Resources and Strategy

This study on resources and strategy aims to bridge the gap between past experience and current concerns, to place contemporary issues in historical perspective. The relationship between access to resources and Western security has been thrust to the forefront by the decade of the oil crisis and has been given additional impetus by the invasion of Afghanistan, the continuing war in the Persian Gulf, events in Southern Africa and the growth of the Soviet navy. The author shows that current thinking about the role of resources in war, and as a component of military potential in peacetime, relies to a significant extent on notions derived from historical experience and changes in the nature of warfare, not least the advent of nuclear weapons. This study is concerned primarily with perceptions of resource vulnerability and their influence on strategy, rather than the measurement of actual vulnerability, although the latter is explored where appropriate. The first part of the book looks at developments to 1945, and the second on resources and strategy in the nuclear age focusing on American policy and including interviews with individuals active in the current debate.