United for Peace of Pierce County: Digging Deeper IX (www.ufppc.org ) October 3, 2005

William Engdahl,

A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the NewWorld Order

, revised ed. (London & Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2004.[First published in 1992.]

Preface.

Iraq war: “[I]t was about oil. But notabout oil in the simple sense many believed. Thiswar was not an issue of corporate greed. It wasabout power, and geopolitical power above all”(ix). Halford Mackinder’s 1904 theses aboutEurasia as “The Geographical Pivot of History” &their influence (ix-x). The post-WWII “Americancentury” “rested on two pillars. The one pillarwas the uncontested role of US militarypower. . . . The second pillar of American powerwas the uncontested role of the dollar as worldreserve currency” (x). Goal of book “to shed lighton some lesser known aspects of our history”(xii).

Ch. 1: The Three Pillars of the BritishEmpire.

Shipping [later ‘trade’], internationalbanking, and “the world’s major raw materials”(1-2; cf. 91). “Free trade” embraced in principleby Parliament in 1820, and realized with therepeal of the Corn Laws in May 1846 (2-4).Enrichment of “the giant international Londontrading houses” (4-5). British liberalism as anideology whose underlying purpose was todefend these interests (5). Faced with anti-imperialist movements, development of the“informal empire” (5-6). Economic interestsbrought into government through “an extremelysophisticated marriage between top bankers andfinanciers of the City of London, governmentcabinet ministers, heads of key industrialcompanies . . . and the heads of the espionageservices” (7-8). But interest-rate policy to defendthe banking system led to 1873-1896 GreatDepression (8-9).

Ch. 2: The Lines Are Drawn: Germany andthe Geopolitics of the Great War.

Challengefrom late-19

c. Germany, whose industrialprogress was driven by steel & technologicalprogress (11-14). 1896 Exchange Act givesGermany a different organization for finance &banking to control speculation (14-15).Petroleum arrives on the scene in the context of German-British rivalry (15-18).

Ch. 3: A Global Fight for Control of Petroleum Begins.

Generation-long campaignof Admiral Lord Fisher to convert fleet to oil (19-20). By 1905, petroleum supplies became afocus of British policy (20-21). In 1901 theAustralian William Knox d’Arcy signs with Britishinterests thanks to Sidney Reilly, British “ace of spies” (20-22). Germany’s Berlin-to-Baghdadrailroad project dates from 1889; Britaindedicated to frustrating it (22-28). 1911-1913:at Churchill’s urging, Britain decides to convertfleet to oil (28-29). British opposition to Germanybased on its traditional balance-of-powerconsiderations: oppose the dominant continentalnation (29-30). French Foreign Minister GabrielHanotaux’s efforts to bring about Franco-Germanrapprochement based on strategic interests werea casualty of the Dreyfus Affair; France alliesitself with England (the “Entente Cordiale”) inreturn for a secret agreement to back France’sclaim to Alsace-Lorraine (30-32). Russia,transformed by the Trans-Siberian rail project,brought into this in 1907 (the “Triple Entente”)(32-34). Campaigns against the Ottoman Empirecommence (34).

Ch. 4: Oil Becomes the Weapon, the NearEast the Battleground.

Imminent financialcollapse of the British Treasury a factor indeclaration of WWI, which permitted thesuspension of specie payments (35-37). Securingpetroleum supplies “at the center of militaryplanning” in WWI: Romania, Baku (38).Rockefeller’s Standard Oil key to victory (39-40).While France fought Germany, Britain moved 1.4million soldiers to the Middle East (40). SecretSykes-Picot agreement (1916) divided the areabetween France (“Area A”: Greater Syria [Syria &Lebanon], the Mosul basin) & Britain (“Area B”: Jordan, most of Iraq, Kuwait, Haifa, Acre) (42-43).Agreements with Arabs betrayed (43-44). Aprivate Lloyd George-Clemenceau understandingin December 1918 to attach Mosul to Iraq and putPalestine under British control in return for therest of Greater Syria and half of the Mosul oilexploitation (44). Geopolitical considerationsbehind the Balfour declaration by British ForeignSecretary Arthur Balfour to Walter LordRothschild, a member of the English Federation of Zionists, on Nov. 2, 1917, declaring: “HisMajesty’s Government view with favor theestablishment in Palestine of a national home forthe Jewish people, and will use their bestendeavors for the achievement of this object . . .”(44-46). Informal

Round Table

policy groupfounded in 1910 develops the grand design tolink Britain’s colonial possessions: South Africa toEgypt, the Suez Canal, Mesopotamia, Kuwait,Persia, and India (46-48).

Ch. 5: Combined and Conflicting Goals: TheUnited States Rivals Britain.

British victoryfrom American money: U.K. owes U.S. $4.7billion in 1919; 1920s saw a struggle betweenBritain & “a newly created American‘internationalist’ establishment” (50).Unprecedented concentration of financial powerin J.P. Morgan & Co., Britain’s sole financial agentin U.S., despite U.S. “neutrality” (51-53).“Morgan-controlled press” lobbies for U.S. entryinto war lest Morgan & Co. face “completefinancial ruin” (53-54). 1913 Federal Reserve Actas key background (53-54). Morgan interestspush for reparations: “The U.S. governmentincreasingly made itself simply a usefulinstrument for the extension of the new power of New York’s international bankers” (55).Establishment of the Royal Institute of International Affairs & the Council on ForeignRelations (55). War debt & reparations (132billion gold marks) dominate post-WWI finance inEurope (56). Banking establishment pursuesinternationalist goals, despite U.S. government’sisolationism (57-58). April 1920 San Remoagreement: Britain 75%, France, 25% of Mesopotamian oil (58-59). March 1921 Cairomeeting of British Arabists divides up Middle East(59-60). U.S. involvement in Mexico aimed atousting British-backed regime (60-61). Britishsecret intelligence services are a key factor insecuring a major share of oil for U.K. (61-64).

Ch. 6: The Anglo-Americans Close Ranks.

German-Soviet Rapallo Treaty (65-66; 68-69).Harry Sinclair’s bid to dominate Baku oil industryfrustrated by British (66-67). French occupy theRuhr in 1922 (70-71). Occupation & resistancethe real “origins” of Weimar hyperinflation (71-74). Red Line Agreement (74-75). British-American financial interests played key part inrise of Hitler (76-84).

Ch. 7: Oil and the New World Order of Bretton Woods.

1945: With Britain “utterlydependent” on the U.S., Britain cultivates a“special relationship” with American power (85-87). The postwar order defined by the 1944Bretton Woods agreement, establishing theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), the WorldBank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), “skillfully designed by Lord Keynesand his American counterparts to ensure apostwar Anglo-American hegemony over worldmonetary and trade affairs”: voting control andthe gold standard (87). U.S.-Saudi pact (88). U.S.oil companies profited from the Marshall Plan (88-89). U.S. government subsidizes oil-friendlyinvestments (National Defense Highway Act, etc.)(89-90). As “a little-noted consequence,” “theparallel rise to international dominance of theNew York banking groups tied to oil” ― a“postwar cartelization of American banking andfinancial power” involving Chase Manhattan; FirstNational City Bank, later Citicorp; the Bankers’ Trust group; Chemical Bank New York Trust;Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., displacing theLondon banks (Midland Bank, Barclays, etc.) (90-91). U.S.-British collusion succeeds in stymieingIranian oil nationalization by overthrowingMossadegh in 1953 (91-97). Enrico Matteiattempts to achieve Italian energy independence,dies in suspect plane crash (97-104).

Ch. 8: A Sterling Crisis and the Adenauer-deGaulle Threat.

De Gaulle’s suspicion of Anglo-American collusion a factor in development of Common Market (105-07). Anglo-Americaninterests succeed in devising ‘Atlanticist GrandDesign’ to open Common Market to Americanimports & bind Europe to NATO (107-09). New York-based international banking interests (withMcCloy & Henry Kissinger working for them)swing post-1957 policies in their direction ratherthan the nation’s (109-10). U.S. industryneglected in favor of foreign investment of capital(110-11). Vast capital outflow leads to series of “ever worsening international monetary crises” in1960s (111-14). Vietnam war, “deliberatelydesigned . . . to be a ‘no-win war’ from theoutset,” seen as a solution to U.S. economicrevival (114-16). Suggestion that Kennedy wasassassinated because he had determined tooppose Anglo-American “powerful interests”(116-17). Suggestion 60s counterculture was acover to facilitate U.S. “de facto disinvestment inthe economy” and “dull the wits and help preparethe population to accept the coming shocks,”with use of “domestic insurgents” like TomHayden, with a “manipulated ‘race-war’” as aweapon (118-20). Kennedy’s effort to stay thebalance of payments deficit averted by anamendment exempting Canada, allowing dollarsto continue to flow to the U.K. (120-22). Sterlingcrisis in U.K.; 1967 devaluation (122-25). Anglo-American interests blamed for France’s 1968crisis (125-26).

Ch. 9: Running the World Economy inReverse: Who Made the 1970s Oil Shocks?

Nixon abandons the gold standard, 1971 (127-30). Policy insiders prepare “a bold newmonetarist design” based on petrodollars: theBilderberg group’s “colossal assault againstindustrial growth in the world, in order to tilt thebalance of power back to the advantage of Anglo-American financial interests and the dollar” (130-35). Yom Kippur War “secretly orchestrated byWashington and London,” and specifically HenryKissinger (135-38). Devastation of industrialgrowth in Germany & Third World, but benefits tobanks & oil companies (138-41). Allegesantinuclear and green movements financed by