Trade in Times of War

It has always struck me as ironic that the U.S. was criticized for continuing oil supplies to Hitler, via Franco in Spain, and also criticized and, in fact, blamed for causing the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor for cutting oil supplies, as well as scrap metal shipments(?) to Japan.

Off the top, it strikes as damned if you do and damned if you don't. Yes, yes, simplistic. That's me.

Digressing for a moment, I don't buy the 'blame the U.S.' argument in the slightest. Simply put, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a decision. A choice. The Diet could have chosen to end their 'All East-Asian Co-prosperity Sphere' efforts then and there. Bad choice on their part.

Where I would like help on this is the fact that trade was a corporate activity and war a gov't sport. I can think of no example where such a situation was broadly spoken about in WWI. Did trade or embargos become a political tool during WWII? There must be a point where international trade and the dependence thereof became large enough that it became a factor for Gov't intervention in times of war.

Fast forward, resources and the access to them seem the modern issue for war, or at least, the blaming, thereof.

Oil being the prime example with water postulated as future influence.

At what point did gov't-if it did- intervene in corporate trade? Was it 'ordered'? Suggested? Perhaps even a choice at corporate level, when looking at the Japanese issue?

On the German side of it IBM was, apparently, heavily involved in data correlation for the Germans and Hitler. Old Henry Ford was buddies with Hitler and these examples are used to claim that war was financed by corporate America. More realistically, nothing more than the continued exercise of making money with nations already committed to prior to that war.

When did gov't intervention, both as a positive and negative stimulus/leverage start being the norm?

It's not a subject that I am privy to, yet the U.S. blame game has always irk....

Any insights to this area?

Napoleon tried to shut off British trade with the Continent, with the Berlin decrees. Part of the reason for the invasion of Russia in 1812 was that the Russians were not co-operating.
A couple of centuries earlier, when the Dutch were fighting Spain for the independence, and later when they were fighting France in alliance with England, their merchants could not easily be restrained from "trading with the enemy". In those days the "strategic" trade items were the naval stores, much of which (especially the tall trees for masts) came from the Baltic coasts.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
Napoleon tried to shut off British trade with the Continent, with the Berlin decrees. Part of the reason for the invasion of Russia in 1812 was that the Russians were not co-operating.
A couple of centuries earlier, when the Dutch were fighting Spain for the independence, and later when they were fighting France in alliance with England, their merchants could not easily be restrained from "trading with the enemy". In those days the "strategic" trade items were the naval stores, much of which (especially the tall trees for masts) came from the Baltic coasts.

So those issues did exist. Off the top, it seems the examples you cite are fairly well separated, time-wise. No shortage of other wars in that time frame, either. I'm not making light of them, rather, they seem to have increased in influence and importance in the 20th century and forward.

a reply to: nwtrucker
I was quoting examples that I could remember from recent reading. "Naval stores from the Baltic" were an issue for several centuries.
Also read around the whole question of "neutral goods", ""contraband", and "right of search" in naval warfare. Roughly speaking, a nation of merchants wanted the international rule to be "If there is war between two countries, neutral countries should be free to trade without being attacked. If the ships are neutral, then the cargo they carry is neutral".
Whereas a nation with a strong navy, and engaged in war, wanted the rule to be "enemy goods are enemy goods, even when carried in a neutral ship". At the very least, they wanted to be able to seize goods which had a military value- contraband- and they wanted to be able to search even neutral vessels to check on the nature of their cargoes. In the French Revolution/Napoleonic wars, the claim to "right of search" got Great Britain into friction with half of Europe, and also into war with the United States.

a reply to: DISRAELI


I see. Bring to mind the 'neutral' ships in North Vietnam...cough, cough. Also the Pocket battleship Admiral Scheer that the Germans used almost exclusively on neutral shipping. He who has the navy to do so will make the rules....