Re: An impressive list
It's been predicted since the 1960s (or earlier) that there would eventually be an oil war in the South China Sea centred on the Spratley Islands (there's not much under the Spratleys but there's a lot in surrounding continental shelves)
The only real questions are "who will show up?" and "Can it be avoided by making oil irrelevant?"
The thing about wars is that they're usually about trade (most of them in the last 400 years up to WW1 and it's arguable that WW1 went on so long because UK/Germany had been gearing up for a trade war for 30 years beforehand), pillage and plunder (most of them before that - war was only done if profitable) or resources (oil and water primarily). There was an odd period around 1000 years ago when religion was supposedly a primary motivator, but plunder played a large part in the attraction.
Just about every conflict since WW2 has been about oil or independence from colonialism - even the proxy wars that the superpowers engaged in.
Looking closer at oil wars, they're really about cheap energy and access to it. If a better energy source source can be developed (preferably soon, carbon dioxide is looking to be a much worse problem than simplistic warming issues) and is replicable enough, many wars would simply go away.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
