The relationship between conflicts and natural resources and other related subjects are popular research paper topics in universities because of the conflicts happening in the recent times. Here is a free essay on this subject that is in the news every day. Terrorist activities, coup d’état, civil and international armed combats

are all different kinds of armed conflicts belonging to the organised form of physical violence. The armed conflicts that are now taking place in many regions of the world are sometimes seen to be more de-structured and belong to a new category that lies between plain banditry, organised crime and war. Armed conflicts that cause large numbers of deaths are labelled as such (Le Billon, 2001). Political motives may be seen or demonstrated as the main cause for the conflict, but it has been observed that economic motives also hold their sway. The legal and illegal utilization of natural resources to finance arms, soldiers and other insurgency supplies provide the economic impetus.

 Armed conflicts over natural resources are not a novelty. Most of the wars that have taken place were about natural resources such as land, water, air, mineral, agricultural or even human assets and their accessibility. Abundance of natural resources does not always render a country prosperous and wealthy: instead it becomes the crux for destabilisation and conflicts. Not only is the country with such conflicts pushed into poverty, large-scale deaths and displacements, the environment is also damaged by the over-exploitation and greed. These exploited resources are used to finance arms and ammunition procurement for the conflict (The World Bank, 2011).

 Ross (2004), made a study on four types of resources and their effects on conflict instigation. He concluded that the probability of conflicts were more in the case of oil or petroleum. Gemstones, such as diamonds, emeralds etc. and drugs that belong to the ‘loot-able’ commodities type, may not be the instigators of conflicts, but could be used to extend it by procuring more arms and forces for the conflict. Legal agricultural goods have hardly any role in conflicts. But primary resources, such as land, water, air and so on may or may not be responsible for conflicts. Given below is a table of countries under conflicts and the resources used in them. 

Table 1 Mineral Resources and Secessionist Movements (from: Ross, 2004)

 At the other end of the scale, resource scarcity is also observed to lead to war (Homer-Dixon, 1999). So, natural resources need not always be a blessing, they can turn into curses sometimes whether they are present in abundance or there is a scarcity of them. But our resources are only used in conducting research and writing a research paper outline and custom papers for your benefit and good grades.

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