Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, on Wednesday warned that the global battle for control of energy resources could become the modern equivalent of the 19th century great game" the conflict between the UK and Tsarist Russia for supremacy in central Asia. "The great game is developing again," he told a meeting of the US-India Business Council. "The amount of energy is finite, up to now in relation to demand, and competition for access to energy can become the life and death for many societies. It would be ironic if the direction of pipelines and locations become the modern equivalent of the colonial disputes of the 19th century." The two nuclear superpowers, the US and Soviet Union, navigated the cold war because they made "the same calculations", Mr Kissinger said. "When nuclear weapons spread to 30 or 40 countries and each conducts a calculation, with less experience and different value systems, we will have a world of permanent imminent catastrophe."
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