Politics & Power Quote by Daniel Yergin

Energy security is one of those policy phrases that sounds reassuring precisely because it’s so vague, and Daniel Yergin is calling that bluff. His insistence on a “common vocabulary” isn’t a plea for semantics; it’s an admission that the argument is already rigged by competing definitions. If Washington hears “energy security” and thinks aircraft carriers, chokepoints, and leverage over petrostates, it will reach for geopolitical tools: alliances, sanctions, supply diversification with strategic intent. If Brussels hears the same words and thinks winter heating bills and pipeline dependence, it will reach for market design, storage, interconnectors, and regulatory bargaining power.

The subtext is that without shared terms, transatlantic alignment becomes performative. Leaders can claim unity while pursuing incompatible priorities. “Security” becomes a rhetorical umbrella under which fossil fuel expansion, renewables investment, nuclear restarts, LNG terminals, and climate pledges all shelter at once, even when they collide. Yergin’s framing also hints at why energy debates so often stall: participants aren’t disagreeing only on solutions; they’re disagreeing on the problem itself.

Context matters here. Yergin’s career has tracked how energy systems double as political systems, and the European focus on imported natural gas carries the shadow of supply shocks and coercion risk, not just price volatility. His point lands as a quiet warning: if Americans treat Europe’s gas dependence as a technical inconvenience, and Europeans treat U.S. energy strategy as mere power projection, they’ll keep talking past each other while the real vulnerabilities harden into infrastructure.