Recommendations

1. To assure our national security, government must take action to promotethe use of a more diverse mix of transportation fuels and to drive wider public acceptance of these alternatives.

Overreliance on oil in the transportation sector is the Achilles heel of our national security. As military professionals, we see this clearly; so do those who would do us harm. Our overreliance on this single commodity makes us vulnerable. We are vulnerable not only to price spikes, which can slow or halt our nation’s economic growth and devastate family budgets, but also to price volatility and uncertainty that can negatively affect our investment decisions. We are held hostage to price fixing by a cartel that includes actors who would do our nation harm, and we are too often called upon to risk the lives of our sons and daughters to protect fragile oil supplies from this very cartel.

One of the principal roles of the government is to provide national security. It is in this light that we must push our government to develop a nationwide strategic plan that embraces diverse fuel supplies. With the ability of OPEC to control price, market factors alone will not compel the nation to embrace diverse fuel options at the pace that is needed.

Not only will diversifying transportation fuel supplies enhance our national security, it will help maintain America’s technological and industrial edge. Choosing a multi-vectored approach can make our fuel sources—and our economy as a whole—much more flexible, adaptable, and resilient. Most importantly, it will restore choice: choice for the consumer, choice for the businessman, choice for our foreign policy makers, and choice for our nation.

Our various military experiences remind us of the value of diverse approaches. Our troops engage by
air, land, and sea. Our nuclear deterrence strategy has long relied on submarines, aircraft, and land-based missiles. Nevertheless, we continue to rely on a single type of fuel that must traverse a single path to a forward operating base—as is often the case with fuel convoys today in Afghanistan—placing our people and operations at great risk.

OPEC can increase production and drive down gas prices, erasing market incentives for developing alternative fuels. Natural price fluctuations, changes in demand, and other market factors can continue to frustrate business planning. This would not be the case if we had a diverse fuel portfolio. This is where clear market signals can play an important role by creating the necessary conditions to incubate a diverse portfolio of transport fuels. Legislation, regulation, and incentives will be required.

To those who oppose such government action, we remind them that our current dependence on oil is a clear and present threat to our national security. We challenge them to use the appropriate powers of government, teamed with the private sector, to make our nation more secure. We believe security should trump ideology.

2. In the immediate future, our nation’s leaders must develop a comprehensive energy roadmap or strategic plan to enable consistent and strategic energy policies and investments.

The scale of impact associated with our energy use is massive. The right energy choices can bring down our trade imbalance, lead to new jobs at home, launch new American-made technologies, strengthen our foreign policy hand, and increase our military and foreign policy options. These benefits are time-sensitive—waiting for a convenient time to address this challenge will weaken us while others continue to gain strength. Our security requires a national, cogent, dedicated, and sustained energy roadmap that rises above partisan politics and special interests.

Administration and congressional leaders should require that major energy policy documents address the national security implications of our energy choices. Highlighting the security aspects can help energy issues gain appropriate attention and imbue them with a realistic sense of urgency. Using the security lens, every energy policy discussion would reinforce the multiple values of actions necessary to swiftly reduce our use of oil.

The Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Energy (DOE) must continue to develop a closer relationship and a better coordinated voice. As the largest governmental consumer of energy, a properly resourced DOD has the capacity to help develop and transition many of the concepts that originate within DOE.

We use the term terms “roadmap” and “strategic plan” instead of “policy”, in part because the latter term appears to be politically charged, and in part because policies too often shift with the changing of political leadership. The nation needs a strategic plan that will transcend administrations. Policies will play a role, but only if they can be placed in the context of the larger roadmap. Military operations are built around plans. They are how we define our requirements and make our long term, strategic investments.

Military plans include options that allow one to build on successes or work around obstacles. They provide direction, but allow flexibility. The nation needs a strategic energy plan.

3. The U.S. must take swift and aggressive action to reduce our use of oil.

As part of a comprehensive energy roadmap, the Administration and Congressional leaders should work to create clear market signals that unleash America’s innovative powers to reduce oil use and increase the use of alternative fuels and vehicles. The free market is vital to innovation and economic strength, but we must take steps to ensure that market incentives favor fuels and vehicles that enhance our national security. If these policies are broad and operate across the American economy, they will not result in government picking winners and losers among fuel types; they will, however, ensure that Americans are winners.

Improving our oil efficiency offers a fast and almost immediately effective means of making great gains toward a 30 percent reduction in oil use. Efficiency can and should involve government direction; it can and should involve voluntary efforts by all Americans, too. We can work together to conserve oil, and doing so will make us safer. We’ve seen first-hand America’s ability and willingness to commit, together, to a mission—the support for our troops engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan has been both inspiring and heartwarming. We need the same level of enthusiastic support for measures—both voluntary and mandatory—that enable Americans to use less oil.

The pace of growing competition for limited supplies of world oil makes the need to reduce Americans’ overreliance all the more urgent. Even the most conservative projections of the growth of global competition for this limited resource make clear that we cannot afford to wait a decade to change our behavior. The time for our nation to act is now; this is a call to action.

4. The Department of Defense should continue to be a leader in advancing alternative transportation fuels while balancing mission effectiveness and overall efficiency. DOD must be provided the necessary resources so innovation and experimentation with alternative fuels is not traded for military capability and capacity. DOD should be provided with the necessary authority to establish long-term alternative fuel contractsas a way to assure markets and lower the alternative fuel price.

Our military’s first mission is to fight and win America’s wars. As members of the Military Advisory Board, we deliberately resist any temptation to add to or complicate this mission; we implore our political leaders to show the same restraint. At the same time, we observe that overreliance on any single commodity such as oil creates vulnerabilities that an enemy can exploit.

We find that while pursuing its war-fighting mission, there is a great deal DOD can do to lower its own overdependence on oil and improve the Department’s energy posture. Today’s American uniformed military leaders are already implementing important changes in energy use, including efficiency and the use of alternative transportation fuels. Thanks to the concerted efforts from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the services, changes are being implemented at a faster pace than envisioned, and to greater effect.

As DOD makes changes to its operational energy posture, the benefits can be counted in lives saved. As noted in our earlier reports, increases in energy efficiency on the battlefield save American lives. (Our earlier reports noted the deaths incurred by fuel convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the publication of these reports, we have noted that when our forward operating bases found ways to be more energy efficient, the fuel demand was reduced. Fewer convoys left fewer troops vulnerable.) Similarly, we believe that pursuing wider diversity in its energy sources provides a way for DOD to increase overall resilience by assuring multiple supplies of energy for military missions both at home and deployed. Additionally, a more diverse energy portfolio provides insulation from oil price swings and may improve the way we fund and outfit the military.

While we recognize the national and strategic benefits of lowering our dependence on oil, we strongly caution that our military leadership not be overly distracted by alternative fuel innovation and experimentation such that their near-term mission effectiveness becomes hindered. We see this as a balancing challenge for both our uniformed and civilian leadership. Clearly stated, we recognize and applaud DOD’s long-term, enduring interest in displacing petroleum, for both strategic and operational reasons. However, alternative fuels that do not benefit military operations in the short term should not compete with investments that do. To that end, DOD should takes steps to promote the development of drop-in alternative fuels for its forward deployed assets while ensuring that in the future, fuel-consuming equipment is capable of using alternative fuels without significant performance penalties. At the same time, we believe that DOD should aggressively move its non-deployed forces to more efficient vehicle systems and alternative fuels.

To make the best use of its forces, DOD needs adequate resources and authority to implement and sustain changes in its transportation energy posture. For example, DOD is currently limited to a maximum of five years for its fuel contracts. This is insufficient to provide industry the necessary assurance to invest in long-term and costly alternative fuel infrastructure. If DOD could instead commit to decade-long purchasing agreements, defense leaders could provide the certainty that companies need to spur investment in new technologies and infrastructure. We are encouraged by the language in the proposed Defense Authorization Act that would authorize this type of long-term contracting.

Finally, we reassert our belief that DOD can spur clean energy innovation in a measured and purposeful manner. We have seen DOD at the forefront of our previous shifts from one form of energy to the next. Be it sail to steam, coal to oil, or horse to motor vehicle, the military has led the way. Military culture and organizational disciplines provide the necessary vision, planning and motivation to successfully make these types of revolutionary changes. We are certain that a transition to clean transportation energy will be no different than the past energy transitions. We are confident that our military leadership will recognize that it must be mission first, especially when the lives of our nation’s sons and daughters hang in the balance.