An overview of the energy security debate brings forth genuine differences of policy orientation, flowing from the several paradigms, and occurring in at least three key areas. First, to what extent does the old energy security model fulfils the domestic or global energy problem. Second, how much influence does it assign to the United States as a powerful actor in the world oil market? Third, what policy instruments are available and best suited to achieve domestic and foreign policy requirements? There is no definite agreement among scholars on these questions. The responses vary depending upon the different paradigms, which is applied to examine the issue.

Whether a paradigm, or more appropriately, a personal operational code informed by a paradigm interprets the oil problem as a foreign policy or domestic issue can have important consequences for the general orientation of energy policy. If defined as international in cause and cure, then one set of national goals emerges as primary: perhaps “breaking OPEC” or restraining its international economic and political influence, forging an anti OPEC consumer alliance or developing a rapid deployment force. If, on the other hand, the oil problem is primarily domestic, other imperatives come to the fore, such as national industrial adaptation to higher prices or a program of demand restraint. Each interpretation also implies the mobilization of a specific constituency and the alienation of another.