Publisher's Synopsis
This study alerts the layperson to the impending shortage of continuous supplies of eight basic minerals as it relates to national security and skyrocketing defense spending. The importance to industry and the world's leading supplier countries is examined in detail and augmented by a historic review, testimony drawn from Congressional committee hearings, and current events. While other studies have dealt with mineral shortages in the context of other environmental issues, such as water supplies and endangered species, Lax's study focuses solely and exhaustively on the issue of strategic mineral shortages. Contents: Mineral Profiles; Industrialized Nations; Third World and Emerging Nations; Shipping; World War I; World War II; The Beginning of the Cold War and the Paley Report; From Ike Through the Seventies; Threatened Imports; The Prospects for Continued Mineral Recovery; Trade and the Collapse of U.S. Mining and Smelting; The Stockpile.
