybody puts their own spin on history.