The academic and policy discourse about the role of oil in world politics has traditionally been dominated by a single narrative about resource competition. One contribution of this book is to highlight how narrow this narrative is. Resource-hungry countries do sometimes go to war in part to secure better access to oil reserves, but that is not the only or even necessarily the most important way in which oil plays a role in international relations. As the evidence in Chapter 1 demonstrates, states that have oil are not just the targets of conquest; they are quite often the ones instigating the conflict. Only recently have scholars begun to systematically identify the full set of causal mechanisms linking oil to international conflict and security, and that work is ongoing. This book seeks to elucidate one especially important mechanism, which I call petro-aggression.

Over the last half-century, petro-aggression has become a prevalent feature of the international political system. Iraq under Saddam Hussein started two major wars and engaged in numerous low-level conflicts. Libya instigated or participated in an array of armed international conflicts, with opponents ranging from neighbors Chad and Egypt to more distant enemies in Tanzania, Israel, and the United States. Iran has been aggressive in one form or another against Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, and others. Hugo Chávez transformed Venezuela from a once-peaceful and cooperative state to one that frequently antagonizes its neighbors. Across the Middle East and beyond, petro-aggression is an international phenomenon of the first rate.