Number of words: 210

Civilisations have fallen because of an inability to acquire sufficient quantities of energy, food and metals. Societies that have managed to control access to natural resources have survived and those that have failed have become extinct. The Spanish conquistadores’ pillage of Peru and Mexico, destroying both the Aztec and Inca cultures, was driven by gold. The bloody Boer War, fought between the Dutch settlers and the British Empire, was over access to South Africa’s minerals and metals. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which led to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, was driven by oil, as, almost certainly, was the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by the US, the world’s largest single consumer of the stuff. The US military in Iraq uses eight times as much oil per day as its Second World War counterpart due to the increase in oil-fuelled equipment since the 1940s. The US military is the single biggest consumer of l on the planet, using one of every 200 barrels produced worldwide The Chinese military is growing at pace with its economy, as is Chinese demand for energy. Sino-US relations are likely to dominate most of this century. The key issue will be access to energy.

Excerpted from  pages 73 to 74 of ‘Energise, by Eddie Hobbs