Over at ConHome, Tim Montgomerie debates Will Inboden’s review of the main themes of the Tories foreign policy. I urge CoffeeHousers to read both articles, but the section on the relationship between energy and defence struck me particularly, recalling Liam Fox’s 2006 Chatham House speech on the subject. Here’s the premise of Fox’s argument:
“We are all competing for the same natural resources to feed the economic system. The potential for terrorists or even nation states to interrupt this supply to cause widespread – rather than just local – disruption increases enormously.”
Fox pointed out that global energy competition requirements had evolved beyond Britain’s defence strategies and capabilities. Nowhere was this clearer than in our reliance on gas. The Institute for Civil Engineers estimated that 80 per cent of energy shortfall caused by increased competition for oil would be replaced by gas, 90 per cent of which will be imported through a pipeline from the continent.
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