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Message: Does Frank Herbert’s “Dune” Predict Today’s Geopolitical Environment? Loewen and Partners launched its guest speaker series at the National Club last month with Dr. Michael Power’s talk, “The Great Game of the 21st. Century.” Dr. Power is a portfolio manager and equity strategist at Investec Asset Management. Working in South Africa, Dr. Power is a long time specialist in the African resource market. His talk Wednesday night explored how the 19th Century geopolitical struggle named, “The Great Game,“ has returned to today’s Asia. The difference today is rather than China and India being subjects of colonial powers, they are emerging super powers—the so-called Chinese Dragon and Indian Tiger. And they are beginning to flex their muscles. Dr. Power predicts that in less than ten years these countries will rival western economic performance. To support their exponential growth, both have engaged in a strategic pursuit of natural resources. That search has come to Africa and that continent is about to emerge as a resource powerhouse. Is Canada next? Power draws some parallels to Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel, “Dune.” If you haven’t read it, well, now is the time to pick up the trilogy. Herbert’s forty year old description of a universe driven by the dominance of one scarce resource, “spice,” predicts many of the geopolitical dynamics now facing the western world. Think O-I-L in the place of spice here, but also steel, copper, gold . . . For commodity market managers these predictions suggest that the current downswing in the resource market is a minor retreat in what will be a prolonged and sustained bull market. Don’t forget politics though. WiIl the US stand by as the world’s resources are locked up by its economic partners? That is unlikely and recent activities in Iraq and Afghanistan may well have more to do with the “new” great game than with the defeat of global terrorism. www.corporateknightsforum.com