Conflict Resources: The Key to Solving Both ISIS and Russian Aggression

Aug 31, 2014 | David Francis, Fiscal Times
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The crises in Ukraine and Iraq have little to do with one another. In Ukraine, Russia is exerting its territorial ambitions, while in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is attempting to build an Islamic caliphate. But both crises do share one key trait -- both campaigns are funded by energy.

In Russia’s case, money from the sale of energy to Europe has paid for Moscow’s rise from the dark days after the fall of the Soviet Union. Right now, Russia supplies one-third of Europe’s gas supplies, and European payments make up some 60 percent of the profits of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant.

Control over Iraqi oil has allowed ISIS to grow from a band of jihadists to a full-blown terrorist army. The Iraqi Oil Report says the group is generating some $1 million dollars a day in oil sales. Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, estimates that the group could capture enough of Iraq’s oil structure to generate $730 million this year.