Other than that, I concur.

The RN's conversion to oil preceded the Great War. The Admiralty decided to adopt oil fuel en masse in 1912 -- and concomitantly bought controlling interest in BP to ensure access. Both Fisher and Churchill were convinced of the greater utility of oil fuel for exactly the reasons mentioned by you and Mr. Ricks (speed and increased operational range respectively). The sticking point was supply. Indeed, the RN had established a training center for stokers and boilermen at Haslar in 1902, more than a decade before the war. Granted, before the war oil was used in capital ships mostly as an auxiliary fuel, and only destroyers were heavily dependent on it. But the need for oil for those ASW ships was paramount during the war, and by 1917 the British were already on the ropes vis a vis oil. So much so, in fact, that in 1918 the Admiralty even studied the feasibility of reconversion back to coal for capital ships (the conclusion was that it was not worth the time or expense).

The wartime experience with oil hammered home to the British that their lack of self-sufficiency in oil was a strategic issue. It encouraged them to participate in naval arms limitation talks (the Washington and London Conferences). It also prompted them to do what they could to aid Shell and BP in gaining more concessions around the globe -- including within the US. That in turn enraged US oil firms who were irked that the US government wouldn't close off British access to retaliate against British restrictions on US firms within the Empire.

This happens to be my (limited) area of expertise. My dissertation at Texas A&M focused on the conversion of the US and British fleets from coal to oil between 1889 and 1921.

DAVID SNYDER thanks for the fine analysis. My remarks were primarily based on the wholesale conversion of the RN from coal to oil primarily was a post war matter. You are quite right that a number of RN ships had been built as oil burners as early as 1902 primarily to test engineering and sub-systems prior to the war. In fact if I recall correctly a pre-war attempt was made with oil fueled turbine destroyers to test the tactical concept of such vessels whose primary operation requirement was very high speed. And you are right again that the coal to oil conversion caused enormous logistical headaches and in fact many lighter RN vessels remained coal burners long after the conversion because of the availability of coaling stations and a shortage of oil storage on far flung foreign stations.

The Navy and Air Force are protecting us from China and Russia.

Army's been fighting this one along with the Marines thus far without much help. Why start now?

I'm all for beaching the boomers and the SW fleet. Ain't helping us too much - and I doubt they are going to prevent the next terrorist attack or suitcase bomb. As for the AF, we like their CAS and UAV boys, just ain't got enough of them. (I would prefer that our ground forces be less dependent upon them as well)

(I am just trying to provide a little playful feedback to the constant negative commentary about the Army ;-) )

Actually, I believe to some extent it does have to do with oil KNS. Make no mistake about it, oil dominates what drives our foreign policy in the Middle East. Remember, it doesn't matter where we get the bulk of our oil, i.e. Canada, etc., it is world priced based on how much is available on the market at any given time. If there is a disruption throughout the Persian Gulf region (Arabian Peninsula) or anywhere for that matter, we pay higher prices as well.

Incidentally, this includes African countries such as resource cursed Nigeria and any future civil war there - we didn't establish AFRICOM just to create more flag officer billets (though that's a thought).

As for Afghanistan? You are correct, oil and natural gas aren't the reason, but again, make no mistake about it, Afghanistan has long had a key place in American energy corporate plans to secure access to the large landlocked reserves of Central Asia, using Afghanistan as a corridor to the ports in Pakistan and/or India and isolating Iran in the process.

Our strategic relations with Russia, China, Europe and Japan, our leverage on the global economy and finance, are very much about our military control of oil transportation. Believe it or not, it's true.

The Saudi state is often described as 'deeply conservative'. But without their oil sales, we would have to reclassify the Wahabi state (and AlQ target) as 'radical'. Moslem radicals, the magnet of Mecca/Medina, would be no more important to us than Tim McVeigh's acolytes, if not for the religion's leverage on global energy supplies and maritime choke points.

We offset the 1972 peak of US oil production by securing alternate supplies, which are also now past-peak. Without excess supply, the West's oil dependency is strategically vulnerable to delivery interruptions, even from tin-pot populists in Venezuela and Libya. At this point in history, a sustained 5-10% reduction in US oil imports could implode our economy. Wahabi terrorism is a stop-gap tactic; OBL's declared strategic aim is $200/bbl oil, and Zawahiri wants control of the Suez. Dardanelles and Malaca are also Moslem narrows. That keeps Pentagon and Wall Street paranoids up at night, and fleets of standby supertankers sitting empty in the North fjords and South islands.

Katrina was potentially much much worse than 9/11, an oil/gas production-import-refinery trifecta. Fortunately, we're too big for the Euros and Japanese to let fail, and they responded with refined product from their strategic reserves, before it hit $5 at the pump.

The very expensive US ability to project global military power, our willingness to bomb and take casualties, is more attuned to guaranteeing the global oil/gas commodity than it is to prevent nuclear proliferation, or CO2-warming for that matter. Iraq exports were slow to recover in a civil war, but we made sure they never dried up. And our ME critics were banking profits.

Oil supply security is why the E. Asians are willing to loan us money and accept the Dollar's inflation, for now. CENTCOM's job is to keep the Gulf open at all costs, and to try and secure Taliban/Iran blocked pipeline routes for new Nat Gas away from the Rooshuns.

Problem is, we're burning the profits in the effort, and our clients can see that.

It's interesting to hear the oil as a driver argument, given our policies vis-a-vis Iran, support for sanctions against Iraq in the 1990's (and helping to significantly decrease the amount of Iraqi oil on the world market), and the still abysmal production levels coming out of the Iraqi oil sector. I'll grant that helping to ensure world economic stability via the stability in energy commodities may play a part in calculations, though the line about how we fight these wars just/primarily for oil and to secure a stable flow of oil I simply don't buy. Frankly, I think that that argument 1.) gives the US too much credit to the ability to pursue coherent foreign policy in the Middle East and South Asia, and 2.) completely ignores policy drift and inertia(much of what we do, and don't do, isn't necessarily the result of intentional policies aimed at addressing today's environment, but really is just left over from prior Administrations).

KNS, that's a valid rhetorical (logical) approach to analysis. I'll further agree that in general, ascribing motive is provocative and prone to fallacy. It's also useful at times, if it's predictive of behavior, successful in pulling back the curtain of deception that is part and parcel of politics, diplomacy, and business. If every activity my kid pitches involves staying out past midnight, maybe that's linked to the real attraction.

I never meant to imply that we were measuring our debt-financed military success simply by barrels 'liberated' vs barrels burned in the effort. I did draw the logical absurdity, should we or our Asian financiers apply that metric. Since the clever asians are that analytic, I'd guess the debt itself maybe promises them offsetting advantage of some sort.

We are a multipolar country, one famously given to geographic/cultural/linguistic shallowness. We are largely ignorant of our own 60-75 years of history in Iran, Af-Pak, and greater Arabia, where we are now massively engaged, both tactically and strategically. Two of those three are oil heartland, and figured strategically into two world wars, because they were energy supply and transportation choke-points. (They still are.) The third is the repository of what IRPak leaders describe as 'allah's bomb', and a safe haven for a Arabic-moslem terror-propaganda-ideology project that overtly aims to topple the Saudi and Egyptian governments, among others.

Three out of three point strategically at oil. The baddies get it. They don't want to rule us. They do seek to damage and deny our ability to prop up (or threaten) the arabic-moslem target governments. N.Korea hugely amplifies its strategic importance by proliferating into the Gulf.

Mesopotamia is intrinsically important, but our irreducible interest as maritime oil hegemon is being the big dog, not losing credibility, and preventing the breakout of regional powers like Arabia and Iran.

Back to the 'why would we do Iraq so stupidly, if it was about oil' argument, I'd just point out that the 'I'd never do something that stupid' argument seldom holds up in criminal or civil court. Think Enron or Lehman. Stupidity happens. Strategic blindness is an active accomplishment.

I would suggest that oilmen Cheney-Bush let OEF/ Pashtunistan drift for so long vis OIF precisely because its distance made for a less direct effect on greater Arabia-Persia. And now we must reel Af-Pak back from the brink, because the arab insurgency threat is still huge, and 'allah's bomb' proliferation threatens to give both the Saudis and the Iranians true sovereign independence from US policy. How AQ Kahn could take money from both the Saudis and Persians is beyond me, but it sure let's the nuclear fox into the oil matrix.

Oil men are VERY clear about oil's centrality to American arms and affluence, past and future. I think our flag officers are too, and have their eye on the strategic fuel flow in all the commands.

Interesting twist to the idea that we've "always" been concerned about securing ME oil for our own use - history of an "oil-denial policy." Sometimes it's not about getting it for ourselves, but ensuring that if we can't have it, no one can.

http://www.sadat.umd.edu/pub/oped/A%20serious%20risk%20to%20oil%20supply.htm

http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/spring_globalenvironment_telhami.aspx

Now you're almost ready to consider the role of nuclear blackmail, by the ME country that already has them. Take a look at the Israeli IRBM capability to hit Soviet Moscow, the nuke brinksmanship in 1973, it's impact on curtailing the rearming of Egypt and Syria. Then consider what the smallest part of the 'Samson option' would do to Western (and Asian) economies today.

The US role in keeping a leash on the Macabees, while simultaneously doing a sort of 'good cop/bad cop' thing with them, is not an altogether naive policy. It is risky, in a volatile region.