A report carried in Monday's Guardian is alarming a few people around the world. The article reveals that European governments have been told to plan for an era of conflict over energy resources, with global warming likely to trigger a dangerous contest between Russia and the west for the vast mineral riches of the Arctic.
A seminar on energy security held in Wellington last year traversed similar ground (though with an Asia/Pacific focus) but no one really wanted to state the obvious - New Zealand is looking extremely vulnerable with current defence settings.
Why are we vulnerable? We are sitting on 1,000 years of coal reserves, we have abundant renewable energy resources, it looks as though we have some pretty good oil and gas reserves becoming economic to exploit, and (unless we destroy the agriculture sector through the silly design to our proposed emissions trading regime) we have abundant food. We also have plenty of water (in contrast to Australia). All these are scarce resources. And we sit smack in the middle of a region that is becoming increasing desperate to secure these resources. We are, in summary, going to be the country envied most in the region.
Already we see China's foreign and trade policies designed around the need to secure these resources. Japan has agreed to enter into FTA negotiations with Australia because it wants security of supply for Australia's minerals. This is all fine, but what happens in 20 years time when the Chinese economy is much bigger and resource hungry than today? What are the implications for our region. What was the trigger for conflict in the 1930s?
We wish the mainstream media would start looking at this issue. We are particularly interested in analysis of current threat assessments and questions around the appropriateness of the current Treasury conceived model for our armed forces - a good army, supported by naval and air transport assets. Our strategy is in marked contrast to Australia's which is built around forward defence (ie forward of Australia).
