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239 comments on DrumBeat: November 10, 2006

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GROK on November 10, 2006 - 10:04am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Japan attacked the US in WWII because of cutoffs of oil and steel and other raw materials.  They could not keep their war machine in china and  manchuria operating without these resources.

Britain was within days of losing its food and fuel supply due to U-boat activity in the atlantic.

We would not be in Iraq if the ME area had no oil and gas.

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jim burke on November 10, 2006 - 2:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And in WWI Germany and the central powers were trying to change the balance of power; which most emphatically included resources locked up by French and British and Russian colonialit mercantilism.

Alistair, perhaps you should read more about the actual history of these two conflicts.

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sendoilplease on November 10, 2006 - 2:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Alistair, perhaps you should read more about the actual history" period.  Start with "The Naked Ape"...
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alistairC on November 12, 2006 - 4:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeah, I read that when I was 12. Do you have a point?
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alistairC on November 12, 2006 - 4:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for the patronizing comments. What makes you think I haven't done the reading?

There is no doubt whatever that there is a resource-access component in WWI, which I acknowledged in my original post. There are any number of alternative systems for reading that war. Orthodox power politics, Marxian class analysis (the ruling classes of the two sides colluded to emasculate the workers), etc, etc... None of these analyses is the exclusive truth.

But if you are alleging that the central powers <b>deliberately</b> launched WWI to shift the balance of power and grab resources, you are certainly going out on a limb.

And if that was their intention, it was hardly an unqualified success.

In any case, nobody has come up with anything even remotely resembling a modern resource-grab scenario. Which demonstrates my principal point.

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