ABSTRACT
In 2006, the prestigious journal Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress surveyed “America’s top foreign policy experts” to find out how the United States was faring in the war on terror (Foreign Policy 2006). The survey was motivated by an apparent contradiction between the Bush administration’s declaration that the “war on terror is being won” and its warning that “another attack is inevitable.” What is remarkable about the survey is that 82 percent of the experts interviewed by Foreign Policy agreed that “Becoming less dependent on foreign sources of energy will strengthen national security.” What is even more remarkable is that 90 percent of the public agreed with the experts on the threat to national security from dependence on foreign sources of energy – the only matter of national security on which both the general public and the experts agree. Those experts saw that the “single most pressing priority in winning the war on terror” resided in ending the dependence of the US on foreign oil, more pressing than “killing terrorist leaders,” “promoting democracy in the Muslim world” and “stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons.” Sixty-four percent of those experts believed (in 2006) that US energy policies have actually made things worse as US oil imports appeared to fund terrorism.
