THE ENERGY TRANSITION AND THE ENDURING ROLE OF ENERGY IN US FOREIGN POLICY

American foreign policymakers have rarely been energy experts. But in practice, for decades, they have confronted and manoeuvred around energy issues. Energy has been both an end and a means in American foreign policy. The heavy reliance of the American and global economies on oil and gas has shaped US foreign policy in distinct ways for nearly the last 100 years. As the world moves away from fossil fuels and towards a different energy mix and an alternative energy system, energy will continue to sculpt US foreign policy, but in a very different manner. Military assets have been-and continue to be-deployed to the Gulf to ensure the passage of oil, and the extreme case of the 1991 Gulf War demonstrated the willingness to go to war to prevent one dictator from dominating the global oil market. America also found itself in a position, especially in recent years, to use energy as a means or instrument to achieve nonenergy-related foreign policy goals.