The Military Dimensions of Post-Cold War US Oil Policy: Access to Oil and Consequences for Geostrategy

My objective is to analyze the military dimensions of United States oil policies since the end of the Cold War. America’s increasing economic dependency on imported oil, a vital input in the health of western economies, has been widely documented, but how does the military understand the role of oil, particularly in war times? I question long-standing assumptions about oil and international politics, particularly regarding “access” to the resource. In the end, I hope to produce a report that will shed light on aspects of the military’s oil strategy that either contradicts or is not captured by the existing scholarship.