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This chapter traces U.S. coercive vulnerability, which fluctuated across six distinct cases from 1918 until the volatile 1970s. Though blessed with generous oil resources, the United States nevertheless encountered periods where its oil security was threatened by a substantial petroleum deficit, a possible disruption of Persian Gulf oil, or both, creating a need for strategic anticipation. The United States never resorted to direct control because, thanks to its singular oil endowment, coercive vulnerability never exceeded moderate levels. This remained true even when the United States assumed the mantle of defender of Europe after World War II, which substantially increased its petroleum demand. Yet, the United States did pursue a sustained policy of indirect control to protect Free World access to Middle East oil from potential Soviet interference. The country also embraced self-sufficiency at two junctures of lesser vulnerability, when flawed geological studies suggested that a mild petroleum deficit would soon emerge.

This chapter explains the book's theory and identifies the two independent variables that drive the choice of anticipatory strategies: the petroleum deficit and the threat to oil imports. When combined, these two independent variables determine the state's overall coercive vulnerability. The chapter also discusses how the military value of oil is a necessary condition to explain great power behavior. The economic value of oil, while important, is not sufficient to explain why states pursue anticipatory strategies. The chapter then looks at the three categories of anticipatory strategy from which states select: self-sufficiency, indirect control, and direct control. Ultimately, a state will choose the lowest cost anticipatory strategy capable of fulfilling its oil security needs, given its degree of vulnerability. Finally, the chapter considers whether oil is “different” from other resources.

This chapter examines the book's theory further by using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis methods, which test for necessary and sufficient causal relationships using the logic of set theory. The data confirm the hypothesis that both the petroleum deficit and the threat to imports must be substantial to trigger anticipatory strategies. Thus, the results reinforce the findings from the previous chapters that coercive vulnerability, as determined by the petroleum deficit and import disruption threat, spurs great powers to adopt anticipatory strategies to reduce the danger of oil coercion. Moreover, the severity of the strategy chosen is consistent with the level of coercive vulnerability faced by the state. The more extreme the deficit and import disruption threat, the more extreme the strategy chosen; the less extreme the deficit and threat, the less extreme the strategy chosen.

This chapter discusses British oil policy before World War I. In the decade before World War I, the British government was becoming increasingly aware of the importance of oil for military power. But few officials anticipated that oil would become so indispensable to war that a country would be unable to prevail in a conflict without it. The chapter then analyzes Britain's choice to pursue a direct-control strategy in late 1918 by invading Mesopotamia. Dire vulnerability, underpinned by a yawning petroleum deficit and Britain's severe susceptibility to blockade as an island nation, spurred the government to accept the high costs and risks of securing oil with this most extreme strategy.

This concluding chapter explores the implications of the theory for great power politics as China continues to rise in the twenty-first century. If significant quantities of Persian Gulf oil could be realistically transported overland, away from U.S. naval interference, then the future threat to Chinese imports would remain low. Combined with a petroleum deficit that is likely to be large, Chinese coercive vulnerability could be held to a moderate level. Moderate coercive vulnerability should induce China to pursue indirect control as it emerges as a great power. Thus, the theory predicts that China is likely to eventually forge alliances with major oil-producing countries and transit states to keep oil in “friendly hands.” As yet, China is too militarily weak to shield friendly oil-producing states from interference by the United States or other potential rivals, but the beginnings of an alliance-based strategy appear to be taking shape under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), described by some analysts as a nascent framework for twenty-first-century Chinese grand strategy.