All strong empires or states have benefited from an “energy order” peculiar to their historical period as a dominant regional or global power. And each such energy order, associated with a particular leading state or bloc of states, has invariably declined and decayed through a combination of physical infeasibility (the natural resource in question runs out) or because of the transformation of economic rationalities via technological change (the status quo order is displaced as technological advances and new natural resource findings create different efficiencies).

Large-scale, systemic energy transitions involve more “bang for the buck” per unit of processed natural resource. And as the newer energy order evolves, the major power that is most associated with this evolving form of energy technology in political and social terms becomes the emergent dominant leader on the world stage. So, when energy orders decline due to economic inefficiencies and natural depletion, they reshuffle wealth and power around the world.

This centuries-long dynamic is succinctly described by environmental security professor J. R. McNeill of George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs:

The seventeenth century Dutch were the first to depend heavily on fossil fuels, in this case peat, which provided perhaps 40 percent of their total energy expenditure. This allowed the Dutch to build a precocious modern economy with energy-intensive industries (e.g., brewing, sugar-refining, and salt-making).... It also helped underpin the geopolitical assertion of the Dutch on the world stage [as a sea and financial power]. After 1800 Great Britain turned to coal with which it achieved similar results on a larger scale, as did the United States after 1900 with oil.

Today, the complex connections between the global energy order, US dominance in trade and financial institutions, and the US military machine are rarely made. But though complex, these linkages are very real. As described by two analysts at the US Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Contemporary Conflict, “Nothing of strategic significance that happens in the world of energy can realistically be considered without simultaneous reference to the workings of global financial markets, a realm in which the United States occupies a position comparable to that of the Middle East with respect to oil. States need energy not for its own sake, but in order to be able to make things to consume and to sell. This means they also need customers, investors, and creditors.…” And this, in turn, points to the central role of the US-dominated World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization.

The energy security policy of the United States includes a huge and growing military and intelligence budget.

The most recent evolution of energy security policy is based on two Democratic US Presidents: Jimmy Carter and William Jefferson Clinton. In his 1980 State of the Union address, President Carter stated what came to be known as the “Carter Doctrine”: “Any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

At the time, there was some thought that Iran’s internal Islamic Revolution had Soviet support and involvement. Thus, it was not an especially large logical jump to apply this notion, in the 1990s, to situations where a strongly anti-US or antiglobalization government may gain control of their own substantial national oil resources in states such as Iraq, Iran, or Saudi Arabia. The Carter Doctrine also has been implicitly and steadily expanded to include attempts by regional powers to gain control of the region through local hegemony. As the 1996 Clinton National Security Strategy stated:

There are three basic categories of national interests that can merit the use of our armed forces. The first involves America’s vital interests, that is, interests that are of broad, overriding importance to the survival, security and vitality of our national entity—the defense of U.S. territory, citizens, allies and our economic well-being. We will do whatever it takes to defend these interests, including—when necessary—the unilateral and decisive use of military power.

In sum: The global energy system and the US pursuit of “Full Spectrum Dominance” in military capabilities are deeply intertwined.

As argued in a Stanley Foundation policy analysis brief by global security and technology expert Clifford Singer, a policy of being prepared to intervene unilaterally in the large oil-producing states to influence who has control of production dictates that the United States maintain sufficient conventional military forces to attack, occupy, and then stabilize the succeeding government. Moreover, those military forces must conduct such operations in a country whose population may harbor violent opposition to outside forces bent on determining who controls the country’s oil. An operation on this scale requires forward basing of air power and heavily armored ground force divisions, as well as the naval and air transport support and protection needed to supply these forces deep in enemy territory. It also requires substantial occupation forces trained in the local languages and customs, and suitable intelligence and reconstruction support capable of succeeding while pursuing an intensive counterinsurgency campaign.

In short: It is only the US military machine that can, if needed, conceivably occupy and invade an oil-rich country such as Saudi Arabia in the case of negative internal developments such as a coup by Salafi, Sunni fundamentalists. Other rising power nations, even large ones such as India and China that are contemplating a growth in blue water naval capabilities, still do not have the internal wealth or political will to turn themselves into the Persian Gulf regional policemen.

The United States executive branch upholds the existing US-dominant energy order in part via strategic military dominance and superior war-fighting and occupation capabilities, and in part via punitive financial and trade sanctions toward unfriendly regional powers. Other major powers are pressured to comply with these measures. This pressure is often still quite effective because of the size of the US consumer market in the global economy—that is, a situation where rising Asian powers such as China, India, and Japan are more dependent on trade with the US economy for their well-being than they are on a regional oil supplier such as Iran.

But the economic and political costs of this theoretical “veto power” are quite high. Despite US pressures, financial and trade deals are still going forward between other major powers and Gulf States, as reported by the US Government Accountability Office. And militarily, even a relatively isolated state such as Iran can use arms supplied by other rising powers such as China and Russia to respond to potential US preemptive strikes by targeting the urban centers and military bases of nearby Arab nations that have bilateral defense pacts with the United States (even if Iran could not physically injure the US homeland itself). And through both missiles and its navy, Iran could conceivably shut down or at least severely hamper shipping of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Overall, this sort of conflict and instability would make oil prices skyrocket well beyond the $100-per-barrel prices now seen today.

US strikes against unfriendly regimes to ensure the supply of oil at free market prices would also be interpreted by Arab publics throughout the Middle East—and many Muslims throughout the world—as further aggression (beyond Iraq) against the Islamic community of nations, driving US legitimacy further downwards in not only the Persian Gulf, but also other oil-producing countries in Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia with substantial Muslim populations.

Moreover, there are definite limits to the use of force in backing up, or defending, a system that is supposed to be based on uncoerced, free market interactions. The United States is facing a conundrum: if military force must constantly be used to ensure that globalization-friendly governments oversee the exploration, processing, transport, and selling of oil on a global free market, then is the global oil system in fact a nonviolent model of normal free market interactions? Or has it become something else? If some key actors in the oil market are unwilling to act on market incentives alone, but also act upon growing nationalist impulses , what does this mean for US leadership?

Ultimately, it is questionable whether an energy order based on one power’s ability to incessantly intervene militarily in a highly volatile region is budgetarily, diplomatically, or politically sustainable, the environmental trend of global warming aside. And the onset of climate change only makes a seismic shift in energy practices that much more necessary—indeed, inevitable.

Regional Gulf Arab governments continue to rely on military contributions from outside nations, especially the United States, to ensure a rough balance of power to protect their sovereignty, domestic identity, and regime security. But while political and security elites in Gulf countries are pursuing the perfection of an international power balance in the region, the entire Middle East region is undergoing a social transformation. Amid the hyperbole regarding Iran’s nuclear program and Iraq’s continuing chaos, a much larger and potentially more explosive phenomenon has been steadily developing throughout the Middle East region, from Northern Africa to the Persian Gulf: the transition from authoritarian, controlled states to more open societies. The rough nature of this unfinished transition, alongside a cross-country boom in population, is already leading to high rates of unemployment throughout the region.

In the Persian Gulf today, transitioning societies in the earliest stages of nation-state development are facing the challenges of an increasingly transnational world. Central state leaders throughout the Middle East are trying to build up state power, governmental prerogatives, and national sovereignty in a regional security environment characterized by news, information, and cultural norms that are inherently transnational and uncontrollable in nature. Middle East states are quickly becoming interdependent through the flow of political arguments, information, and ideologies, even as they stay purposefully apart in terms of elite-level foreign policies, military policies, and diplomacy.

And the primary guarantor of the stable flow of oil for the global economy (the United States) is now almost universally mistrusted, misperceived, and even feared by the Middle East citizenry themselves—including business, academic, and media elites, as well as average citizens.

The natural US response thus far to major power interests in the Persian Gulf is one of defensiveness: How are these competing powers threatening regional stability and the oil supply? But Chinese author Dr. Xuecheng Liu has argued in a Stanley Foundation brief entitled "China’s Energy Security and Its Grand Strategy" that the growing Chinese interests in the Persian Gulf represents less of a challenge to US hegemony than a natural, organic result of China becoming the dominant, cooperative trading partner of the United States in the expanding global economy.

As of the end of 2005, Saudi Arabia accounted for about 17 percent of China’s imported oil (and this figure continues to grow), and total trade between the two countries grew by a substantial 59 percent in 2005 to $14 billion. Saudi Arabia is China’s largest trading partner in the region from West Asia to North Africa. Today, China is Saudi Arabia’s fourth-largest importer and fifth-largest exporter, while Saudi Arabia is China’s tenth-largest importer and biggest oil supplier. Overall, Saudi Arabia, as the world’s largest oil exporter, wants to nurture China as a customer, especially because Asian markets are closer to the Persian Gulf than Europe and the United States.

Iran has also figured strongly in this oil equation. With its unique geostrategic location linking two main energy hubs—the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf—and as OPEC's second-largest oil exporter, Iran has become an energy partner of China. Chinese oil companies have signed long-term contracts valued at $200 billion, making China Iran’s biggest oil and gas customer.

As of the end of 2005, Iranian oil supplies accounted for about 14 percent of China’s oil imports, and this figure is (as with Saudi Arabia) expected to grow with time. Currently more than 100 Chinese companies are operating in Iran—developing ports, airports, and oil and natural gas. China is also in the process of importing Iranian natural gas. China hopes to become a comprehensive participant in exploration, drilling, petrochemicals, pipelines, and other upstream and downstream services related to Iran’s oil and gas industries.

Despite these close Chinese-Saudi and Chinese-Iranian ties, however, many analysts still emphasize the close congruence of US and Chinese interests in the Persian Gulf.

India is a textbook case of the pragmatic, opportunistic approach to national security, including acquisition of energy supplies in the 21st century, which puts it on ambivalent footing with the United States in some areas. India is now potentially financing and lending technological and material support to numerous Iranian industrial projects related to the supply of oil and natural gas to the global economy, as well as stepping up defense and even nuclear cooperation. As India’s blue water naval capabilities have expanded, India has stepped up bilateral naval cooperation with both Iran and Arab states in the Persian Gulf, including recent highly publicized naval patrols in the region.

Overall, India is keen—as with other major powers such as China, the EU, and Japan—to be seen as an overall friendly or neutral power that shares trading, financial, military, and political interests with all Gulf players, whether they are Persian and Shiite Muslim (Iran) or Arab and Sunni Muslim. In particular, India is not interested in stoking the Shia-Sunni or Arab-Persian divide. As with other cases, this strongly runs against the grain of the current dominant US approach.

One troubling development is the growth of major arms exports by the world’s major powers to the Gulf subregion of the Middle East. The Western powers generally supply the six Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC states (Arab Monarchies) with the best defensive and offensive conventional weapons in their arsenals, while China and Russia have supplied relatively less (but still strategically important) “niche” conventional arms to Iran, including short- and medium-range missiles.

US sales to the GCC states have been particularly high. GCC demand for such weapons is due in part to rising tensions between the Sunni Arab Monarchies and Shiite Iran, connected in part to violence between the two religious branches within conflict-ridden Iraq. China has also supplied Iran with defense technologies.

Despite these Chinese-Iranian defense ties, however, many analysts emphasize the increasingly close congruence of US and Chinese interests in the Persian Gulf, as well as congruence with the interests of all rising powers in the expanding global economy.