Through the analysis of historical materials and some knowledge understood by later generations, Li Zhongxin believes that it is normal for a war to break out between Iraq and Kuwait.

First, one can see that Iraq's coastline severely limits its ability to export oil by sea.

With less than 50 kilometres of coastline and mudflats formed by river erosion, Iraq has no natural conditions for building ports, so Iraq has to rely on the Shatt al-Arab at the easternmost point of the coastline and the Zubayr Bay at the westernmost point to meet the increasingly complex needs of ocean transportation.

The pain of this lifeline being curbed led Iraq to demand to Kuwait the cession or lease of Walbay Island and Bubiyan Island, promising to exchange it for the supply of fresh water to the Shatt al-Arab, which Kuwait categorically refused.

Walbay and Bubiyan islands are the roadblocks that stand in front of Iraq's access to the sea, and these two islands, with a total area of more than 800 square kilometres, are flat, almost entirely covered by tidal flats and salt marshes, and have no permanent population, but they control the entrance and exit to the Gulf of Zubayr in Iraq.

Zubayr Bay is a small harbor in the Persian Gulf deep into the interior of Iraq, 30 kilometers deep from north to south, narrow mouth and wide inside, and the port of um Qasr built on the west bank of the entrance to the bay is one of the few deep-water ports in Iraq.

During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq devoted more energy to the construction of the port of um Qasr with more berths, increased throughput capacity, and built petrochemical and metallurgical bases, as it witnessed the fragility and danger of the port of Basra, which is close to Iran.

Because of the growing strategic importance of the Gulf of Zubair, Iraq can no longer tolerate the fact that it has to cross the narrow waterway next to the islands of Walbay and Bubiyan from the Gulf of Zubay to the Persian Gulf.

Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of its western shipping lanes, Iraq submitted a request to Kuwait to cede or lease the two islands.

There is oil but it cannot be sold, and there is no way to do it after spending a lot of effort, and the Iraqi people have been holding back an evil fire.

In their hearts, they have always regarded Kuwait as their own territory, they turned out to be a family, it was those damn British and American Yankees, they were the ones who made Kuwait what it is now, Iraq and Kuwait should be a family, they should be a country.

Then there is the issue of oil wealth. Iraq and Kuwait have a huge disparity in territory, but the difference in their oil reserves is not significant.

Iraq's proven oil reserves are 143 billion barrels, while Kuwait's are 102 billion barrels. Specifically, the contradictory focus of the oil wealth problem is mainly reflected in two aspects: oil policy and boundary oil fields.

In terms of oil policy, Kuwait, due to its sparse population and limited ability to absorb oil revenues, advocates maintaining the stability of the world oil market with sufficient supply and low oil prices.

Iraq, on the other hand, for the sake of post-war reconstruction and debt repayment, advocated a sharp increase in oil prices by restricting production.

The two diametrically opposed claims have led to a phenomenon in which Iraq has severely limited oil production levels, while Kuwait's side has gone on a production spree that has exceeded quotas, with the result that the price of oil fell all the way to $14.6 per barrel in 1990.

What about this thing! Kuwait's side is a typical example of you doing yours, I doing mine.

I don't care if you want to sell it, I have oil here, I like crazy production, I'll go crazy with production, you want to get you to raise the price, sorry, I don't like it, I don't want to do this with you, we all take care of each other, what do you like.

The big chaebols in the world, including the big chaebols in the United States and some of the big oligarchs in the world, they don't want to make the price of oil rise now, because now the oligarchs all over the world are sniping at the price of oil, so that some countries are crazy about production, in this way, the price of oil will go all the way down, and those countries that want to make their people rich through the rise in oil prices will stop me, I just don't raise the price, let you starve to death.

What about this thing! The most targeted nature was, in fact, the Soviet Union.

At this time, Western countries led by the United States joined forces to suppress the price of oil, so that the Soviet Union would look good.

Didn't the Soviet Union have oil and want to occupy the market outside? I just don't give you this opportunity, I make you the USSR can't make money on oil.

In the early 80s, half of the Soviet Union's foreign exchange earnings came from oil exports, and too single export categories were already considered high-risk operations.

However, since '86, the oil market has changed abruptly, from the highest point of oil in '81, all the way to the beginning of the continuous decline, in the past few years, the price of oil has fallen to about one-third of '81.

In addition, due to the sharp drop in oil prices, the income of a series of countries in the Middle East has been greatly reduced, and they can no longer afford Soviet-made arms, and the Soviet Union's arms exports have also been affected to a certain extent, making the situation worse.

Of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the result of a number of simultaneous reasons, but the collapse of oil prices had a noticeable adverse effect on the Soviet economy as a whole.

As an example, no, it should be said to be an analogy. After the end of World War II, with the advent of the third scientific and technological revolution, the demand for oil in the Western world rose rapidly.

At that time, although the Soviet Union was not short of oil, it was also unable to export it. In the 50s and 60s, the oil countries of West Asia relied on oil revenues and were basically tyrants.

The variable came in 1973, the same year that the Fourth Middle East War broke out. As they are also Arab countries, the Gulf oil states decided to use oil as a weapon to fight back in protest against Western countries' aid to Israel. On the one hand, the Gulf countries have drastically reduced oil production, and on the other hand, they have sharply increased the price of oil. It was at this time that super oil fields were discovered in the Siberian region of the USSR.

The Gulf countries have reduced oil production, but the demand for oil in the West is unlikely to fall sharply.

In such a situation, Western countries must look for new suppliers of oil. Unfortunately, they had to buy Soviet oil. The Soviet Union, relying on oil from the Siberian region, gradually became the world's largest oil exporter.

Relying on abundant oil revenues, the Soviet Union began to compete with the United States for all-out hegemony, and it was on a strategic offensive. In fact, the Soviet Union is not without problems, the Soviet Union's grain harvest has been poor, and the Soviet Union needs to take out part of the money from selling oil and sell it to buy American grain.

In this place, we should note that Soviet oil is deep at the surface, and the cost of extraction is relatively high. But driven by high oil prices, none of this is a problem.