There's something in the water

The importance of resources in going to war

Recently, on LinkedIn, a member posted two maps. One showed the countries of the world that Russia regards as ‘unfriendly’ towards it. The other, the countries of the world where it is safe to drink tap water. The contention: that the one virtually replicates the other.

The OP is virulently anti-Russian, being himself a Ukrainian. The purpose of his post was not entirely clear, other than to quip: “Russians don’t like people who have clean tap water.”

A voice of protest was, nevertheless, to be heard, from Uruguay. “In Uruguay you can drink tap water, but it’s not on the map...they always forget Uruguay.” Followed by an intense giggle and the Uruguayan flag. Poor old Uruguay. I responded: “The Battle of the Plate turned the Battle of the Drinking Tumbler.”

So, why was Uruguay “forgotten”? Perhaps because the maps are not exactly scientific. Or some other reason?

Many of the countries that are indicated as unfriendly are countries that fear Russia’s expansionist policies. Europe en bloc. The States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. It isn’t safe to drink tap water anywhere in Africa, or most of South America. Is there more to this than meets the eye? What about poor old Uruguay?

“Russia is looking for cooperation with Uruguay in the field of nuclear energy, the Russian ambassador to Latin America said: ‘Our countries could maintain cooperation in the sphere of nuclear energy although Uruguay’s legislation bans the use of nuclear energy.’ The diplomat said Uruguayan officials had shown interest in a floating nuclear power plant, when the project’s presentation took place at the Russian Embassy recently. The first floating plant will have capacity of 70 MW of electricity, and about 300 MW of thermal power. The cost of the first plant is estimated at $400 million, but could later be reduced to $240 million.” (Wikipedia). Russia has far from forgotten Uruguay. And it is far off deciding to invade Uruguay. But, it does hold Uruguay in its thrall in another manner. Just as it holds much of Asia and Africa in its thrall.

Water is a natural resource and natural resources are to be found across the globe: water, minerals, coal, oil, gas, uranium, plutonium, iron, steel, and what not. In friendly countries, those that are not marked in red on the upper map, these are likely to be resources that are not denied to Russia. In the other, red, countries, access to them is more likely to prove difficult. Russia has enough gas and oil to tempt the other countries into some sort of a deal, by which access to the desired resource can be secured.

When Russia took possession of the Oblast of Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, a comment was heard from it: “Either Zaporizhzhia will be Russian, or it will be nobody’s.” Zaporizhzhia is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Donetsk and Luhansk are home to Ukraine’s iron and coal industries. It’s no secret that the Russians’ aims are to secure natural resources for their motherland.

Securing natural resources was an aim of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. And it was an aim of the First World War in 1914-1918. And it was likely a prime mover in the Second World War, 1939-1945. Whilst ideology played a large part in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, the Korean War of 1950-1953 and the Vietnam War of 1955-1975, one should be wary of limiting one’s analysis of such conflicts to simply notions of political manifesto, ideology or lifestyle. Before anyone commits military forces to a conflict, the main mover for doing so is likely to be either natural resources, or military strategy, or a combination of the two. Britain holds on staunchly to Gibraltar for precisely the second reason. And Euratom and the European Coal and Steel Community were set up after the Second World War precisely to protect natural resources in Europe, mainly France’s and Germany’s.

What the two maps seem to be saying is that Russia does not consider the natural resources contained within the red countries as being at its free disposal. But it does consider the countries not in red as being potential, if not current, resource partners. So, what of the blue countries, where tap water is potable?

If you want to attack an enemy in order to render it lifeless and compliant, one way is to bomb the place to smithereens. Another way is, if it has resources, to render them useless. While that renders them useless to you, it also renders them useless to the owner. We call that a dog in the manger attitude. Dogs cannot eat hay. But if they lie in a manger, nor can the cattle.

It’s an attitude that has been heard at least once in the Ukraine conflict: at Zaporizhzhia. Poisoning tap water in the blue countries would do no harm to Russia, as Russia has no prospect of engaging in cooperation to extract their resources. But it certainly has the means to foul their water supplies. It can even do so remotely, by hacking computer systems.

It’s something they would not do in Uruguay. Because Uruguay offers resources that Russia is quite keen on.

Poor old Uruguay? No, poor old blue countries. Note one strange outlier: Saudi Arabia is a country where tap water is potable. But, for now, Russia considers it friendly. For now.