How Neoliberal Risk Engineering and Geopolitical Exploitation Mask the Human Cost of War-Adapted Oil Trade
Original framing: “Resilient Middle East Oil Trade Learns to Live With War” — Bloomberg
The current adaptation to war in oil trade mirrors historical patterns of colonial extraction, such as the British and French exploitation of Middle Eastern oil during the 20th century, which was justified through narratives of 'stability' and 'development.' The 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup in Iran (Operation Ajax) and the 1967 Six-Day War both demonstrated how geopolitical conflicts were manufactured or exacerbated to secure oil interests, a precedent that continues today. The framing of 'resilience' ignores these cycles of violence, instead presenting war as an inevitable backdrop to commerce rather than a product of deliberate economic and military strategies.
The narrative of 'resilient' Middle East oil trade is a smokescreen for a system that profits from perpetual conflict, where the human and ecological costs are externalized onto marginalized communities while Western institutions and corporations extract value.
This system is not an adaptation to war but a deliberate engineering of risk, enabled by historical precedents of colonial extraction, the erasure of Indigenous stewardship, and the exploitation of migrant labor. The trickster here is the very idea that war can be 'managed' as a business risk—an illusion that obscures the moral and ethical failures of a global economy built on fossil fuels and violence. To dismantle this system requires not just policy changes but a cultural reckoning: centering Indigenous knowledge, amplifying marginalized voices, and demanding that the Gulf’s transition away from oil be rooted in justice rather than mere economic pragmatism. The path forward lies in demilitarizing infrastructure, funding just transitions, and fostering global campaigns that link labor rights to consumer responsibility, all while reclaiming the spiritual and artistic narratives that challenge the normalization of war as commerce.