The Burden of Resources

This collection of essays seeks to investigate questions of oil and water resources contestation, wars, and cooperation in the context of the Gulf region, especially Iraq, and of the Nile Basin. It tries to explore different opinions, rather than arrive at consensus, regarding the following questions: Does scarcity lead to violent conflicts? Or does abundance? And once war starts, what is the role of resources in expanding/limiting the scope and intensity of war and prolonging/ shortening it? Finally could resources, whether scarce or abundant, induce cooperation instead of dispute and violence? Why and how?