MILITARY GEOGRAPHY
    FOR PROFESSIONALS AND THE PUBLIC

8. NATURAL RESOURCES AND RAW MATERIALS

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void. . . . And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear": and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas; and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:1

GOD CREATED EVERYTHING FROM NOTHING IN THE BEGINNING, ACCORDING TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. Everything since then has been created from something. Natural resources are the basic ingredients of all raw materials which, in turn, are the building blocks of all finished products, including military arms, equipment, and supplies. Sources, shortages, and compensatory programs are relevant to every nation. So are vulnerabilities to economic warfare and armed interdiction.

SOURCES AND SHORTAGES

The world community is divided inequitably into "have" and "have not" nations with regard to natural resources and raw materials. Even the best endowed countries suffer deficiencies that adversely affect military capabilities, but the criticality of any given shortage depends on the technological sophistication of armed forces in question, expansion and replenishment requirements, relationships with foreign suppliers, alternative providers, and the security of long-haul transportation lanes between sources and consumers.

MINERALS AND METALS

More than 90 minerals, metals, and materials are critically useful for military purposes.¹ Relative importance depends on present and projected needs, but iron plus the dozen items listed on table 11 possess properties that are universally in demand. Most of them form ferrous and/or nonferrous alloys of great utility.

Table 11. One Dozen Militarily Useful Minerals and Metals

Important Properties

Hardness, toughness, and lightness of weight are highly valued properties. Aluminum, which weighs one-third less than steel, is a mainstay of military aircraft manufacturers. Like stainless steel, which amalgamates iron with chromium, it resists corrosion. Manganese is among the most important of all metallic elements, because no other substance so effectively controls oxidation and sulfur content during steel production processes. Manganese also strengthens iron alloys, helps aluminum ward off rust, and combines with copper or nickel to make marine propellers, fittings, gears, and bearings that wear well in salt water. Copper additionally is in demand for telecommunication wires of great tensile strength and high conductivity, while nickel alloys make first-class electroplated aircraft parts and air frames. Cobalt alloys tolerate high temperatures that jet engines generate and furnish the metal matrix for carbides in cutting tools, bulldozers, shovels, and scrapers that must keep sharp edges despite abrasion. High strength-to-weight ratios make titanium useful for space capsule skins, aircraft fire walls, jet engine components, and landing gears. Super hard tungsten, which boasts the highest melting point of any metal (6,170 ⁰ F, 3,410 ⁰C), is the basic constituent of tenacious steel alloys, spark plugs, and electrical contact points.²

Properties in addition to or other than hardness and toughness make several minerals and metals quite valuable. Scarce platinum, noted for extraordinary catalytic activity and high melting points, not only raises octane ratings during petroleum refinement but makes sensitive electronic relay switches. Versatile tantalium, which resists corrosion more effectively than platinum, is the basic ingredient of many electronic components and, in oxide form, mingles with other materials that make sharp aerial camera lenses. Acid-resistant columbium alloys are ideal for gasoline and oil tankers.³ Radioactive uranium, in a class by itself, fuels reactors that furnish nuclear power for high-performance naval surface ships and submarines. Nuclear bombs, missile warheads, and demolitions all contain highly enriched isotope U-235 or weapon-grade plutonium at their core.⁴

Important Supply Problems

Comparative U.S. and Soviet sources of supply and shortages in the mid-1980s graphically illustrate relative strengths and weaknesses when competition between those two superpowers was at its zenith (figure 26). Both nations had sufficient uranium for military purposes, but the United States was far from self-sufficient in many other respects. Widely scattered suppliers provided 90 percent or more of nine important minerals and metals that included bauxite, cobalt, columbium, manganese, and tantalum. Chromium, nickel, and platinum imports exceeded 75 percent.⁵ Major U.S. allies in NATO Europe and the Far East were worse off. The Federal Republic of Germany, for example, relied entirely on outsiders for 16 industrial minerals, while Japan drew on distant sources for nine-tenths of its total mineral needs.⁶ The Soviet Union, in contrast, was reasonably well off, because Warsaw Pact partners supplied most demands. Flourspar, bauxite, tin, silver, and tungsten were the only commodities available solely or in large part from sworn enemies or countries whose assistance was by no means assured.⁷ Moscow in fact exported large amounts of titanium in exchange for hard cash until Alfa class attack submarine hulls consumed so much of that metal that shipments ceased.

Bureaucratic bungling and technological obsolescence nevertheless reduced Soviet advantages considerably. Vast reserves, depleted at abnormally rapid rates, not only were (and still are) far removed from industrial centers but underlay harsh climatic regions that made extraction expensive. Molybdenum from Noril'sk, above the Arctic Circle in central Siberia, traveled more than 4,000 miles (6,435 kilometers) by river, road, and rail to reach metallurgical furnaces in Donetsk--600 miles (965 kilometers) farther than the land route from Miami, Florida, to Seattle, Washington. Norsk, an immense mining complex near northeastern Siberia's "Cold Pole," was even more isolated.

Figure 26. U.S. and Soviet Mineral and Metal Imports
(Mid-1980s)

PETROLEUM

Petroleum in various forms currently propels most aircraft, ships, tanks, trucks, and other military machines. Countries and cartels that produce crude oil and possess large proven reserves thus can exert strong political and economic leverage, particularly if they ship refined products as well. Table 12 lists oil owners who pumped more than 1,000 barrels per day from subterranean reservoirs that contained more than 8 billion barrels in 1990, when Iraq occupied Kuwait and threatened to overrun Saudi Arabia.

It is easy to understand why the Persian Gulf War caused shudders throughout the industrialized world: Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) furnished more than half of Japan's petroleum imports, almost one-fifth of Western Europe's requirements, and enough to satisfy well over one-tenth of stated U.S. needs. Not all was replaceable from other sources, and most crude oil from other countries was somewhat heavier. The latter fact was significant, because Saddam Hussein's takeover coupled with a retaliatory embargo denied former recipients access to several sophisticated Iraqi and Kuwaiti refineries that specialized in such light products as gasoline, jet fuel, and distillate fuel oil.⁸ Intolerable situations, in short, demanded strong counteractions.

Table 12. Crude Oil Producers and Proven Reserves

(1990)

NATURAL RUBBER

The U.S. Army and Navy Munitions Board listed natural rubber as a strategic and critical material as of January 30, 1940, with good reason: every military service on the Axis as well as the Allied side was heavily dependent on sources concentrated in southern Asia from India and Ceylon to Indonesia and Indochina. U.S. imports from the Far East increased at such a frenzied pace after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor that virtually all readily available supplies had been shipped before British Armed Forces in Singapore surrendered on February 15, 1942. Attention thereafter turned to rubber plantations in Liberia, along with underdeveloped stands in Central and South America, none of which proved adequate.⁹

COMPENSATORY PROGRAMS

Several avenues short of military operations to seize supplies are open to nations that need more natural resources than they possess. Recycling and conservation reduce import requirements; stockpiles hedge against shortages if crises should arise; synthetics and substitutes sometimes relieve nature's stinginess or render it irrelevant. Strong countries, however, may also choose to take what they want by force of arms.

STRATEGIC STOCKPILES

U.S. national stockpile programs started in 1939, but domestic politics, special interest groups, inconsistent policies, and costs made efficient administration almost impossible for the first 40 years. Backup supply goals slumped from 5 years to 1 during the 1970s. Congress then passed the Strategic and Critical Minerals Stockpiling Act of 1979 which, among other provisions, earmarked reserves specifically for national defense contingencies and prescribed selected items "sufficient to sustain the United States for a period of not less than 3 years in the event of a national emegency."¹⁰ Proper management concurrently became a pressing mission, because U.S. stockpiles at that time were rife with wasteful excess, especially silver and tin, which tied up several billion dollars that could have been put to better use. Some reserves had lolled in the inventory for so long that original rationales were invalid. Bauxite, chromium, manganese, and other ores would have been more readily usable if converted to primary metals and alloys.¹¹ The moral is clear: untended stockpiles are apt to disappoint when owners need them most.

Congress further established the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve after a brief Arab oil embargo from mid-October1973 to mid-March 1974 showed how susceptible the United States and many other nations were to what Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger called possible "strangulation of the industrialized world."¹² Caverns in Texas and Louisiana contained more than 580 million barrels when Iraq overran Kuwait 17 years later, but all was crude oil that required refining before it could fuel armed forces or defense industries.¹³ Fortunately, very little had to be withdrawn, because Saudi Arabia increased its production considerably as long as the crisis lasted.

SYNTHETICS AND SUBSTITUTES

Neither synthetics nor substitutes currently can replace petroleum as a fuel and lubricant for most military purposes. Nuclear reactors currently propel selected surface ships and submarines, but serious attempts to produce nuclear-powered aircraft ceased several decades ago. Navies early in the 21st century likely will still rely mainly on fossil fuels, military motor vehicles will still burn gasoline or diesel, oil and lubricants likely will remain in demand. Manmade materials, however, already supplement or supplant natural rubber and many mineral resources.

Recycled rubber was prized in the United States after Japan seized or blocked access to all plantations in Southeast Asia during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1942 asked patriotic Americans to turn in "old tires, old rubber raincoats, old garden hose, rubber shoes, bathing caps, gloves." A carload of chorus girls in New York City donated girdles as their contribution to 450,000 tons of scrap rubber collected during the next month, but most submissions had previously been reclaimed at least once and proved unsuitable for further processing. Synthetics, however, sufficed. Fifty-one new factories produced 800,000 tons annually by 1944, an output roughly equivalent to the harvest from 150 million rubber trees.¹⁴

All manmade materials, like natural minerals and metals, possess weaknesses as well as strengths, but many prospects appear promising. Experimental composites, alloys, and fibers that possess revolutionary properties are becoming ever more important. Some are stronger, lighter, and more durable than the best steel.¹⁵ Carbon-carbon polymers can tolerate temperatures up to 3,000 ⁰F (1,650 ⁰C) without expanding or weakening significantly.¹⁶ Super-hard ceramics mold readily into complex shapes. The search for superconductor materials that can function at room temperatures without constant bathing in costly liquid helium may benefit fairly soon from ceramics mixed primarily with off-the-shelf bismuth and thallium (a metal used in rat poison) rather than expensive rare-earth metals like lanthanum, strontium, yttrium, and barium.¹⁷ Halide glass fibers, which are far superior to copper wires, combine immunity to electromagnetic interference with great tensile strength.

RESOURCE DEPRIVATION

Resource deprivation occurs whenever requirements exceed stocks on hand plus readily available replenishments and resultant problems can be excruciating if sources dry up at inopportune moments. Two dissimilar cases are instructive in both regards: retaliatory resource warfare in East Asia and the Pacific between 1941 and 1945 destroyed Japan's abilities to project military power far beyond her borders well before atomic bombs hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki; anticipatory operations by a U.S.-led coalition in 1990-1991 relieved widespread anxieties that renegade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might use ill-gotten Persian Gulf petroleum as an economic weapon against opponents whose livelihood depends on that resource.

RESOURCE WARFARE AGAINST JAPAN

Japan in the early 1930s consisted of four mountainous islands, crowding more than 70 million people onto less arable land than the State of Iowa then contained, and the population was increasing at the rate of one million each year. Scarce natural resources made industrial progress expensive and restricted military capabilities, partly because foreigners supplied most minerals and all petroleum at higher prices than self-sufficient competitors paid, and partly because shipping costs were considerable.

Remedial Measures. Japan began to augment home-grown resources in 1910 when it acquired Korea, which opened access to hydroelectric power along with rich deposits of coal, iron ore, and other minerals. The Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands, German possessions that the League of Nations mandated to Japan after World War I, brought phosphates and phosphorite. The 1931 march into Manchuria, followed shortly by suzerainty over northern China and bits of the littoral from Shanghai as far south as Hainan Island, netted more iron ore, coking coal, some tin, and aluminous shale.¹⁸

Tokyo's quest for natural resources received its first serious setback in September 1940, when Japan signed a tripartite pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. President Roosevelt in response embargoed U.S. scrap metal and petroleum shipments to Japan, then froze all Japanese assets in the United States 10 months later after troops flying the Rising Sun flag swarmed over Indochina with Vichy French acquiescence. The British and Dutch Governments soon imposed similar sanctions.¹⁹ Those body blows hurt, because some Japanese stockpiles, including oil, were sufficient for little more than a year, others for less. Resource deprivation hence dictated Japanese strategy to a high degree. The mission in December 1941 was to grab what they needed, throw a cordon around the gains, and tenaciously hang onto territory that map 25 depicts.²⁰

Map 25. Japanese Territorial Holdings in 1942

Ruinous Results. Japan initially enjoyed great gains. Burma, Malaya, and Siam provided bauxite, cobalt, tungsten, and tin. Southeast Asian plantations were lucrative sources of rubber, New Caledonia contributed nickel, and the Philippines furnished chromium. Oil from Tarakan in northeast Borneo, Banjermasin farther south, and Palembang in Sumatra lubricated Japanese machines after bloody but brief fights. Dutch Shell employees torched some facilities and British General Harold Alexander did likewise to 150 million gallons of Burmah Oil Company products outside Rangoon, but most installations remained intact, and Japanese technicians restored capacities so rapidly that output exceeded expectations within a few months.²¹

Japan nevertheless died the Death of a Thousand Cuts, beaten by a U.S. naval and air blockade that devastated its fragile economy. Submarines sank merchant transports faster than Japanese shipyards could build them. Cargoes increasingly substituted salt, soy beans, and cereals for the sinews of war. Aircraft industries, strapped for minerals, metals, and coal, turned out fewer airframes, engines, motor mounts, landing gears, and fittings of such poor quality that performance fell sharply while accident rates rose. Petroleum tanker losses, which exceeded 750,000 tons in 1944, outstripped construction. The octane ratings of aviation fuel dropped dramatically (some batches were alcohol blends), pilot training was cut to 30 hours in 1944 (less than half the previous allocation), and formations played follow-the-leader after navigation schools closed. Kamikaze flights became popular, partly because one-way missions cut gasoline consumption in half. Japanese fleets, which required prodigious amounts of petroleum, were in even worse shape. Several major surface combatants were confined to home ports, only one battleship had enough fuel to help defend Okinawa in March 1945, and U.S. aircraft sank or heavily damaged at dockside four "sitting duck" battleships, three aircraft carriers, and two heavy cruisers during final months of the war.²² The United States Strategic Bombing Survey summarized overall results as follows: "The insufficiency of Japan's war economy was the underlying cause of her defeat. Before the air attacks against [Japanese] cities began, war production had been steadily declining because of the ever-increasing shortages of raw materials.This resulted in a growing margin of unused plant capacity. Thus, even substantial bomb damage to plant structures and equipment frequently had little, if any effect on actual production."²³ Resource warriors had already wreaked such havoc that direct assaults merely administered a coup de grace.

RESOURCE WARFARE BY IRAQ

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in January 1991 unleashed an immense oil spill (100,000 barrels a day) at the head of the Persian Gulf, apparently to foul potential invasion beaches and forestall U.S. amphibious landings. Currents shortly carried slicks all the way to the Strait of Hormuz, with environmentally disastrous consequences.²⁴ His henchmen later set 650 Kuwaiti oil wells afire when Iraqi Armed Forces withdrew in February 1991, perhaps to ensure that Saddam's opponents could take less comfort from his defeat and reap fewer early financial benefits. Sixteen international fire fighting companies and 10,000 men worked round-the-clock for more than 8 months to extinguish those flames at a cost of about $1 billion (much faster than first predicted), while estimates placed reclamation and reconstruction costs at twenty times that figure.²⁵

Saudi Arabian Petroleum Facilities. Possibilities for infinitely greater mischief were present in Saudi Arabia, which Saddam Hussein might have seized had that nation remained undefended by a formidable coalition. Petroleum-dependent nations everywhere would have been at his mercy as long as he controlled so much productive capacity and exploited it for his own purposes.

Outsized Saudi Arabian petroleum infrastructure would have been hard to replace if badly damaged or destroyed. The main complex sprawls over an area 350 by 250 miles--5,630 by 3,220 kilometers (map 26), and many wells lie under water along the Persian Gulf littoral. Extraction, collection, processing, and distribution systems illustrated schematically in figure 27 contain many one-of-a-kind components that would be hard to replace: 50 gigantic gas-oil separators; many huge pumping stations (2 million barrels each per day); the world's biggest water injection plants (400 million cubic feet daily for the Abqaiq field alone); the world's biggest storage tanks, 72 feet high, 352 feet in diameter, capacity 1.25 million barrels apiece; the biggest oil port; a monster desalinization plant. Drill pipes, casings, tubing, bits, blowout preventers, valves, pressure gauges, engines, and compressors plus indispensable starches, caustic sodas, alcohols, organic chemicals, and construction steels would be instantaneously insufficient if enemies sabotaged major elements. Shipping requirements would strain oceangoing transports.²⁶

Sabotage Potential. Ballistic missile defense systems available to the allied coalition in 1991 might best be described as "porous," but Iraqi Scuds were too inaccurate to do much damage except by chance, and the Iraqi Air Force was too timid to cause serious concerns. Opportunities for sabotage on a grand scale, however, would have been wide open to Iraqi ground forces before they abandoned positions in Saudi Arabia, provided personnel in charge possessed sufficient expertise. Wells, pipelines, pumping stations, power plants, storage tanks, refineries, and loading facilities all were vulnerable in varying degrees.

It would be easy to punch holes in welded steel pipelines half an inch or so thick, although oil field workers could repair punctures with relative ease even if demolition experts tore great gaps. Heavy crude oil would be hard to ignite in giant storage tanks with walls 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) thick at the base, because shaped charges would sputter in the thick liquid. Flares would shoot from containers full of high-octane fuel, but distances between tanks would confine spreads even if saboteurs found ways to kindle full-fledged fires.

Demolition specialists who concentrate on separators, stabilizers, power packs, and pumping stations conversely could produce paralytic effects. Free-flowing Saudi wells, like those in Kuwait, are extremely flammable. Fires in offshore facilities would be especially fearsome. It took 136 days to smother flames at just one Shell Oil platform off Louisiana's coast after 11 wells blew in 1970. Sixteen private companies and three U.S. Government agencies committed 650 men to fight another offshore fire at Bay Marchand. Two barges sprayed sea water on the platform superstructure to keep it from melting. Five mobile drilling rigs, two "jack-up" rigs, and eleven mud barges working in concert sank new shafts, pumped water into the producing layer to prevent subterranean oil reservoirs from feeding fires, and then blocked burning wells with mud. A derrick barge with a 500-ton crane cleared 3,000 tons of debris before new well heads could be connected to new platforms. A special shore-based control center replete with communications, power sources, fuel supplies, a helipad, seaplane dock, and living quarters was constructed to accommodate supervisors.²⁷

Additional difficulties would develop in Saudi Arabia if prevailing Persian Gulf winds swept burning oil slicks south from Berri to port facilities at Juaymah and Ras Tanura, where explosions could level installations ashore. Just one supertanker laden with gasoline or naphtha would have devastating effects (70 tons of liquefied natural gas destroyed 80 square blocks in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1945; the contents of a 100,000-gallon tanker would be catastrophic in comparison).²⁸

Map 26. Saudi Arabian Oil Fields and Facilities

Figure 27. Oil Fields and Facilities

Niccolo Machiavelli explained the problem nicely in The Prince (1514 A.D.): "One must never allow disorder to continue so as to escape a war. One does not escape. The war is merely postponed to one's disadvantage." The Allied coalition that blocked Iraqi Armed Forces at the Kuwaiti border in August 1990, then drove them out the following February, performed an internationally valuable service when seen from that perspective. The price in lives lost and money expended was minuscule compared with penalties that might have been paid if Saddam Hussein had launched a ruthless resource war while withdrawing under pressure from Saudi Arabia.

Top: Amphibious assault troops wade across a coral reef through hip deep water on their way to Yellow Beach Two on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. All eyes face right, where a Japanese machine gun has just opened fire. Smoke rises from oil storage tanks ignited by naval gunfire (U.S. Army photograh).

Bottom: Gnarled tree roots above ground and under fetid black water typify tidewater swamps, where observation and fields of fire extend a few feet at most in any direction. Close combat by foot troops is a nerve-wracking proposition under such conditions (U.S. Army photograph).

Top: Deep, sticky mud that acts like a suction cup turns unsurfaced roads into quagmires during rainy seasons and precludes cross-country movement by motor vehicles. Frozen mud can cement truck convoys in place like Greek friezes (U.S. Army photograph).

Bottom: Wary, well-dispersed troops look for enemy ambush sites as they advance along a tropical road that runs between thick stands of "elephant grass," which excludes the slightest breeze, is stifling hot, and restricts observation to less than one arm's length (U.S. Marine Corps photograph).

The small castle in the foreground and the 1,400-year-old Benedictine monastery on the skyline both offered fine observation posts and defensive positions during the battle for Cassino, Italy, early in 1945. German paratroopers, who avoided the abbey until Allied bombers blasted it flat, fought tenaciously in the debris below (U.S. Army photographs).

A truck convoy on the Burma Road above the Salween River gorge creeps around 21 switchback curves with slippery surfaces, precipitous slopes on both sides, and no guard rails. Men, mules, and motor vehicles sometimes slipped into the abyss (U.S. Army photograph).

Manpower and mules must replace motor vehicles wherever rude tracks and trails supplant roads, unless helicopters are available. Heavy mortar crews like the one depicted found the going difficult whether they moved up or down steep slopes in Italy's Apennine Mountains (U.S. Army photograph).

The pontoon bridge in the foreground supported foot traffic after Viet Cong sappers during the Tet offensive of February 1968 dropped the sturdy steel truss that spanned the Perfume River at Hué, but motor vehicles and trains could no longer cross (U.S. Marine Corps photograph).

Subzero weather and wicked winds near North Korea's Changjin Reservoir made life miserable for U.S. Marines, the Army's 32d Infantry Regiment, and British Royal Marine Commandos in mortal combat with Chinese Communist "volunteers" who streamed south from Manchuria in November 1950 (U.S. Marine Corps photograph).

Front line medics find it much easier to treat stretcher cases while the weather is warm and dry than in winter, when freezing rain and wet snow soak casualties who lie in the open. Hypothermia, which is common under such conditions, can kill almost as fast and just as surely as lethal weapons (U.S. Army photograph).

Top: Close air support is a sporty proposition when valleys experience clear weather while heavy clouds shroud hilltops, a condition that commonly prevails between Vietnam and the Laotian panhandle near Khe Sanh. Route 9 runs diagonally from left to right along the valley floor in this photograph (U.S. Marine Corps photograph).

Bottom: Underway replenishment is a complex task even under placid conditions. Skilled destroyer skippers and crews are required to transfer supplies safely during stormy weather, when roiling water washes across rolling, pitching decks, slams against bulkheads, creates instability that magnifies every cargo-handling problem, and increases risks of collision (U.S. Navy photograph).

Top: Submarines under arctic ice packs that often are 10 feet (3+ meters) thick must surface before they can safely launch ballistic or cruise missiles. They also must be able to break through in emergency, because crews otherwise would suffocate if air supplies failed for any reason (U.S. Navy photograph).

Bottom: A string of ships play "follow the leader" through a narrow lead in Antarctic ice so that only one has to force its way. Opportunities to do so near either pole are limited to short summer seasons, because pack ice is frozen solid most of each year (U.S. Navy Photograph).

Top: Heavy coatings of thickly frozen salt water spray can block air intakes and add tons to ship bulkheads, superstructures, hatches, masts, rigging, exposed machinery, antennas, and weapon systems. Results reduce the operational capabilities and endanger the stability of ice breakers (shown) as well as surface combatants and transports in the absence of effective countermeasures (U.S. Navy photograph).

Bottom: Water always is the staff of life during military operations in deserts. U.S. troops that deployed to Egypt during Exercise Bright Star in 1985 reconfirmed that flexible hoses can transfer large quantities over long distances faster and more cost-effectively than fleets of tanker trucks (U.S. Army photograph).

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