The strategic dilemma that faces us is visible in the first National Security Strategy of the Barack Obama Administration, released in May 2010. The authors
of this document see the transformation of the way we use energy as a key to our economic revitaliza-tion (and ultimately our safety) as well as a way to mitigate the security problems many expect to follow from climate change. The 2010 Strategy recognizes the danger of disruption to our energy supplies and the political vulnerability that can accompany depen-dency. At the same time, the strategy stresses the need to reduce the budget deficit. It sees the promotion of international human rights and food security as a key to international order and names nuclear proliferation as the single most dangerous threat to the American people. It insists that the United States must main-tain its conventional superiority, enhance its ability to defeat asymmetric threats, and preserve its nuclear deterrent capability as long as other nations possess nuclear weapons.39 However, these goals can work at cross purposes. In implementing any one of these stra-tegic goals, we run the risk of undermining another.
Depending upon our priorities, we are likely to push for different kinds of energy technologies, and every step of the way our decisions will be made the harder because of the many still unanswered questions about the technologies themselves.
If we are sure that our foreign policy is being driv-en by excessive depdriv-enddriv-ence on fossil fuels, we will do all that we can to foster alternatives. We will also favor investment in alternatives if we see climate change as the threat of the future. But if we do this, we are likely to run up big bills and perhaps find ourselves with a less effective military. If we choose the wrong kind of alternatives, we may drive up world food prices, encourage deforestation, and ironically lead the world down the very path of climate-driven instability we are trying to avoid.
If we see the root of all our power as economic and wish to avoid excessive debt at all costs, we will be reluctant to wean ourselves off oil. But down the road, we will have to pay for the security costs of cli-mate change. We are also likely to have less freedom of action in our foreign policy, and we may also be providing financial aid to terrorists and other foreign enemies.
If we view nuclear proliferation as the most press-ing security concern of our day, we may hesitate to promote civilian nuclear industry, and yet it is just possible that this source might solve both our need for clean energy and reduce proliferation.
It is indeed a dilemma.
SOLUTIONS
A number of strategies to improve energy security were discussed at the conference. Among them were the use of force, cooperation, and the expansion of supply through the means of technology. What con-clusions did participants reach?
The Use of Force.
The use of military force to protect our energy se-curity is controversial. American military power pro-vides the stability that allows the global oil market to function.40 At the same time, there are clear limits to what it can accomplish. It cannot affect growing en-ergy demand. Nor can it prevent “peak oil.” Some scholars further argue that forward military deploy-ment is not the best answer for politically-motivated disruptions of supply. Radical disruptions might re-sult from the conquest of the Middle East, but this is
an unlikely scenario. They might also result from civil wars within an oil-rich nation—but intervention in this case would be counterproductive. Most disrup-tions are likely to be temporary because market forces naturally compensate for obstructions in the flow of oil. If this logic is correct, this is good news, because a strategy of restraint will help us in a time of fiscal retrenchment.41
Cooperation and Reform.
One strategy that has already proved useful in improving energy security is to advance economic in-terdependencies. When consumer nations get their re-sources from multiple re-sources, supplier nations have less ability to use their assets as weapons. This should be encouraged. So too should cooperation. For exam-ple, states on the Persian Gulf faced by limited water supplies might benefit from sharing power plants. The United States would be well advised to work with the Mexicans to share fields that straddle their borders.42
Another strategy is to create the kind of environ-ment that will promote a healthier energy industry.
Supplier states like Iraq need to enact laws that will persuade investors that money flowing into the coun-try will not fuel corruption.43 States like Nigeria need to give their people a stake in industrial development to reduce unrest and increase productivity. The prop-agation of good business practices as well as state of the art technologies should be encouraged. In the oil business, for example, knowledge about good field management and engineering can be shared, to the benefit of all concerned.44 Sharing advanced, safe, and
“green” technologies with developing nations prom-ises to pay security dividends.45
Expansion of Supply.
The third strategy is to enlarge the energy pie by creating new (alternative) forms of energy, develop-ing new and better ways to exploit older ones, and by promoting efficiency and conservation. There are compelling reasons to develop alternatives as rapidly as we can. First and foremost, alternative energy is key to dealing with the climate-change problem. Sec-ond, it will help to ensure that more and cheaper fossil fuels can be reserved for use by the military in war-time. Third, the spread of alternative energy might al-low developing nations to break into new markets.46 Finally, reducing dependence on fossil fuels in the transportation sector will help liberate our foreign policy. These arguments are especially applicable to renewables. Because of the risks outlined above, the extent to which nuclear energy should be part of the picture remains debated.
Because the United States has extensive domestic natural gas reserves and because of the security ad-vantages to be derived from reduced dependency on oil, shale gas has its strong supporters. There is also considerable support for the development of new technologies for cleaning coal which, though not a renewable fuel, is abundant. Opponents, however, re-sist continued reliance on fossil fuels and worry about the environmental damage done by extraction and disposal.
Conservation and efficiency are a vital part of any strategy that focuses on the expansion of sup-ply through technology. Greater efficiency can be achieved by a wide variety of means. Many of these carry little risk—like the use of more energy-efficient building materials in our homes. Others, like recy-cling waste in breeder reactors, are more problematic.