An article that original appeared in a USNI Proceedings journal / magazine, that has been reposted by the ANI.
Wheat’s role in Russian naval power
The article by Friedman discusses the impact that WW1 had on Russia and how it pertains to the SCS. Prior to the start of WW1 Russia was the worlds largest exporter of wheat, with most of this wheat being bulk shipped from Black Sea ports through the Bosphorus Straits and eventually into the Aegean Sea and beyond. When the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the Central Powers side, this immediately closed the Bosphorus Straits to the Russian wheat bulk shipping, which Friedman argues turned WW1 into a maritime war, rather than what is commonly believed, a land war. Because Russia had the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires to it's west and south west preventing land access as well as the Ottoman Empire strangling it's sea access to it's wheat markets, Russia was beginning to run out of money and was forced to borrow off Britain, who in turn had to borrow off the US, which soured relations between the US & the UK. So the idea of forcing a way through the Dardanelles to reopen the Russian southern SLOC was attempted with disastrous results for the western allies and Russia.
I have a great uncle buried somewhere on Chunuk Bair, Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey; just one of 600 Auckland Mounted Rifles killed in 3 days and who lie in unknown graves. Many families across the world have lost relatives in that war, so we all tend to focus on the land side of it. Until I read Friedman's article, I had always thought of the Great War as a land war fought in the mud of the trenches with any naval action as basically a sideshow compared to what happened in the trenches. However when I read Friedman's article it did cause me to think and I do suspect that he is right. You hear me banging on about Kiwis being seablind and I think this illustrates what maritime war really is. Like Friedman says, it's not about fleets banging away at each other - which is important, but denying the enemy the ability to move their trade, especially bulk products which cannot easily or efficiently be moved by land, across the sea as exports or as imports.
Ipso facto it's all about about SLOC - pure and simple.
So the Russian loss of its SLOC eventually cost it the war, by forcing massive social upheaval in the motherland and it ended up suing for peace with Germany. Friedman suggests that the British thought it less dangerous to mount the Dardanelles campaign than put the price of bread up in the UK. The German use of U boats caused serious losses to British shipping and had the potential to blockade the British Isle. In WW2 the Kreigsmarine U boat fleet very nearly won the Battle of the Atlantic and cut off the British Isles from North America. If it wasn't for Ultra and Doenitz's insistence on sighting and daily reports, the U boats may have won that battle. In the Pacific after a shaky start (dud torpedoes) the USN submarine fleet decimated the Japanese merchant fleet. So in the end whilst the British and allies won the Battle of the Atlantic, it was a close run thing. By 1945 the Japanese were receiving very little supplies from their conquered territories, especially oil, because their SLOC were strangled.
If you look at the SCS, there are a nice set of choke points, and with Beijing highly dependent upon the SCS for both its burgeoning export trade and especially imported energy, it's SLOC through the SCS are extremely important to it. IMHO, Friedman's article asks the question are the PRC actions in the SCS about the resources there? Or does Beijing see securing it's SLOC through the SCS as being the far higher priority and the resource issue is a nice smokescreen? So IMHO the SCS controversy is not about resources but about securing SLOC above all else. Whether the PRC will be successful in this is another story.