U.S. energy supplies, critical to the security of the nation, remain highly vulnerable to disruption. President Obama’s energy strategy needs a comprehensive policy guidance document, this essay argues, that will ensure ongoing focus at the National Security Council level and stress reduced consumption, development of alternate sources, and extensive partnering with other nations. – Ed.

During the campaign for the American Presidency in 2008, Barack Obama asserted that U.S. oil dependence was a threat to national security, the economy, and the planet. Unlike any other industry, energy uniquely powers commerce as well as the military, and is critical to a nation’s defense, sustainment, and growth. In President Obama’s first week in office, he directed the Secretary of Transportation to develop fuel efficiency guidelines, and a special envoy for climate change has been named, signaling energy’s importance in the newly formed Administration.¹

Despite energy’s import, the movement of just one source, oil, underscores the nation’s global vulnerability and exposure to attack.  Of the 85 million barrels of oil that travel daily, approximately 43 million barrels transit on fixed maritime routes, easily within the reach of criminals and terrorists. Securing oil’s safe passage isn’t just crucial for business; it’s a national security imperative.² The Department of Defense uses more than 55 million barrels of fuel monthly to support forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and overall, the United States consumes 185 billion gallons of gas and diesel fuel annually.³ An initiative launched by Senator Richard Lugar noted that “energy security impacts every aspect of life in the United States, from the cars we drive and how much we pay at the gas pump to our vulnerability to foreign terrorism and our relationships with other countries.”⁴

The U.S. focus on energy security is unfolding amid a devastating financial crisis and global economic instability, which in turn is forcing systemic changes on multiple fronts. Even though the United States imports close to $680 million of oil a day, energy security and oil dependence are not U.S.-only issues.⁵ The European Union, China, India, and scores of other major powers are also confronting the myriad issues associated with the collapsing economy and specifically, energy, including threats to the supply chain, environmental challenges, efficiency, and the development of emerging technologies. “Today, EU countries as a whole import 50% of their energy needs, a figure expected to rise to 70% by 2030.”⁶ Moreover, “…17 countries in the (Western Hemisphere) region are 100 percent dependent on foreign sources of oil, most in the Caribbean and Central America.”⁷

President Obama’s energy strategy, developed during the campaign, is instructive on the direction his Administration will take. The President’s policy called for energy independence, investment in energy, focus on fuel efficiency, curbing greenhouse gases, diversification of energy sources, and partnering.⁸ The United States has forged alliances with Brazil and Japan, among others, on energy security, and is developing strategic initiatives regarding improved energy efficiency, climate change and energy independence.

As varied U.S. energy initiatives unfold, harnessing the collective efforts of federal, state, local, and private sector entities is imperative for effective, integrated action. One overarching document should be developed that serves as the template for United States government energy security action in multiple agencies and diverse venues. Such national-level guidance could support a National Security Council-chaired Energy Security Policy Coordinating Committee to address interagency energy security policy efforts and is discussed more fully below. Integration within the NSC structure, rather than a stand-alone document or construct, will ensure maximum efficiency within the federal government.  Much like the challenges associated with a separate Homeland Security Council and National Security Council, added bureaucracy does not always create efficiencies or organizational benefits.  Ensuring the security of oil sources and transportation routes coupled with  reducing oil dependence and climate change, diversifying supply and developing alternative energy sources, and increasing bilateral, regional, and international partnering carry national security implications for the new American Administration and will require greater direction, organization, and integration. 

Energy Threats, Vulnerability, and Disruptions
All forms of available energy, which include electricity, petroleum, and natural gas, require considerable logistics, security, and infrastructure investment. All have varying levels of exposure, with distinct vulnerabilities and requirements for protection. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra, at the Conference on Security Policy in Munich, Germany, on February 7, 2009, remarked that energy security is a matter of strategy. “It requires us to think and build solutions well ahead. This holds for energy the same as for ballistic missiles. It is too late to start building a pipeline when gas stops flowing. And it is too late to start building a defense shield when the missile is already in the air.” 

Such concern is well placed.  The threat isn’t just from an attack; natural disasters and aging infrastructures have materially harmed energy security.⁹   Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shut down 94% of the oil production in the Gulf of Mexico’s outer continental shelf, which comprises seven percent of U.S. consumption, “delivering the world’s first integrated energy shock, simultaneously disrupting flows of oil, natural gas, and electric power.” ¹⁰ Utilities are particularly exposed to an attack upon or through their power system.¹¹ The United States has approximately 5,300 power plants with 1,075 gigawatts of installed generating capacity.¹² “Utility executives struggle with improving security of their forty to fifty year old infrastructures which were not built with security in mind…Utilities are constantly reminded of how easy it is to access their facilities and control systems.”¹³

Attacks by criminals and terrorists remain a direct threat to energy stability. Moreover, strikes on the energy sector have increased over the past five years.  In 2003, approximately one in four terrorist attacks were directed at energy related targets, rising to one in three attacks in the period spanning 2003-2007.¹⁴   “According to the State Department, between 1996 and 2004, there were at least 80 terrorist attacks against oil companies, world-wide, that resulted in kidnappings, casualties, damages, and large monetary losses.”¹⁵   Energy infrastructure exposure is a global concern.  “In February 2006, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda attempted, but failed, to destroy the Abqaiq processing facility in Saudi Arabia, where 6.8 million barrels per day of oil (some two-thirds of total Saudi production) are processed before export.”¹⁶ Even with the infusion of 14,000 security guards along vital Iraqi pipelines and at facility venues, attacks are frequently occurring.¹⁷ Iraqi oil pipelines and installations were attacked more than 200 times in a 20-month period.¹⁸   The piratical strikes on merchant vessels in 2008 in the Gulf of Aden, including the oil super tanker Sirius Star carrying two million barrels of oil, underscored the threat to energy. In fact, “Attacks on energy vessels represent a significant percentage of overall maritime piracy attacks, ranging from a low of 12% of total attacks in 2006 to a high of just over 24% in 2007…”¹⁹

Oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf provides 40% of global supply, with 15.5 million barrels of oil a day, or 40% of all traded oil, transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.²⁰ Vessels carrying more than half of the world’s oil pass through Southeast Asian water.²¹ Oil’s vulnerability exists, in part, because while it is transited across enormous swaths of waters, it is also transported along very narrow areas of water on predictable routes. Pirates are exploiting this funnel-like environment, attacking ships on well-established navigational routes. The narrowest point in the Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles, the Strait of Malacca 1.7 miles, Bab el-Maddab (the Horn of Africa) 18 miles, and the Turkish Straits 0.5 mile.²² The threat to shipping by Somali pirates in 2008 became so severe that dozens of nations deployed warships to the area to protect merchant vessels.

But maritime crime has existed for thousands of years. Mumbai suffered terrorist attacks in March 1993 and again in December 2008, with both assaults emerging from the sea. The slow, low-tech assault against the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 nearly sunk the powerful warship. The 2002 attack by Al Qaeda on the French oil tanker Limburg, which was transporting almost 400,000 barrels of crude oil, off the coast of Yemen in October 2002 exposed the vulnerability of energy links between the Strait of Hormuz and markets in Europe and Asia; and in 2004 Super Ferry 14 was struck by the Abu Sayyaf organization in the Philippines. “More recently, al-Qaeda affiliates have carried out attacks on oil installations in Yemen, including a June 2008 attack on the Safi oil refinery.”²³

The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Secretary General, Efthimios E. Mitropoulos, remarked that, “We should continue relentlessly raising our industry’s defences to the extent that terrorists may be dissuaded from launching an attack on ships, port facilities and shipping lanes of strategic importance and significance and, in the unfortunate event that such an act has been committed, that we are in a strong position to mitigate its impact on human life, property and the environment.”²⁴ When a pipeline or ship is attacked, the reverberations extend well beyond the individual strike:  A nation’s ability to function can be imperiled by the denial or delay of energy or prohibitively increased cost.  

In the United States, for example, protecting these multiple platforms and means of delivery is complicated by the combination of the private sector (which owns more than 80 percent of the energy infrastructure²⁵ ) and multiple government agencies that have oversight. The United States has 150 refineries, 4,000 offshore platforms, 160,000 miles of oil pipelines, 10,400 power plants, 410 underground gas storage fields, and 1.4 million miles of natural gas pipelines.²⁶ Moreover, several U.S. departments have cognizance over energy infrastructure protection, such as the Department of Energy (the sector-specific agency for energy infrastructure vulnerability assessments and protection requirements), the Department of Defense (critical infrastructure protection, upon request), the Minerals Management Service (standards for offshore platforms), and the Coast Guard (protecting ports which deliver critical energy supplies, including oil and gas).²⁷ Such diversity of oversight must be refined significantly to ensure not just efficiency, but sustained critical focus and alignment.

In addition to attacks and natural disasters, the production and delivery of energy can also be adversely affected by disruptions. “The risk of oil supply disruptions has grown in recent years and will grow in the near future for a number of reasons including continued demand growth, increased concentration of the remaining oil reserves in fewer countries, the concentration of oil use in the transport sector, and insufficient capacity additions (both upstream and downstream) to keep pace with demand growth.”²⁸   The cost of oil also has an enormous impact on economies, and in turn affects national security interests.  Moody's estimated that the United States’ energy costs in 2009 will be $250 billion less than in 2008 if the price of oil remains below $50 a barrel for the year.

Partnering
Bilateral, regional, and international collaboration is occurring in multiple venues, some energy-sector specific, others that benefit the energy sector. In 2002, member-states of the IMO developed and implemented the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code. This agreement provided a construct for ensuring port security throughout the world. Thus, there is now a template for examining security issues ranging from the movement of people and cargo to port services. The Container Security Initiative program is another endeavor that heightens security by collaboratively screening containers. Containers that may pose a terrorist risk are inspected in foreign ports before being shipped. In part, CSI employs “intelligence and automated information,” pre-screening of cargo, and detection technology, and it encourages “smarter, tamper-evident” containers. Long Range Identification and Tracking of Ships (LRIT) is yet another international security initiative member states approved at the IMO that can improve energy security. LRIT, which will become operational in 2009, enables states to identify, monitor, and intercept transnational maritime threats by providing the identity and position of ships. The safe delivery of energy is enhanced when maritime threats are reduced; and in this regard, recent international efforts are promising.

While it is a cornerstone function of the U.S. Navy to protect the sea-lanes, there are not enough ships in the American fleet to cover the globe. Moreover, the cost is tremendous.²⁹   “…In an intimately interconnected world [where] the problems faced by nations are…complex and trans-boundary in nature…it is clear that problems can no longer be solved by a single power or even a small group of powers in concert.”³⁰ In this regard, partnering is key to effectively protecting not just the sea-lanes, but to providing a stable maritime environment, and ultimately, stability in the production and delivery of energy. A U.S. Navy initiative to expand international cooperation and engagement is the “Thousand Ship Navy/Global Maritime Partnership.” The concept embraces a figurative “thousand ship” navy, not actually a navy of one thousand ships. It represents the idea that no nation can do it alone and that all benefit when working together. Admirals from Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway, among others, have favorably commented on the potential value of the concept in relation to increasing effective international cooperation to counter piracy.³¹ The “Thousand Ship Navy” provides a basis for bilateral and multilateral cooperation and coordination on suppressing piracy and in turn, the safe delivery of energy; and this new approach to maritime security is the basis for the October 2007 jointly signed (Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps) A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.

On the diplomatic front, the trip to China by Secretary of State Clinton in February 2009 emphasized the emerging imperative of partnering on energy security and reducing greenhouse gases. Secretary Clinton characterized the opportunities for energy partnering there as “unmatched anywhere in the world.”³² Partnering is more than just collaborating on a specific issue; it can also provide alternative sources of energy, and thus reduce a nation’s dependence on a single source. Secretary Clinton stated that energy partnerships with Latin American are occurring because the United States is “looking to find ways through technology and other activities we can work together to become more energy independent in this hemisphere.”³³ Agreements are unfolding in multiple regional and international venues, including the International Energy Agency (IEA)³⁴ , the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Energy Working Group, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP), the International Energy Forum, the International Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (I-NERI), the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), and the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy.

The China trip follows a March 2007 accord in which U.S. Secretary of State Rice and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim signed a memorandum of understanding to advance cooperation on energy. This agreement includes commitments for partnering in biofuels research and development. United States and European energy security partnering has also emerged.³⁵ The 2007 EU-U.S. Summit Statement on Energy Security, Efficiency, and Climate Change noted that cooperation must be intensified to “improve the security and resiliency of global energy networks and the physical security of critical energy infrastructure.”³⁶ Another partnering initiative is the Declaration of Panama, which U.S. officials stated demonstrates “that energy is a vital part of our hemispheric agenda and that we will work together to address the challenges of energy security, climate change, environmental stewardship, and sustainable development.”³⁷

The United States has also collaborated with Japan, Colombia, and Peru on energy security. With Japan, there was a recognition that “improving energy efficiency and diversifying their energy mix – making wider use of clean and alternative energy, such as clean use of coal, nuclear energy, and renewables, improving the investment climate in energy-producing countries, and engaging emerging economies – are essential for ensuring the mutual energy security of the United States and Japan and addressing global climate change.”³⁸  Strategic threats associated with climate change include reduced access to fresh water and impaired food production.  The resulting scarcity of such resources will likely result in increased competition for access, which carries with it the potential for conflict that could affect the movement of the world’s energy. 

One of the stronger U.S. partnering initiatives to be introduced in Congress was the “Energy Diplomacy and Security Act (S. 193),” sponsored by Senator Richard Lugar.  This bill was proposed in the 110th Congress but never became law.  It sought to direct, among other things, that the Secretary of State establish “strategic energy partnerships with the governments of major energy producers and major energy consumers, and with governments of other countries… [and create] a regional-based ministerial Hemisphere Energy Cooperation Forum.”³⁹ The Energy Diplomacy draft also stated, “Cooperation on energy issues between the United States Government and the governments of foreign countries is critical for securing the strategic and economic interests of the United States and of partner governments.”⁴⁰

Partnering can also include reducing dependence on oil from a particular country. Vice President Joseph Biden and National Security Advisor James Jones have recently used the phrase “energy security” and “made clear that the administration would place an emphasis on rolling back its allies’ dependency on Russian-controlled natural gas and oil.”⁴¹ In part, this policy direction is occurring because “major energy suppliers – from Russia to Iran to Venezuela – have been increasingly able and willing to use their energy resources to pursue their strategic and political objectives.”⁴² Three-fourths of the world’s oil reserves are controlled by state-controlled firms, like those in Russia, known as national oil companies (NOCs), which “do not respond to market forces as would a private, competitive firm.”⁴³ Secretary Clinton stated that Russian action in stopping the flow of gas into Europe and purchase of utilities there in January 2009, “is certainly a significant security challenge that we ignore at our own peril.”⁴⁴

A Way Ahead
A 2006 Council on Foreign Relations report concluded that “Since the United States both consumes and imports more oil than any other country…the lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and national security.”⁴⁵ That is changing along with the recognition that partnering is imperative for effective energy security. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007⁴⁶ is among the more ambitious U.S. energy laws, but it did not seek to  integrate the myriad government agencies on energy issues, like the Goldwater-Nichols legislation that better integrated the U.S. military services beginning in the 1980s.

Long-term U.S. energy security requires systemic strategic coordination and alignment by government agencies and the private sector as well as in international venues, reflecting the President’s priorities and vision. One step toward ensuring comprehensive U.S. collaboration would be the development of a Presidential Directive, along with a series of strategic and policy-level plans that establish short- and long-term goals, designates lead and supporting agencies for specific issues, and provides a mechanism to continually evaluate its effectiveness. It is critical that the various departments of the U.S. government that are affected by energy security, including the Departments of Energy, State, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, Interior, EPA, and CEQ, among others, closely coordinate their energy actions within the NSC structure. 

A Presidential Directive that includes policy guidance, coordination requirements, and implementation instructions would be an important step toward shaping the policy environment and would provide continuity and consistency in U.S. actions. The Directive could also order the development of separate but complementary plans that provide an overarching national strategy for energy security, with subordinate plans that address:

1. Domestic policy and outreach, including federal energy efficiency (i.e., reducing consumption, national building efficiency goals, overhaul of efficiency standards);
2. Climate change;
3. Energy protection (i.e., supply disruption, infrastructure), which could complement and in parts revise Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7 (Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection);
4. New energy technologies; and
5. Coordination of international efforts and international outreach.

Conclusion
Attacks on ships, pipelines, or infrastructures have tremendous and lasting consequences on the delivery of energy, and ultimately on national security. The challenge for the United States – and most nations – is that it consumes considerably more oil than it produces, is reliant on too few sources, and produces/uses energy that isn’t clean. The United States consumes approximately 25% of the world’s oil production, yet has only three percent of the known reserves.⁴⁷ Regardless of how much oil a nation produces or how a nation defines “energy security,” ensuring there is adequate energy permeates almost all aspects of governance. 

Former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham stated in 2003 that the “Failure to meet increasing energy demand with increased energy supplies, and vulnerability to disruptions from natural or malevolent causes, could threaten our nation’s economic prosperity, alter the way we live our lives, and threaten our national security.”

Energy-reducing programs, the use of alternative energy sources, and partnering are key components of sustained long-range energy security. While achieving energy goals is daunting, systemic, structured, and strategic integration of federal government agencies on energy security issues within the National Security Council structure is required to effectively advance the myriad programs currently underway.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Navy or the Department of Defense.

A version of this article first appeared in The Conference of Defense
Associations Institute Book.

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May 12, 2009

American Diplomacy
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	Captain Brian Wilson, USN, is Commanding Officer, Region Legal Service Office, Naval District Washington. He previously developed global maritime security policy for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
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