ABSTRACT
Competition for secure access to the world's fuel and non-fuel resources has been an integral aspect of the global struggle for power since the early 20th century. This chapter explores how the ability to acquire, defend, and deny to other powers access to key materials has had a critical bearing on two world wars, on Soviet-American competition, and on conflicts between industrial and Third World countries. After several decades of neglecting America's resource vulnerabilities, the pendulum of policy priorities has swung again. It has not been easy to reawaken interest in strategic materials, for buried deep in the national consciousness is the illusion of perpetual abundance. The desire for secure access to industrial raw materials also lay behind Italy's drive for expansion in East Africa, and Japan's East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. That basic rawmaterials issues were a major cause of German and Japanese expansionism in the 1930s is a theme emphasized in the memoirs of Herbert von Dirksen, Germany's ambassador to Japan.
