ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the extent to which American dominance in world affairs is based on the control of oil resources and the changes which will inevitably take place with the end of the oil era. In actuality the British, rather than the Americans, were the first to recognise the military potential of oil. In 1912 Winston Churchill established The Royal Commission on Oil Supplies, headed by Lord Fisher, to examine the advantages of oil. In 1905 Burmah founded the Concessions Syndicate to handle its Persian venture. Oil companies from the United States and England swarmed into Mexico seeking concessions from the government. Subsequent testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee indicated that Madero received funds from several leading bankers in El Paso' and from Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The US first used the open door' doctrine as a means of forcing the British to give US oil companies the right to participate in the exploitation of Iraq's oil resources.
