ABSTRACT
Western geopolitical thinking about resources has been dominated by the equation of trade, war, and power, at the core of which were overseas resources and maritime navigation. Geopolitical discourses and practices of resource competition were not only defined at an international scale but as well as at a sub-national one, especially in reference to the territorial legacy surviving the decolonisation process and its implications in terms of resource control. The decolonisation process, the 1956 Suez crisis, the 1973 Arab oil embargo, and the 1979 Iranian revolution also clearly focused western strategic concerns on the part of Western governments as well as resource businesses, over domestic and regional political stability and alliances. Becoming of 'strategic' importance to domestic or foreign economic and political concerns, resource access and exploitation can become highly contested issues. The geopolitics of natural resources has long been a strategic concern for both exporting and importing states.
