Energy security is essential not only to the military but to the nation as well. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted the critical, dangerous, and enormous requirement for fuel to sustain combat operations on a daily basis. The recently approved Department of Defense (DoD) Operational Energy Strategy in May 2011 will require DoD Components to culturally change the way they operate with respect to having more fight with less fuel, more options with less risks, and more capability with less costs. In the book Leading Change, the author John Kotter outlines eight steps for creating major change within an organization, and this will be used as a framework for examining DoD's Operational Energy Strategy. From this examination, this paper proposes three recommendations as part of cultural change within DoD associated with the Operational Energy Strategy that involve reviewing pending national energy legislation, adding specific tasks to DoD Universal Joint Task List and Army Universal Task List, and ensuring that Joint and DoD Component's leaders continue to support this strategy. These three recommendations will help ensure cultural change is enduring for the years ahead that follow the 2011 Operational Energy Strategy.

This path-breaking volume explores cultures of energy, the underlying but under-appreciated dimensions of both crisis and innovation in resource use around the globe. Theoretical chapters situate pressing energy issues in larger conceptual frames, and ethnographic case studies reveal energy as it is imagined, used, and contested in a variety of cultural contexts. Contributors address issues including the connection between resource flows and social relationships in energy systems; cultural transformation and notions of progress and collapse; the blurring of technology and magic; social tensions that accompany energy contraction; and sociocultural changes required in affluent societies to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Each of five thematic sections concludes with an integrative and provocative conversation among the authors. The volume is an ideal tool for teaching unique, contemporary, and comparative perspectives on social theories of science and technology in undergraduate and graduate courses.

Energy is an enabler of – and a constraint on – military power. Operational Energy provides military officers with knowledge and skills to plan effectively for the operational energy needs of their forces. Operational energy is the energy used to train, move, and sustain military forces and weapons platforms for military operations. Energy has always played a role in battlefield outcomes. Over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries the importance of energy in warfighting has grown. Today, energy is a critical pillar of national defense and a major factor in military power. In modern warfare, attaining energy superiority over one’s adversaries is a critical condition for success on the battlefield. Operational energy planning is an integral part of all combat and regular operations. Operational Energy is a valuable and extensive resource for students of US Department of Defense courses in military universities, colleges, and academic training programs; scholars of geopolitics, and researchers on US and global energy security. Operational Energy is to date the only textbook on defense energy planning, analysis, and strategy. It examines in detail fuel types, geopolitical issues, energy supply risks, market economic factors, and technology, presenting topics for future research. It also includes chapter summaries, main points for study, and case studies.

The business world is undergoing dramatic change that is driven by tough new legislation, expanded market based incentives and increased consumer awareness of environmental issues (e.g., hazard ingredients in products, alternative energy, reduction in greenhouse gases). This is forcing companies to reassess the life cycle of their products and the efficiency of their supply chains. Environmental issues are becoming business critical. Good to Green provides the vital information, backed by case studies and examples, that gives progressive business leaders the strategic know-how to pro-actively manage environmental issues and realize the business benefits of going green.

Powering the Armed Forces offers a perspective on the impressive work now under way in the US military forces to address energy challenges and ultimately achieve energy security. Drawn from a Hoover Institution conference in December 2011, contributors to the book include senior defense officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Departments of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, as well as representatives from the National Defense University and Naval Postgraduate School. The authors discuss energy security and the defense department’s contribution to energy issues from the strategic level to the operational and tactical battlefield environment. They reveal how energy critically relates to our national security mission and to the effectiveness and safety of our men and women fighting on land, at sea, and in the air. Most importantly, they show that the defense department is committed to improving our nation’s energy position and to demonstrating its ability to influence events through its commitment to sound policies and tangible contributions across the spectrum of energy security.