Cold War Technologies, Global Fertilizers, and the Fate of Western Sahara

Cold War Technologies, Global Fertilizers, and the Fate of Western Sahara

Lino Camprubí, a historian of science, argues that the fate of Western Sahara cannot be understood without its phosphate. He follows three technological stages of phosphate exploitation in the territory, each shaped by geopolitics: exploration and the estimation of reserves, extraction and transport, and refining and marketing.

Under Franco, isolated Spain looked to the colony for resources of its own. Post-war surveys, including radioactivity studies and geophysical work by oil companies, led to the discovery of the huge Bou Craa deposit in 1963 and 1964, which drew the interest of Algeria, Morocco, France and the United States. Camprubí shows how negotiations turned on reserve figures, prices and the exposed conveyor belt that carried the ore to the coast, where delays and sabotage became bargaining tools. Morocco used diplomatic pressure, secret production-quota agreements and later military strategy around the mine, leading up to the 1974 attack on the belt and the transfer of control in 1975.

He concludes that looking at resources shows Cold War science as a geopolitical activity, explains how “food security” became a Cold War idea, and helps explain why decolonisation stalled. Control of the phosphate gave Morocco lasting leverage while the Sahrawi population was displaced.

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