August 13, 2004
Warren Pollock
A US Subcommittee document from 1975 entitled, “Oil Fields as Military Objectives: A Feasibility Study” effectively sums the present situation up.
In presidential initiatives of the time both Ford and Carter attempted to to get the United States moving on alternatives. The idea was to avoid a "disruption in America's fundamental lifestyle and a degradation of U.S. security."
What options do we have today? We have additional complexities to work through such as religion as politic, increased reliance on imports, declining supply capacity from major producers, stretched military capability, and allied instability;
DOMINANT DECISIONS U.S. DECISIONS
Is force justified?
Whose interests to safeguard?
MANDATORY MISSIONS
Seize sufficient oil fields and facilities intact.
Secure them for a protracted period.
Restore wrecked assets rapidly.
Operate installations without OPEC's assistance.
Guarantee safe overseas passage for supplies and products.
COUNTERINTERVENTION THREATS
Surrender preemptively; negotiate a settlement.
Oppose United States/allied assaults with forces
Interdict United States/allied shipping locally.
Conduct guerrilla warfare.
Sabotage ports and airfields.
Sabotage oil installations.
Conduct terror campaigns abroad.
SELECTING AREAS OF OPERATION AND OUTLYING OBJECTIVES
Rely on suppliers besides OPEC, such as Venezuela and Nigeria
Neither Nigeria Venezuela could offer more than token resistance to a U.S. invasion.
Latin America likely would censure U.S. actions if we seized oilfields
OPEC's greatest producers, of course, are in the Middle East.
There would be little to recommend Iraq, even if its 2 million barrels a day matched the 6.2 million U.S. import demand and refineries were sufficient, which they are not. Most fields, which center on Kirkuk, are 400-500 miles from Persian Gulf ports, quite isolated from other Middle East assets. Consequently, they pump petroleum to a pair of loading points along the Mediterranean. Neither pipelines nor ports could be secured unless U.S. troops were physically deployed over huge portions of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
Counter intervention threats would be ]ess crucial in countries at the southern end of the Persian Gulf, where four states straggle along a 600-mile littoral arc from Bahrain and Qatar through the United Arab Amirates (UAA) to Oman. However, their combined production falls 40 percent short of U.S. requirements, and many wells are offshore. Kuwait, in the center, is a more compact package. Its fields are within easy reach of the Persian Gulf coast. Most installations are onshore. Refinery capacity ranks with the best in the Middle East. Loading facilities are more than adequate. Daily petroleum production of 3.5 million barrels is almost 80 percent of Iraq and the UAA combined, but still scarcely more than half of America's current imports.
By way of contrast, either Iran or Saudi Arabia alone could supply U.S. needs for crude petroleum. Unfortunately, the former shares some of Iraq's most serious shortcomings. The latter is unnecessarily expansive. Iranian oil fields, for example, are scattered for 300 miles north-to-south in rough, arid foothills of the sawtoothed Zagros range. Land routes in the region are poor. Loading facilities at Kharg Island would be easy to isolate and secure once in U.S. possession, hut the Abadan refinery complex near Iraq's frontier lies on exposed flats that invite counteractions from both sides of the border. Iranian Armed Forces, which feature the finest U.S. fighter aircraft and a consequential navy, are the strongest of any OPEC member. Iraq's military machine is less pretentious, but poses potential threats that could not be ignored. The Tigris-Euphrates confluence and swampy delta (commonly called the Shatt-al-Arab), together with built-up areas, would afford an infinite number of safe havens from which irregulars could mount incursions.
Most important of all, U.S. intrusions might incite the Shah to seek assistance from the Soviet Union, which could interfere in force from the Caucasus. 29 Selected Iranian oilflelds (2.7 million barrels a day) could be combined with those in Kuwait (3.5 million) to meet U.S. import needs, but that course would do little to downgrade threats, and would add some difficulties.
Iran likely would fight as hard for half its holdings as for all. Possible Soviet responses would remain essentially constant. U.S. forces would have to seize and secure oilfield and terminal facilities in two dissimilar, noncontiguous areas.
Tailor-made amalgams involving Saudi Arabia appear more promising, since that country is less exposed to Soviet air-ground strikes and its armed forces are small. Kuwait, for example, combined with Saudi coastal fields, might prove manageable, although focal points are 250 miles apart and half the output comes from offshore. All Saudi onshore assets currently operated by Aramco 30 would suffice, but they stretch for 300 miles across sere, sandy landscape, from the neutral zone to the edge of Rub al-Khali, Arabia's empty quarter.South Saudi onshore holdings, plus Qatar and Bahrain, are less elongated, but comprise three disconnected areas that would complicate control.
The Saudi core's great Ghawar field alone could furnish 75 percent of the full U.S.requirement. 31 Tanker turnaround times to Ras Tanura would be a day less than those to Kuwait City, 250 miles farther north. 32 Precious fuel could be conserved. That extra distance could also constrain Soviet airpower.
Offshore loading facilities at Ras Tanura and Juaymah are among the best in the Middle East, but refinery capacities would fall short by half a million barrels per day, even if all installations were seized intact, a dubious assumption. 33 Sizable amounts therefore would have to be refined in NATO Europe and the Caribbean. That course would be practical only if the countries concerned approved the forceable U.S. occupation of foreign oil fields. Concurrence could not taken for granted, since operations to supply the United States alone could be inimical to NATO's interests.
Some Choices
Pump supplies to allow the US to operate at a reduced pace
Supply United States
Supply United States plus Japan
Supply United States plus NATO Europe
Supply Allies alone
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