War as a successful investment project
What do we have today? Libya is being bombed, Ivory Coast is being bombed. The facts have already happened, and it does not matter what was there in reality and what was not. It is possible that there are even fewer well-founded reasons for bombing than, for example, in the case of Iraq: there was too little direct evidence of a civil war. Yes, and those voiced facts that were offered to the public, more looked like a disgustingly set operetta. Obviously, many consider Gaddafi to be nothing more than a fiend of hell, but the surprising paradox is that the more bombs are dropped on his position, the more he will have fully justified opportunities for massacres and all sorts of disgraces. As a rule, civilians are the main victims in such situations.
Many economists are interested in the question of the absolute irrationality of everything that happens. On the one hand, the Gaddafi family has accumulated enough funds in order to become interesting for expropriation at the highest interstate level. Any experienced fisherman knows: catching small fish, it is necessary for the time being to let it go until it grows to commercial size. Gaddafi during the first decade of the 21 century, against the backdrop of high oil prices and a rather advantageous location of sales markets, has accumulated huge capital. But the snag is that the seizure of the international assets of the Gaddafi family to get them at their disposal was quite enough.
According to unofficial data, the colonel and his family accumulated oil rent for $ 30 billions and placed it not even somewhere, but in the West, with a significant part in the form of free financial assets. That is, there are absolutely no special problems for the expropriators: froze the accounts - and manage yourself with free money, not forgetting to regularly write condemning resolutions and add fuel to the flames of criticism from the pages of the media so that the image of the tyrant does not fade as time passes. The situation is similar with the gold that belonged to the Nazi prisoners, which the descendants have been trying in vain to shake out from all sorts of bank secrets for 65 years.
Despite this, they decided to bomb. The most amazing thing in this situation is that the initiative did not come from the United States. The main accusers of Gaddafi, and later the punitive became the British and the French, who, by the way, play a crucial role in the conduct of the striking operation. Perhaps leaped up the blood of ancestors with colonial manners. But they forget that story this is a kind of spiral and events can be repeated: the first time in the form of a tearful tragedy, the second time - as a farce, which in today's case it is more appropriate to call another term - “marasmus show”.
But what is the essence of the problem? The classic colonial war of the twenty-first century is almost invariably from an economic point of view, one of the most effective investment projects. Very schematically: the colonialist state spends on arming the army, creates the necessary preponderance over the aborigines, then for a short period of time burns down everything that hinders it, and gets access to the necessary natural resources. Later, a whip up commercial company comes to the colony, extracts resources, sells them with a huge profit, which is enough for the company itself, and to compensate for government spending, and everything can be started somewhere in a completely different place in a new way.
Strange as it may seem, it was according to such a scheme that the modern, notorious “civilized world” developed up to the beginning of the twentieth century over the past 400 years. By the beginning of the twentieth century, in general, there was nothing to divide. The first and second world wars brought large-scale seizures, in the words of mathematicians, to a zero-sum game. Indeed, there is no economic and common sense in turning the territory of the enemy into a zone of "nuclear winter". Not to mention the fact that there is a risk that you too can also be leveled to the level with the ground. It is possible, therefore, about permanent colonial wars for some time somehow forgotten.
Now that the “bipolar world” has become history, and the countries that were colonies, have accumulated a certain financial weight, the powerful of this world naturally had an irrepressible desire to shake old times. But, as it turned out later, the old recipe in the twenty-first century does not work. In all this marvelous process, two things must be observed: the short duration of the military operation and the high margin. But today, both conditions cannot be realized.
Oil war
In this situation, it is appropriate to recall as an example the second Iraq war. The United States as a result of the war really put under control the entire production of Iraqi oil, but what did they get in return? Let's try to figure it out.
The first item will consider military spending. Even before the invasion, the Americans planned that the maximum total cost of the war, 5 years of post-war occupation and economic recovery in the future would amount to no more than $ 688 billion. At the same time, only $ 190 of billions was supposed to be spent directly from the US state budget, and the rest was due to obligatory deductions from the sale of oil. Documented these costs would have to be borne by the occupying government of Iraq.
But in fact, by 2007, direct expenditures from the US state budget for the military campaign in Iraq amounted to $ 450 billion, and until 2017, the administration of President George W. Bush intended to spend at least another $ 480 billion. Most likely, Barack Obama made some changes to these plans, but it would not be a significant mistake to assume that, as of the beginning of the current year, expenditures exceeded $ 600 billions. That is, these figures are at least three times higher than originally thought. As a reference, the first war in Iraq cost the coalition $ 88 billion, and almost 90% of the total amount was paid not by the United States, but by the countries that are members of NATO.
Now consider the benefits. Revenues from the plundering of Baghdad museums should not be counted: the true scale of looting and outright robberies of “supporters of universal human values” will become known no earlier than in 50 years. Iraq’s main treasure is oil. Based on a statistical review for 2010 year prepared by BP, it can be concluded that oil production in destroyed Iraq was restored as soon as possible. In fact, already at the end of 2004, it was restored to the level recorded in 1990's, and by 2008, to the level that was registered just before the overthrow of the tyrant Saddam Hussein.
The war in Iraq provoked a rise in world oil prices, and, given this fact, the profit should have been enormous, but this is only in theory. Under Saddam Hussein, the situation in the field of oil production was as follows: the oil company put in its pocket about $ 4 – 6 per barrel, depending on the adopted supply scheme and the nature of the particular field. It would seem that after the overthrow of the bloody regime and the constant rise in oil prices, oil companies had to remove at least $ 15 – 20 from the extracted barrel. But what happened, the companies did not expect at all. It turned out that the young Iraqi democracy that came to power sees this question somewhat differently, and the companies were allowed to leave $ 2 – 3 per barrel. This decision was justified by the fact that the restoration of Iraq and the ongoing struggle against al-Qaeda require significant sacrifices.
The most interesting thing in this situation is that a significant part of the Anglo-American oil companies in Iraq have been operating for more than 100 years and have maintained their positions under all possible regimes. That's it for these companies, the campaign ended rather pitiably in terms of finance. They began to receive two times less than with the tyrant Hussein, and if we even recalled to this the scale of world oil prices and the cost of equipment that had risen in price, in general a penny. Well, God bless him, offended the evil Iraqis "Lukoil" or the Indians and the Chinese there did not receive much profit. But then its immediate beneficiaries of the war, if we apply the category of the XIX century.
Apparently, the clue to the secrets of the Iraq war lies far from oil, and in the military-industrial complex. For example, in Russia or Ukraine, in order to hide the traces of theft, they burn the entire warehouse. In the USA, there are several other scales and in accordance with them it is necessary to use other methods. Only lazy people didn’t speak or write about the scandal associated with the names of Dick Cheney and Halliburton, but it’s obvious that such far from decent companies, only smaller and more significant companies, tens of thousands parasitize around the US Army. Given this, the war is needed, first of all, the military-industrial complex of America, and its main goal is not so much a victory as a budget. What is shown (and quite vividly) by the examples of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
But what about Libya? Everything is much more interesting there. US limited its military presence in Libya by providing aviation. This is due to the fact that the existing sites are quite enough for them, and the regular costs will not lead to a significant “cash-in”. But old Europe, who (in common sense) would sit on a fat priest straight and pray for an aging Gaddafi, so that he would quickly strangle everyone and continue such necessary oil supplies, joined the analysis of the world oil bridgehead. Because the export of oil produced in Libya, almost 80% goes to the EU countries, and this is almost 60-65 million tons. But no: the European Union from the very beginning began, as they say, "anneal to the fullest." Moreover, in this case, we can risk assuming that the United States itself was not particularly zealous in the previous propaganda campaign - the first fiddle was mainly played by Sarkozy, who was being encouraged by staid British.
Europe must recognize that Libya has become a kind of second Iraq when, instead of huge profits, significant costs are incurred in restoring the destroyed infrastructure and conducting regular military operations to suppress the outbreaks of the partisan movement. But for Europe, this is not all problems. The main problem may be migration, the wave of which has already swept Italy and France, and this is only the beginning. In general, according to the mind, it was necessary to simply freeze the accounts of the Gaddafi family and relax. No matter what the situation, Gaddafi would still sell oil for the most part to them. Of course, Gaddafi would not have waited for his accounts to be unblocked, and would have litigated with all of his offenders, but the courts can last for years, and this time you can live in peace and enjoy every new day.
But why did this not happen in reality? In this situation, there is only one explanation, and it relates not to rational thinking, but to a psychological plan. In Europe, which since the 1945 of the year was largely occupied by the USSR and the USA, they raised and trained such managers, who will always be obedient, and their intelligence has been relegated to the background. Of course, there were reasonable people in both France and Germany. A striking example is de Gaulle. Yet the Americans kept the situation in Europe under their complete control. And despite the statements of the same Americans that Europe is free in their choice, they would only try to go against it.
Time does not stand still. The USSR broke up into a handful of weak states, the Americans, too, seemingly loosened the reins of control, but the habit of acquiring nothing for European rulers over the years remained. That clearly showed the same financial crisis. A quite logical question appears, where did such huge problems with debts of wealthy European countries come from? Everything is quite simple: the states of Western Europe in their relations with other countries tried to behave like the flagship of US capitalism. It developed a habit of repeating everything after the real leader, the Washington Regional Committee, without thinking about the consequences at all.
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