This grant supports a project by Michael Levy, Director of the Council on Foreign Relations' program on Energy Security and Climate Change, to institute a major research program on challenges facing the United States at the intersection of energy and national security and the policy options available for addressing them, with a particular focus on oil. Funds will support the work of a full-time fellow at the Council, one to two adjunct fellows, and several outside scholars commissioned to do analysis and research. Other funds will support a series of roundtables and workshops designed to facilitate information sharing among the community of researchers and to expose interested younger scholars to work in the field, and outreach efforts designed to educate journalists, government officials, industry stakeholders, and the public. The proposed research agenda will cover several areas, including: ? understanding the security consequences of oil production, consumption, and trade; ? analyzing U.S. policies that could promote reduced demand for oil, including in developing countries; ? understanding major oil producing countries, especially Iraq and Iran; and ? assessing policies that maintain or strengthen the functioning of oil markets and the geopolitics of natural gas. In total, this project promises to make a major contribution to the ongoing discussions of energy security in the United States and should raise the quality of this discussion significantly.