This report is an accounting of outcomes — not an argument about motives, ideology, or intent. To ensure clarity and fairness, this section defines the report’s scope and the criteria used to evaluate costs and benefits.
Scope of the report
This report examines U.S. actions that meet all three of the following conditions:
- The United States directly intervened to overthrow, remove, or decisively weaken a foreign government
- The country targeted was a significant oil producer or held major proven oil reserves
- The intervention was justified in part by claims related to security, stability, or strategic energy interests
The report focuses on modern U.S. interventions beginning in the mid-20th century, when oil became central to global economic and military planning. Earlier conflicts fall outside this scope because oil did not yet play the same structural role.
This report does not evaluate every U.S. military action worldwide. It focuses only on regime-change or regime-destabilization efforts in oil-producing countries, because those cases are most often linked—explicitly or implicitly—to energy narratives.