Energy

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Gas flares are seen at the Rumaila oil refinery, near the city of Basra, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Oil, Conflict, and U.S. National Interests

    Author:
  • Jeff D. Colgan
| October 2013

The influence of oil on conflict is often poorly understood. In U.S. public debates about the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars, both sides focused excessively on the question of whether the United States was fighting for possession of oil reserves; neither sought a broader understanding of how oil shaped the preconditions for war.