"...warfare appears as a normal and periodic form of competition within the capitalist world economy." p. 108.

"...world wars regularly occur during a period of economic expansion." p. 163.

"War is an inevitable result of the struggle between economies for expansion."

Choucri and North say their most important finding is that domestic growth is a strong determinant of national expansion and that this results in competition between nations and war.

General M.D. Taylor, U.S. Army retired argues "...U.S. military priorities must be shifted towards insuring a steady flow of resources from the Third World." Taylor referred to "...fierce competition among industrial powers for the same raw materials markets sought by the United States" and "... growing hostility displayed by have-not nations towards their affluent counterparts."

"Struggles are taking place, or are in the offing, between rich and poor nations over their share of the world product; within the industrial world over their share of industrial resources and markets".

"That more than half of the people on this planet are poorly nourished while a small percentage live in historically unparalleled luxury is a sure recipe for continued and even escalating international conflict."

Australian Ecological Party Manifesto, 1980.

The U.S. Council on Economics and National Security has recently stated, "America's economic well-being and its national security are both threatened by the increasing inability of the U.S.. and the West in general to guarantee access to the energy and non-fuel mineral resources upon which our industrial economy is built... We may be entering an era that some future historian will call 'the resource war'."

World War II was largely about imperial grabbing. Germany, Italy and Japan wanted to expand into territory and resources. But Britain already held much of the world within its empire…which it had fought 72 wars to grab!

World War 1 was about ":…international rivalry for markets, raw materials and colonies…" Nelson and Olen.

"According to the Secretary of State for the US, Alexander Haig, the efforts by the Soviet Union to extend its influence in Africa are the beginning rounds of a "resource war" aimed at the United States and its industrial allies. Haig was particularly concerned about cobalt and manganese, for which the US is 100% dependent on imports. Most comes from USSR and Africa…"America thus has a vital interest in the survival of South Africa as a Western ally." "It is hardly coincidental that African nations that contain the greatest reserves of strategic minerals also abound in Russian, East German and Cuban military personnel…we are in a war, whether guns are being fired or not."

R. Heilbronner, Business Civilization in Decline, 1976, p. 107.

"Struggles are taking place, or are in the offing, between rich and poor nations over their share of he world product, within the industrial world over their share of industrial resources and markets…"

After discussing conflict over fisheries resources they say, "More dangerous, however , may be he competition among ove-developed countries, especially the US, Japan and the nations of western Europe, for he petroleum and other mineral resources of the Third World."

US Secretary of Defence Brown was reported in 1970 as saying, The S and the Soviet Union could be dragged into a Third World conflict where access to natural resource is at stake.

…failing a new global contract across the regions and social classes within regions, there is little doubt that a fierce struggle for world resources will inevitably ensue."

In a report entitled, "The rich prize that is Shaba", Breeze begins, "Increasing rivalry over a share-out between France and Belgium of the mineral riches of Shaba Province lies behind the joint Franco-Belgian paratroop airlift to Zaire." "These mineral riches make the province a valuable prize and help explain the West’s extended diplomatic courtship economic mismanagement and corruption.

US Secretary of State Vance recently insisted, "We must not lose Zimbabwe."

In an article entitled "Getting serious about strategic minerals", Holden says, ve the past decade there has been growing concern about the Soviet Union’s attempts to move in on mineral rich areas of the world.

The deputy Prime Minister of Australia and the Vice Chancellor of the University of New South Wales have both expressed the view that Australia should export its uranium to Japan or the Japanese will soon have to invade Australia to get it, so dependent are they on energy imports.

"…expansion is a prime source of conflict. So long as the dynamics of differential growth remain unmanaged, it is probable that these long term processes will sooner or later carry major powers into war."

R. Ashsley, The Political Economy of War and Peace, 1980, p. 3, 126.

"The resource and energy intensive modes of production employed in nearly all industries necessitate continuing armed coercion and competition to secure raw materials."

Spretnak and F. Capra, Green Politics, 1984, p. 67.

The Middle East is a powder keg largely because it is the region from which the developed countries draw most of their oil. They must therefore be willing to arm and to prop up regimes favourably inclined to the rich countries, to do everything possible to thwart Russian intentions in the region, and to prevent ruling elites from being won over by the Russians. Hence aid and arms are pumped in and efforts are made to back particular factions in local coups and bushfire wars.

The oil embargo placed on the US by OPEC in the early 1970s provoked the Americans into making it clear that they were prepared to go to war in order to secure supplies. "President Carter last week issued a clear warning that any attempt to gain control of the Persian Gulf would lead to war." It would "…be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States."

The US has 11,000 troops available for use in the Middle East or Third World to protect oil supplies."

Access by developed countries to resources and markets also underlies many of the tensions and the outbreaks of war that continually fester all around the globe. In these cases the super powers are usually heavily involved in supporting one faction or toppling a regime or supplying advice and arms, in an effort to end up on the winning side.

The turmoil in Iran cannot be divorced from the billions of dollars in military equipment given or sold by the Americans to the Shah, the West’s regional policeman. In 1980 the Canadian minister for external affairs…warned that energy starved Russia was planning to move against the major oil-producing nations Referring to the Russian move into Afghanistan she said, I think their eyes are fixed on the Ppersian "Gulf., the oil fields sof the Middle East. That is really the basis of what this is all about…it’s a struggle for oil."