Soviet Minerals Supplies: Prescription for a Resource War?

SOVIET MINERALS SUPPLIES:____ PRESCRIPTION FOR A RESOURCE WAR? Susan Pederson G Concern has grown in recent years that the Soviet Union and the United States may soon become locked in a struggle for control of southern Africa's valuable mineral resources. Fears of a "resource war" have apparently struck responsive chords across the American political spectrum.1 Former congressman James Santini (D.-Nev.), a leading advocate of precautionary minerals policies, has painted a disturbing picture of the Kremlin's resources strategy: "The Soviet Union has moved into the international resources arena armed with a strategy of confrontation that extends beyond economic competition , but which fallsjust short of conventional military conflict." And the Reagan administration has heeded warnings such as these with renewed efforts to build up minerals stockpiles and to open public lands to minerals exploration. Anxiety about a U.S.-Soviet resource war stems largely from three recent developments. First, over a period of years the United States and, to an even greater extent, its allies have grown dependent on foreign imports for a 1. For standard expositions of resource-war scenarios, see Daniel Fine, "Mineral Resource Dependence Crisis: Soviet Union and United States," eds. James Miller and Daniel Fine, The Resource War in 3-D (Pittsburgh: World Affairs Council, 1980), andJames Miller, Strugglefor Survival: Strategic Minerals and the West (Washington, D.C: American African Affairs Association, Inc., 1980). Susan Pederson, who will receive her M.A. from SAIS in 1983, is a research associate with the Soviet and East European Research Program of The Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute. She wishes to thank the U.S. Bureau of Mines for its support of the study project from which this article is drawn. 161 162 SAIS REVIEW number of nonfuel minerals with critical applications in industry and defense . Almost half of U.S. cobalt, chromium, platinum-group metals and manganese—so-called strategic minerals—comes from sub-Saharan Africa, where supplies could be interrupted in the event of regional crises. Minerals cut-offs might present serious problems for the industrially advanced West. Few substitutes exist for some of these materials in their most important applications (cobalt in jet engines, for example) and, at present, alternate sources of supply are limited. Outside southern Africa, only the Soviet Union produces significant amounts of the four strategic nonfuel minerals most vulnerable to supply cut-offs. A second recent development causing concern among some minerals specialists has been the growth of Soviet willingness, and ability, to project power into mineral-rich areas like southern Africa. Beginning with the 1975 Angolan civil war, the U.S.S.R. has shown an impressive ability to influence the outcome of Third World conflicts. The Kremlin's readiness to do so has been amply demonstrated by its involvement in the Horn of Africa and by the invasion of Afghanistan. Finally, reports have recently begun to appear suggesting that Soviet minerals producers may be encountering new problems in meeting domestic and East European demand for mineral resources. Exports of such nonfuel mineral commodities as iron, manganese, and chromium to comecon reportedly have fallen off and problems in extracting resources from the Siberian permafrost are said to be increasingly severe. If Moscow can no longer meet its own and its allies' minerals needs with domestic production, it will, the argument goes, be forced to turn to southern Africa for replacement supplies. Resource-war theorists say this inevitably would bring Moscow into costly competition, if not military conflict, with the West. In short, the Soviets are now believed to have the opportunity, the means, and the motives for undermining Western prosperity by interrupting the developed world's flow of minerals. But, the seriousness with which leaders must view Western vulnerability to minerals cut-offs should be tempered by realistic appraisals of the role that the Soviet Union seeks and is able to play in denying resources. It is one thing to draw attention to minerals dependency and, in some cases, vulnerability; it is another to assert that the U.S.S.R. has the economic necessity, the military capability, or the political opportunity to keep such resources from the West. The Kremlin's interest in launching a resource war...