Editors' Foreword.

The evolution of human societies is dependent upon the conversion of ever more concentrated and more versatile forms of energy.... Neither the growth of technical capabilities and a deeper understanding of the surrounding world nor the effort to secure a better quality of life would have been successful without innovations in energy use.(1)

Access to energy sources and the technology to exploit them are the basic prerequisites of modern society. Yet this is all too often taken for granted. Certainly economic development depends on political stability, the rule of law, competitive markets and wise macroeconomic policy, but without the fuel to power this transformation even the most vigorous economy grinds to a halt. In its more than 50 years of publishing, the Journal of International Affairs has never devoted a single issue to the topic of energy, though we've come close, with explorations of "Technology and International Policy" (Spring 1998) and "The Global Environment" (Winter 1991). Despite this fact, each of the articles in the present volume might have fit seamlessly into any one of our previous issues in the last ten years--testament to the myriad ways in which energy issues inform all aspects of international affairs.

The oil shocks of the 1970s put energy high atop the list of policy priorities, with U.S. President Jimmy Carter declaring energy conservation efforts "the moral equivalent of war." The bold price increases engineered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Arab oil embargo against the United States sparked fears of an imminent energy shortage, while the rampant nationalization of energy industries throughout the developing world demonstrated once and for all that power from energy remained subject to the power of politics. Today--with oil again relatively inexpensive and abundant in the industrialized countries, OPEC in seeming disarray and most overt forms of resource nationalism nearing dissolution--the word "crisis" is no longer commonly associated with energy.

Appearances, however, can be deceptive. In the several months since the editorial board of the Journal decided on this theme, energy issues have recaptured the headlines on numerous occasions: "merger mania" in the oil industry as Exxon and Mobil, as well as British Petroleum and Amoco, joined forces; DaimlerChrysler's unveiling of the first driveable, zero-emission automobile run on the hydrogen fuel cell; OPEC's first agreement in more than a decade committing its members to production cutbacks; and the continuing debate on how the industrialized countries will achieve the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions promised at the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in 1997.

The Journal prides itself on its unique single-topic format. It is our aim in choosing the theme for each issue that we hit upon a consequential and timely subject in international affairs. We believe that, though it has often been neglected, energy is such a topic, and that its importance will in time--and with the earnest efforts of the esteemed academics and practitioners we publish--be made manifest. Today energy is too often recognized only by its absence or its excess. In other words, energy is like national security: when one has it, it is easy to ignore, but the moment one loses it, its importance is quickly revealed. As we approach the 21st century and attempt to divine the major currents in international affairs for the foreseeable future and...