ABSTRACT
Contemporary discussions of energy security are bounded by complex and inconsistent assumptions about the relationship between war and international commerce. The most important is the belief that the growth of international trade has a stabilizing and pacifying effect on international relations. This outlook has a long history, briefly surveyed below. It also has the additional validation of having underlain American foreign policy throughout its tenure as a major actor on the international stage. Although there have always been those who have held that rivalries originating in the marketplace might easily bleed over into the battlefield, such episodes, when they have occurred, have come to be regarded as symptomatic of political under-development, or as irrational attempts to swim against the tide of history. This historical picture is widely regarded as reassuring.
