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Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918
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Historical SummaryThe following paragraphs call attention to an interesting and frequently overlooked aspect of the raw-material problem.
World History 44.
Raw Materials and War Economy24
It is primarily the importance of raw materials in preparations for war, combined with the present menace of war, which makes them centers of friction and international dispute. Before much progress can be made in attacking peacetime raw material problems . . . the dominance of the idea of war economy must be broken, and this can be done only if measures can be taken which remove the ever-present "assumption of violence." This cannot be accomplished by redistributing sovereignty over raw material sources. Indeed, we may say that it is measures not primarily directed at raw material problems as such which offer the only hope of making raw material problems soluble. Under circumstances of more secure peace, much of the friction over raw materials that seems so alarming today would simply disappear.
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The strategic importance of raw materials in wartime makes them centers of conflict in the continuous struggle for power forced upon the nations by the ever-present risk of war. There is no solution for such conflicts, and there can be no real hope of successfully applying methods of peaceful change to raw material problems except by removing the necessity for framing national policies in terms of power. Were raw material problems not complicated by the constant fear of war, they would not be particularly difficult or dangerous. It is only with reference to war potential or under conditions of intense economic nationalism, resulting in large part from fear of war, that current slogans relating to the "have" and "have-not" nations possess any relevance to raw materials discussions.
24 E. Staley, Raw Materials in Peace and War, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 1937, pp. 36, 238–239. Reprinted by permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Chicago: E. Staley, ed., "Raw Materials and War Economy," Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918 in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan (Chicage: Lippincott, 1951), 186–187. Original Sources, accessed May 8, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=CYH83B25WFE9B7F.
MLA: . "Raw Materials and War Economy." Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, edited by E. Staley, in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, edited by Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan, Chicage, Lippincott, 1951, pp. 186–187. Original Sources. 8 May. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=CYH83B25WFE9B7F.
Harvard: (ed.), 'Raw Materials and War Economy' in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918. cited in 1951, Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. , Lippincott, Chicage, pp.186–187. Original Sources, retrieved 8 May 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=CYH83B25WFE9B7F.
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