I think resource usage is also a matter of control. At least during the cold war large amounts of resources were in danger of vanishing behind the "iron curtain

I think resource usage is also a matter of control. At least during the cold war large amounts of resources were in danger of vanishing behind the "iron curtain" forever. If socialism had successfully caught on in latin america, indochina and more of the gulf states had fallen under soviet influence, it would have been lights out for western economies, which largely rely on raw materials imported from those regions. To a smaller degree this is even still true today, with Europe dependant on Russian gas. In a market where everyone has equal and free access to natural resources 2) might be indeed the best option. Otherwise a strategy where you exploit the resources of other nations first to enrich yourself seems like a far better option. Of course this has happened to various degrees all over the world to the benefit of a few industrialised nations.