The Map of War

I upload once more the following natural gas map, with the largest importers and exporters, because this is more a map of war rather than a map of natural gas. With bars you can see on the map the top importers of gas, who import approximately 600 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year i.e. USA, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, South Korea, United Kingdom and Belgium.

Map 1 (Sputnik)

http://sputniknews.com/infographics/20100426/158748785.html

With circles you can see on the map the major natural gas exporters i.e. the countries that provide these 600 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, and they are Russia, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Algeria, Qatar, Nigeria, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The figures refer to 2010 and they do not include Turkmenistan and Australia, countries that have become significant gas exporters, and also China and India, countries that have become significant gas importers. Iran, even though the second richest country in natural gas reserves after Russia, it does not export gas, because due to the economic sanctions Iran finds it very difficult to satisfy its domestic demand.

The wars of the 21^st century mainly refer to the natural gas supply of Europe, through North Africa (Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), Turkey and Russia, and also the supply of East Asia, through Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If on this map you put a similar map for oil you can explain all the wars.

What is strange is that while the wars of the 20^th century were mainly oil wars, the wars of the 21^st century are mainly natural gas wars. I am not of course saying that oil does not matter. Oil matters a great deal, and most of the revenues still refer to oil exports. However natural gas is becoming of growing importance, it is environmentally friendlier, and it is an economic solution when supplied by pipelines. All the wars of the 21^st century refer to natural gas pipelines from Africa, the Middle East, the Caspian Sea and Russia, towards Europe and Asia. The wars are not for oil and oil pipelines as was the case in the 20^th century, even though the two are closely related, because once a natural gas pipeline is constructed, an oil pipeline could follow.

“The global natural gas market”, April 2010

http://sputniknews.com/infographics/20100426/158748785.html