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0 /AMOND MINE in South·West Africa
{Namibia) typifies vast wealth of the
strategic "Persian Gulf of Minerals. "
tions gradually encircling South
Africa bears much foreboding for
the future.
"By creating unrest or provok–
ing civil war within the area,"
reports New York's
Journal of
Commerce,
May 27, 1980, "the
Soviet Union could bring the
Western
i ndustrial~zed
world to a
total economic col/apse."
With–
out access to the region's vast
storehouse of mineral wealth ,
notes this respected business dai–
ly, "jet engines, automobiles, oil
refineries and nuclear or conven–
tional power stations could not be
built. Operations of a train or a
computer, a cutting too!, a mine
too!, or an electromagnet would
be impossible."
Little wonder then that the
chief goal of Soviet foreign policy
in the region is one of denial-to
cut off the region's vast mineral
wealth and geographical link to
the West . Summarizes one news–
letter knowledgeable about the
region:
"The Soviet strategy is simple:
Conquer key countries along the
African coast to deny port facili–
ties to the West, cut the continent
in half with an East-West band
from the Atlantic to Indian
Oceans, isolate the strategic min–
eral resources in southern Africa
from the West, and domínate the
Cape shipping lanes by estab–
lishing a Marxist government in
South Africa."
Why can't the United States
see what is really happening?
Strategic Cape Route
The strategic intertie between the
Middle East and southern Africa
is unique.
While the North Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans were the primary
strategic theaters in the first
three quarters of this century,
emphasis in the present quarter
has switched to the South Atlan–
tic and Jndian Oceans. This is due
primarily to the growing impor–
tance of the flow of Middle East
September 1980
oil around the Cape of Good
Hope to Europe and N orth
Amerlca.
Over the past two decades,
with the explosive growth both of
the volume of oil traffic and the
size of oil tankers, the Cape
Route has almost overtaken the
Suez Canal as the waterborne
"pipeline" to the West.
An estimated 90 percent of the
European NATO nations' oil con–
sumption, and 70 percent of their
strategic raw materials pass within
a few miles of Cape Town. More
than 20 percent of America's oil
imports also round the Cape
aboard the 55 ships- mostly oil
tankers-that pass by daily.
Moreover, the Cape Route is
the only year-round all-weather
passage linking the Americas and
Europe with Asia.
The ship supply and refueling
stations, emergency dry dock
facilities and sea-and-air-rescue
operations offered by South Afri–
can ports are indispensable today,
especially with the closure to the
Western world of port facilities in
neatby coastal African countries
that have already gone commu·
nist. Up to 1,000 ships cal! at
South African ports each month .
"Should control of South Afri–
ca ever fall into hostile hands as a
result of interna! or externa!
forces," notes George F. Palmer,
the editor of
World Business
Weekly,
"it would be a disaster
second only to the loss of access
to the [Mideast] oil fields them–
selves. "
The encroachment of the So–
viet Union throughout Africa–
and in the Indian Ocean with its
powerful new navy-caused West
Germany's Franz Josef Strauss
recently to proclaim that "the
power whose hand is on these
energy supplies, raw materials
and seaways is the real master in
central Europe."
Fo r e ig n Dependence Alarming
How dependent is the United
States and the rest of the West–
ern world upon foreign sources of
mineral supplies-especially from
volatile southern Africa? And
how important are these materi–
als? The answers to both ques–
tions should shock most people
out of complacency quickly.
"The United States is a have–
not nation when it comes to cer–
tain critica! metals" says Harry J .
Gray, chairman of United Tech–
nologies Corporation, a major
U.S. defense contractor. "From
1950 to the present, our raw
materials situation has deterio–
rated drastically. We have never
been self-sufficient and today we
are frighteningly vulnerable to
overseas producers."
The United States is today
self-sufficient in only
five
of the
27 minerals considered most es–
sentía! to modern industry. In
stark contrast, the Soviet Union is
self-sufficient in 21 of the same
27 most strategic minerals, and in
none are Soviets more than 50
percent dependent.
The United States currently
imports seven of its most essential
minerals from South Africa
alone. And South Africa supplies
.55 percent of Western Europe's
mineral needs.
What are sorne of these miner–
als-and how critica! are they?
Chrome.
Chrome is the single
most important strategic mineral
to modern civilization.
Jt
has also
been called the "most unsubsti–
tutable metal in the world."
There is no replacement for
chrome in the manufacture of
corrosion-resistant steel. "With–
out chrome we can't build an
automobile," says B.F. Andrews,
president of Allegheny-Ludlum
Steel Corporation, "and I'm not
talking about the trim; we can't
make jet airplane engines, we
can't drill an oil well, we can't dig
a mine. There are no good substi–
tutes for stainless steel used in
surgical equipment and other
things."
From small items to large,
chrome is indispensable. Without
chrome, we couldn't process food,
since "tin" cans can' t be made
without it. On the other end of
the scale, tanks need chrome in
the armor for strength.
Yet, here is "the cruncher" : Of
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