Oil Imperialism?

Delta Force

Banned
What if the Middle East had been colonized by the European powers? How would the economic, cultural, and social development of the region change? Would control of the geographic and energy resources of the region give imperialism an actual economic case and preserve it for another century?
 
What if the Middle East had been colonized by the European powers? How would the economic, cultural, and social development of the region change? Would control of the geographic and energy resources of the region give imperialism an actual economic case and preserve it for another century?

It kinda was, though. All the former Ottoman holdings in the Levant were under colonial rule for decades. Persia was basically partitioned between Russia and Britain. North Africa spent decades--over a century in Algeria's case--under colonial rule. I take it you want more?

Africa is a good comparison. It had plenty of energy resources--Nigerian oil, after all, and I'm pretty sure at least a few other oil reserves in Africa were known. Not even including North African oil, of course. Didn't stop the imperialists from divesting control there. But at some point, it certainly has to become more profitable to stop directly ruling the colonies and let the people have some "say" there (even if said "say" is completely neocolonial in nature). And if decolonisation emerges as a movement, then the sort of imperialism you imagine is doomed. In the case of the Middle East, it's probably even more difficult since the social structures in the majority of the region were much more developed than a place like Africa's were on the onset of colonialism (or at least the majority of Africa).
 
I think imperialism was done before oil became a big problem. Britain was done with India and Israel and later with the 1958 winds of change speech and France was done with the end of the Algeria in about 1958. OPEC was formed in 1960 and became a pain in the arse after that, years after imperialism was a spent force.
 
Colonialism was replaced by multi-national corporations.
Oil companies based in: Britain, the USA and the Netherlands still pocket the bulk of profits from Middle-Eastern oil.
Big corporations may establish local shell companies and local elites many pocket significant dividends, but local peasants remain poor.
Saudi oil fields are largely run by guest-workers from Indonesia, the Phillipines, etc. who have the same rights and freedoms as old-school slaves.
 

Delta Force

Banned
I'm referring more to the period after World War I in which the the collapse of the Ottoman Empire brought about a power vacuum in the Middle East. The region was contributing greatly to international tensions even before petroleum was discovered there. There was the struggle for influence in Iran between the British and Russians, the struggle for control of the Suez Canal and Nile River Basin between the French and British (leading to the Fashoda Incident), the German attempt to bypass Suez with the Berlin-Baghdad Railway (which led to British intervention in Kuwait). The discovery of petroleum just ramped tensions up even higher.

It seems odd that a region with such significant national security, geopolitical, and economic importance wasn't officially colonized, especially after the intense fighting that took place there during World War I. The imperial powers raced to claim small islands and marginally profitable to money losing colonies from the Central Powers, but they didn't move in to seize control of areas that were of actual strategic and economic importance?
 

Delta Force

Banned
I'm wondering what the economic impact would be if the imperial powers owned the energy companies in the Middle East to the modern day. Their valuation could surpass the GDP of their home countries quite easily, even for large countries such as France, Germany (if it had somehow retained Mesopotamian concessions), Italy (Libya), and the United Kingdom.

It seems having such a large energy company floated on their stock exchanges could make even developed country economies go through dramatic economic swings quite easily, or at least their financial sector. Lower energy prices would be good for the wider economy but bad for the huge energy companies, which would have massive valuations due to their large share of the world market.
 
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