The lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national security. Major energy suppliers - from Russia to Iran to Venezuela - have been increasingly able and willing to use their energy resources to pursue their strategic and political objectives. Major energy consumers - notably the United States, but other countries as well - are finding that their growing dependence on imported energy increases their strategic vulnerability and constrains their ability to pursue a broad range of foreign policy and national security objectives. Dependence also puts the United States into increasing competition with other importing countries, notably with today's rapidly growing emerging economies of China and India. At best, these trends will challenge U.S. foreign policy; at worst, they will seriously strain relations between the United States and these countries.