resource wars
Fighting over supplies
Resource wars are armed conflicts driven by competition for valuable natural resources—oil, water, minerals, arable land.
The term emphasizes material causes over ideological ones: nations or factions fight not for beliefs but for access to things they need or want.
Some analysts frame the Iraq invasion as a resource war over oil.
The concept extends to anticipated future conflicts over dwindling supplies: Climate change will spark resource wars over fresh water.
- oilSlippery viscous fluid
- oil fieldsAreas yielding crude petroleum
- scarcityInsufficiency of something needed
- conflictOpposition between parties
- proxy warConflict fought through intermediaries
territory · land grab · pipelines · water · water rights · minerals · invasion · drought · occupation · regime change · crude · coltan · blood diamonds · strategic · geopolitics · famine · sanctions · scorched earth
- Dystopia1984, Nineteen Eighty-Four, dystopian fiction, totalitarianism, Brave New World
- Post-Apocalypsewasteland, fallout, survivors, apocalypse, collapse
- what-ifswhat if, hypothetical, thought experiment, speculation, conjecture
- geopoliticsbalance of power, bipolarity, bloc, blocs, brinkmanship
- climate impactsglobal warming, rising temperatures, rising temps, extreme weather, sea level rise
- eco-disastersclimate collapse, oil spill, ocean warming, coral bleaching, biodiversity loss
resource warsideological warfare
Conflict of competing belief systems
religious wars · holy wars · culture wars · ethnic conflicts · sectarian violence
resource warsinternational cooperation
Countries jointly addressing challenges
resource, resources, resourceful, resourcefully, resourcefulness, wars, warring, warred, warrior