Euro-Middle Eastern War

The Euro-Middle Eastern War was a military conflict that is considered the beginning of the Resource Wars.

Background
The war was a result of Europe's dependence on oil imported from the Middle East. Price hikes made by Middle Eastern exporters led to hostility and then war, following the United States invasion of Mexico the previous year, which had a similar goal of securing exports of oil from Mexico to the United States.

Events
The war began in April 2052, immediately causing oil prices to skyrocket and forcing many smaller nations into bankruptcy. The first major casualty of the war was the United Nations: Already beleaguered due to a deteriorating international situation, the UN tried keeping the situation contained. However, between May and July, a string of heated debates caused nations to withdraw from the UN, leading to its disbandment in July, three months after the Commonwealth invaded the Middle East.

The conflict would only escalate. In December 2053, Tel Aviv was wiped out by a terrorist nuclear weapon. In January 2054, limited nuclear exchanges took place across the Middle East, starting a nuclear scare worldwide. In 2054, the war had become so widely known and feared that it managed to scare the United States into setting Project Safehouse in motion. The project, financed by junk bonds, was designed to create shelters, called vaults, for the populace in the event of a nuclear war or deadly plague.

The conflict would only stop in 2060 when the oil fields in the Middle East ran dry. Both the European Commonwealth and the Middle Eastern powers were reduced to ruin, with the war silently petering out without a goal in the conflict. Just as the European Commonwealth killed the United Nations by starting the war, so would its end kill the European Commonwealth: It dissolved into bickering, quarreling nation-states fighting over the remaining resources like a pack of rabid dogs. Many European technologies and weapons would eventually make its way to the United States, especially German Gauss weapons and miniguns.

Behind the scenes
A hypothetical game set in the Resource Wars would involve a crew of soldiers from the Royal Armoured Corps who become stranded in a war-torn anarchistic northern Italy and have to fight their way to the English Channel in quickly degrading vehicles, scavenging replacements, fuel, and weapons as they go.