Why Washington's power will increase.

• Author: Zoakos, Criton
• Position: OFF THE NEWS - Conference notes - Brief article

The February 1-3 annual Wehrkunde Munich Security Conference, where the world's top defense and foreign ministers met, placed on center stage the implications of the emergence of the United States as a dominant energy producer with a conference panel titled "The American Oil and Gas Bonanza: The Changing Geopolitics of Energy."

A report from the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) discussed in the hallways at the conference has, according to Der Spiegel, offered some startling conclusions:

"Washington's discretionary power in foreign and security policy will increase substantially as a result of the country's new energy riches .... [T]he political threat potential of oil...