ABSTRACT
The Western world has become aware of its dependence upon imported raw materials. South Africa is a prodigious source of many mineral supplies that are critical to the industrial nations. Increasing and intensifying Soviet and Soviet-surrogate thrusts into Africa reflect in good part a longstanding ambition by the Soviet Union, itself largely self-sufficient in raw materials, to target the "weak links" in vulnerable Western supplies. The Soviets can accomplish this objective not necessarily by direct assault, but through various scenarios of slow strangulation, terror, proxy incursions and physical isolation. The dangers to the Western countries relate not only to direct denial of critical resources, but also to an acceleration of cartellization and other debilitating worldwide trends. There are also some indications that the Soviet Union has abandoned its policy of minerals self-sufficient at all cost, in favor of one of outward access to minerals.
