Every government we’ve removed in an oil-producing country was replaced by something just as bad or by chaos that was worse. We don’t have the ability to fix what we break, and it’s not our place to try. If we actually wanted to help these people, we’d find ways that work, and don’t involve destroying their country.
We are good at destroying governments. We have never successfully replaced one in the Middle East.
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.
This report examines U.S. actions that meet all three of the following conditions:
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.
The spending documented in Section IV represents direct war operations. Combat ends, but costs continue. Veterans require medical care for decades. Families receive survivor benefits for lifetimes. Interest accrues on borrowed war funds regardless of outcomes. These costs are legally obligated. They will be paid whether or not the wars achieved their stated goals. The bills for regime-change operations extend far beyond the years of active conflict.
All figures below are expressed in 2024 dollars and represent current projections based on existing obligations.
This report examines U.S. regime-change wars in oil-producing countries. The justifications vary: weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, humanitarian intervention in Libya, counterterrorism across the Middle East. Oil is sometimes mentioned explicitly, more often implied through phrases like “energy security” or “strategic interests.”
But the pattern in target selection is clear: the United States intervenes militarily to overthrow governments almost exclusively in countries that produce significant oil.
North Korea has nuclear weapons and operates prison camps. The United States does not invade. Myanmar has a military junta that commits documented atrocities. The United States does not invade. Dozens of authoritarian governments abuse human rights, threaten neighbors, or destabilize regions. The United States does not invade.
Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syria all produce significant oil. The United States has conducted regime-change operations or sustained military campaigns in each.
The stated justifications for intervention vary by case. The presence of oil as a common factor does not.
This report asks whether these interventions, whatever their stated purpose, deliver oil benefits to Americans. The evidence shows they do not.
