Please join the Atlantic Council’s New American Engagement Initiative on Tuesday, June 1st at 12pm EST for a virtual discussion of the linkages between oil, gas, and international security, based on Senior Fellow Emma Ashford’s new book, Oil, the State and War.

Oil-rich states are key actors in world affairs: they are more likely to start wars, their wealth props up the global arms trade, and they can often derive great diplomatic leverage from their exports of natural resources. These factors could not be more visible in today’s world: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted not only the malign purposes to which some petrostates put their oil wealth, but also the challenges for the global economy in sanctioning a major global oil and gas exporter like Russia. This panel will explore the connections between oil and international security, and ask whether the war in Ukraine marks a major change in the international political economy of oil and gas markets.