17. No Blood for Oil? Hydrocarbon Abundance and International Security

For most of the past century, the international security dimensions of energy have largely been governed by perceptions of scarcity: the presumption that global reserves of oil and other basic fuels are insufficient to meet the anticipated needs of all industrialized powers and that energy-poor states must, therefore, undertake extraordinary measures—economic, diplomatic, and military—to ensure access to adequate supplies. This outlook first gained traction in the years leading up to World War I, when British warships were converted from coal to oil propulsion and Great Britain sought control over oil fields in the Persian Gulf area. The need to ensure access to foreign sources of oil also played a role in German and Japanese military operations during World War II and helped shape US policy toward the Middle East during the Cold War period and its aftermath. Recently, however, energy analysts have begun questioning this scarcity-driven outlook. The future, it is claimed, promises abundant energy availability—whether in the form of oil or natural extracted from shale or renewable sources of energy. Along with expressing greater optimism regarding the future availability of energy, moreover, analysts are beginning to question the need to continue relying on military means to safeguard the delivery of energy supplies. The inclination to rely on military means to protect energy remains strong, however, and many major consuming powers continue to retain combat forces for this purpose while some, especially China, are expanding such capabilities.