Afghanistan, from poor to rich country.

[Topaz]

Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a very rich country with a partnership with China over THEIR natural resources. Afg, has large deposit of iron,copper, cobalt gold but the one that is going to make their one of the world'smining center is lithium. Apparently, the US has know about this and I've been told that one of the reasons, the military is in the country, so now we have China enetering the picture. http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/06/08/news/national/china-and-afghanistan-edge-towards-%E2%80%98strategic-partnership%E2%80%99/

[bush_cheney2004]

Sounds good to me...Canadian mining companies have been sweet on copper and nickel for decades all around the world. This means more sales for Caterpillar!

[Moonlight Graham]

Poor to rich, ya right. Just like all those African countries with oil & mineral resources up the ying-yang. And just like many African countries, may just lead to more war as internal factions fight over them & they fund civil war efforts.

[jbg]

Poor to rich, ya right. Just like all those African countries with oil & mineral resources up the ying-yang. And just like many African countries, may just lead to more war as internal factions fight over them & they fund civil war efforts.

And how much of the resource earnings benefit ordinary people? Oh yes there are countries that in which that occurs. Canada, the U.S., Norway, the U.K. Nigeria, Angola, not so much.

[Moonlight Graham]

The so-called "resource curse".

The resource curse (Paradox of Plenty) refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. This is hypothesized to happen for many different reasons, including a decline in the competitiveness of other economic sectors (caused by appreciation of the real exchange rate as resource revenues enter an economy), volatility of revenues from the natural resource sector due to exposure to global commodity market swings, government mismanagement of resources, or weak, ineffectual, unstable or corrupt institutions.

Natural resources can, and often do, provoke conflicts within societies, as different groups and factions fight for their share. Sometimes these emerge openly as separatist conflicts in regions where the resources are produced (such as in Angola's oil-rich Cabinda province) but often the conflicts occur in more hidden forms, such as fights between different government ministries or departments for access to budgetary allocations. This tends to erode governments' abilities to function effectively. There are several main types of relationships between natural resources and armed conflicts. First, resource curse effects can undermine the quality of governance and economic performances, thereby increasing the vulnerability of countries to conflicts (the 'resource curse' argument). Second, conflicts can occur over the control and exploitation of resources and the allocation of their revenues (the 'resource war' argument). Third, access to resource revenues by belligerents can prolong conflicts (the 'conflict resource' argument). According to one academic study, a country that is otherwise typical but has primary commodity exports around 25% of GDP has a 33% risk of conflict, but when exports are 5% of GDP the chance of conflict drops to 6%.

[Topaz]

Let's hope this doesn't cause another war in the country between the US and China.

[eyeball]

Let's hope this doesn't cause another war in the country between the US and China.

Or inflame the one between Alberta and the ROC.

Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see: oil will bring us ruin … Oil is the Devil’s excrement.

[Guest Peeves]

Let's hope this doesn't cause another war in the country between the US and China.

My aren't we pessimistic and dedicated to Anti- Uncle Sam agitprop.

The USA has spent more on Afghanistan and Iraq than they could ever recoup and there are still those out there with their American conspiracy theories.

[Guest Peeves]

Poor to rich, ya right. Just like all those African countries with oil & mineral resources up the ying-yang. And just like many African countries, may just lead to more war as internal factions fight over them & they fund civil war efforts.

Create a rich country like Zimbabwe, insert a dictator like Robert Gabriel Mugabe as the President and potentate then you will get a broken country and a respected NATO shill.