Africa is now perceived as the final frontier for the world's energy supplies, crucial for the preservation of modern, global civilization, and a new scramble is underway. Competition for Africa's resources is quickly setting up a new East-West conflict. This is the context in which the new combatant command enters the history books at the juncture of the early 21st century and the pending flare out of the petroleum age. Expanding the military reach of the most powerful empire the planet has ever known, AFRICOM will be tasked with the responsibility of achieving full-spectrum dominance over mother Africa for fuel. Operating as both energy-protection service and strategic Cold War front, the unified command will concentrate whatever forces are necessary to keep the furnaces of Empire lit.