An oil war is a conflict about petroleum resources, or their transportation, consumption, or regulation.
The term may also refer generally to any conflict in a region that contains oil reserves or is geographically positioned in a location where an entity has or may wish to develop production or transportation infrastructure for petroleum products.
It is also used to refer to any of a number of specific oil wars.
Research by Emily Meierding has characterized oil wars as largely a myth.
She has examined four cases commonly described as oil wars (Japan's attack on the Dutch East Indies in World War II, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay), finding that control of additional oil resources was not the main cause of aggression in the conflicts.