[Closed] How surprising - trillions of dollars' worth of minerals in Afganistan

COR ! .... What a stroke of luck eh?

Bet no one in Dubyas admin even thought about that when they invaded ....

Isn't life full of surprises

Good link, very interesting.

Afghanistan was known to have reasonable mineral deposits, particularly iron around Mazar. What is new here is the apparent scale of it.

This ought to be fabulously good news for a country that desperately needs some. If a proportion even of this lot can be got at, and if even a bad bargain proportion of the proceeds get tolerably sensibly spent within Afghanistan this will be very good news. The obvious problems being that (with the exceptions of the areas on the map to the South of Herat and to the South West of Kandahar) those areas are very high mountains and the political situation is ghastly enough and logistics fraught enough that investing in extraction will be a big gamble. There is also no end of possibility of sparking another horrendous 1990s style round of fighting for control of the central government as well as making the pull away from the centre worse. It must increase the risk of Afghanistan fragmenting completely, which I don't think the US regards as a good outcome.

Honestly, I'd not be surprised if this was largely news to US planners. The main strategic objective as far as extraction went previously had been the north-south pipeline to the Baluch coast, bringing the conspiracy knees jerking along to "it's all about oil". Presumably now we will be told that "of course, it was all about lithium all along. The world needs it for Blackberry batteries, which are made by the Rothschild family you know."

And [i]the “Saudi Arabia of lithium[/i] has almost exactly no ring to it at all. 🙂

Does anybody know, does China have a workable road route directly across the border and through the Badakshan panhandle south of the Pyandzh river in the north-east, or do they have to go round via Tajikistan?

I read some while ago that Chinese mining companies were operating in Afghanistan on a modest scale.

Do you really think this is a surprise? Come off it.

Just brushing things off as "conspiracy theories" doesn't make them not true.

As for Lithium - this potentially saves the bother of destabilising Bolivia, but no doubt the US will keep up the pressure there to keep the bases covered.

Just brushing things off as "conspiracy theories" doesn't make them not true.

Very true, however just reeling out "oh what a surprise" bandwagon doesn't make THEM true either. But of course somewhere like the US is going to have a grasp of the possibly deposits in a country based on its geology, to assume they didn't know it was possible woudl be daft. But to assume they invaded to steal it under cover of legitimacy is taking a few liberties itself.

re. China, I understand they've bought up vast tracts of African countries to feed their own people and they are also digging up a large part of that continent, an example of which was on Jonathan Dimbleby's very good programme last night. The US is a bit late in the day to catch on to this idea. I believe us Brits invented/developed the idea of nicking other countries' mineral wealth?

You may be right Glen. However, I think it's probably fair to say that:

- there were other convincing reasons for the invasion. I think the Giant Lithium Conspiracy probably requires faith in 9/11 being an inside job, which I'm still not buying. Otherwise it was staggeringly convenient that the US was handed an excuse to invade a country they secretly knew to be the lithium capital of the globe on a plate.

- they have made a cock-up of it, given that they have lost large numbers of lives and materiel, expanded gazillions of dollars and neither they nor their proxy government control the country to the extent managed by the Soviets even. Currently they can't hope to extract anything economically for the forseeable future, while their hold on the country is clearly declining. Yet this is announced now. If it's clever then it's also exceedingly subtle.

As coffeeking says, that no-one had a clue is unlikely (as I say, there was some mining previously), but that isn't the same as it being the reason why the invasion happened.

Also, don't really know, but I think that demand for (and the value of) lithium, cobalt, molybdenum and so forth is a recent phenomenon driven by computer batteries and chips. If that's right then it's perfectly plausible that no-one knows about a fair few such deposits - it hasn't necessarily made economic sense to look, particularly in a very difficult place.

Afghan governments had a window of being sophisticated and stable enough to consider that sort of idea between about 1950 and the Soviet invasion but didn't really get far with creating an industrial base. Then the country sank into a quagmire and has barely come up for air since. Of all the places that really didn't have sophisticated geological surveys before 2001, I'd have thought Afghanistan was pretty high up the list.

Anyway, this may be hopelessly naive. I am very bad at perceiving the shadowy forces that control human destiny, pretty dilletante about international relations and largely ignorant of geology, mining or metallurgy, so I can't hope to be sure either way. 🙂

Another thought, sorry. That article lacks named sources, and the unnamed sources are Pentagon. That is a little odd on both counts.

Personally, I'm thinking the dredging up of a report that no-one much cared about and briefing a journo about it is the result of someone in Defence wanting to swing the debate more towards "staying the course" in Afghanistan rather than exit strategies. Hmm.

Lithium could be the new oil. Li-ion batteries in cars anyone? As mentioned above it's essential to most of the electronic gadgets we take for granted and the developing world are hankering after. I believe we were facing a lithium shortage...
If we thought it was messy already it's going to get 1000 times worse with that kind of wealth to the winner.
Tribal area, history of western interference in resource wealth, huge spoils to the winner. Ring any bells ???

But to assume they invaded to steal it under cover of legitimacy is taking a few liberties itself.

Not exactly what he claimed. One of the key aims of foreign policy has always been securing good access to natural resources. It would be very surprising if these weren't still key concerns.

I never said that minerals were he [i]only[/i] reason to invade.

I did suggest that it is all rather convenient.

It is pretty clear (to me anyway) that this kind of issue does have a big impact on foreign policy, including military action.

There is also plenty of simply "convenient" with no innuendo.

No-one had any use for rubber when the Congo was first colonised, or indeed knew that there was loads of cobalt there when it was decolonised.

it was all about lithium all along.

And our bike lights need it!!

Great news if they can get an industry going there to benefit their country.

The average Afghan deserves a slice of the action, but will the money ever reach them? I hope so, but with the strange religious and cultural ways of the country, who knows what will happen, if the country will ever enjoy the full rewards.

The Afghan authorities must have complete control if this is going to work, but this will be a challenge because they need the expertise of the Western corporations and governments. The Arab world doesn't hold western outsiders in the highest regard and i'm sure the traditionalists will just see this as an interferance (the allied occupation there can't be helping matters either).

I think religion is the fundamental issue. A massive diplomatic challenge! I bet the Chinese will be especially keen to resolve this.

This ought to be fabulously good news for a country that desperately needs some

unfortunately, the people of 3rd world countries don't usually benefit from mineral extraction 🙁

no the people who benefit are generally the ones riding their high horses whilst playing with the latest iPhone.....

Too true. There are some reasons for optimism perhaps.

Also, Afghanistan has suffered literally decades of war and has lost a huge percentage of its population, cultivable land and infrastructure. So the chances of massive mineral wealth making things markedly [i]worse[/i] are perhaps not huge, unless it simply turns it back into an even bigger war-zone.

Fingers crossed, anyhow. 😐

Lithium could be the new oil. Li-ion batteries in cars anyone?

BigDummy, I really like you attitude with this, I felt I was one of the few to share this point of view.

[url= http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0610/Afghanistans_mineral_find_and_the_Washington_clock.html?showall ]veteran Afghan hands say the “discovery” of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is hardly new. And some detect an echo of Petraeus’ effort to “put a little more time on the Washington clock” for the Afghanistan surge as he once described his public relations strategy to buy time in the U.S. for the Iraq surge.[/url]

Interesting piece by Laura Rozen on Politico. Clearly I was indeed quite wrong about this being a great surprise to anyone, although I think the points about the recent value of lithium are probably [url= http://www.fnarena.com/index2.cfm?type=dsp_newsitem&n=12391E3F-1871-E587-E1565310D16C8034 ]right[/url].

I'm still not buying it as a significant factor in the decision to invade. Rozen seems to feel that Petraeus and others feel that it may be a good reason for staying, which is a slightly different thing.