This study argues that the war on terror can be explained as an effort to cement the U.S. dollar as the world’s foremost reserve currency by expanding American control over the global energy markets. Since the 1970s, the states of OPEC agreed to denominate their oil sales in U.S. dollars in exchange for American military protection. The 9/11 attacks gave the U.S. cover to eliminate current challengers to this system while simultaneously striking new security agreements with host states throughout the Middle East, Africa, and central Asia that are critical to the extraction, sale, and transportation of energy to global markets. However, the U.S. security guarantee soon created a moral hazard problem. Since the host states had American protection, they were free to engage in corrupt behaviors—while labeling their political opponents as terrorists. To make matters worse, these states had incentives to keep terrorists in their territory, given that doing so would force the U.S. to protect them indefinitely. As a result of this moral hazard problem, terrorists in the host states gradually grew in power and transitioned to insurgencies, which caused a rapid escalation in violence. Facing the increasing cost of securing the host states, the U.S. was forced to scale back its security guarantee, which in turn contributed to greater violence in the energy market. Although the U.S. began the war to maintain its economic dominance, it now finds itself locked into a seemingly permanent war for its economic security.
