The idea that energy independence would allow America to shelter itself from entanglements abroad never seemed like more than an election-year promise when gas prices had spiked. It was more a thing about pride than practicality. In the future, perhaps it won’t be who controls the oil but maybe who has the water or the grain or the technology or whatever. And even if we have everything we need on the domestic front, we still won’t be isolationists. From Benjamin Alter and Edward Fishman in the New York Times:

“JUST as the world was writing off America as a declining power, the country now finds itself on the cusp of realizing one of its longstanding goals: energy independence.

A wave of new technologies has made it possible to extract oil and gas from shale rock formations, and the results have been astonishing. By some estimates, the United States is on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer as early as 2017, start exporting more oil and gas than it imports by 2025, and achieve full energy self-sufficiency by 2030.

American politicians in both parties have long dreamed of energy independence — not only for its potential economic benefits, but also because it could free the United States from the vicissitudes of the outside world.

Last March, President Obama said that new energy sources and technologies would make America ‘less dependent on what’s going on in the Middle East.’ The Romney campaign, meanwhile, argued that energy independence would mean that ‘the nation’s security is no longer beholden to unstable but oil-rich regions halfway around the world.’

But that is a fantasy. While the latest energy revolution will be a boon to America’s economy, it will in no way allow the United States to turn its back on the rest of the world.

That’s because America’s oil and gas bonanza will drive down global energy prices, undercutting the foundations of petrostates everywhere.”