Atlantic Council of the United States, Washington, D.C.

During the summer of 2005, I worked for the Atlantic Council of the United States , a foreign policy think tank based in Washington , D.C. Its mission, as the Council defines it, is to “promote constructive U.S. leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic community in meeting the international challenges of the 21st century.” It achieves this through hosting discussions and engaging in projects about important international issues with members of the Executive and Legislative branches, the private sector, and leaders from abroad. The Council is subdivided into various programs that concentrate on certain areas of international affairs. I worked for the Program on Economics, Energy, and the Environment. The main projects that were under development while I was there were the

“ Clean Air for Asia Project ” and “A Marshall Plan for Energy and Water Supply in Developing Countries.” Assistance on these projects was part of my duties.

My main duties were to help prepare for two major events my program had scheduled for the summer. The first event was the debut of a new book titled, “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,” by Mr. Matthew Simmons, one of the Council's board members. The book focused on concerns about the continued ability of Saudi Arabia to be a main oil producer. My responsibilities consisted of contacting the media, oil executives, and government officials who would be interested in the topic and inviting them to the book release.

I also did this for the Marshall meeting, however, I was much more deeply involved in helping to prepare for this meeting. The Marshall meeting was the second meeting of a project that began over a year ago. The concept of the plan is loosely based on the Marshall plan that was developed for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The Council's goal is to help bring more stability and security to developing countries. One of the major problems the Council perceives as preventing this from happening is the lack of adequate access to energy and clean water supplies in those countries. The concept of the Council's Marshall Plan is to provide these basic necessities to countries in need. For the project, I helped research and select a group of applicable countries to be chosen for the initial test of the plan. I prepared documents describing a country's political status, its economic background, and the current energy and water sources that it has. Along with my boss, I helped establish basic criteria to narrow down all the developing countries into a group of about 30 to be presented at the second meeting. We tried to have at least one country from each region of the world, excluding North America and Europe . After the second meeting, I took the new criteria that were established, such as the countries having a population over 5 million, a GDP per capita less than 10,000 USD, and also on the list of countries to be helped by the Millennium Challenge Corporation. I then narrowed the list down to these 12 or so countries and produced more research documents about them.

Another one of my tasks at the Council was to conduct my own research project. I initially chose energy security as a topic and then narrowed it down to the growing energy consumption by China and how it affects the United States . In my paper I describe how China's rapidly growing thirst for oil is not only tightening world oil supplies, since China's oil demand increased by 40% in 2004, but also how it is affecting the political influence of the United States and its allies. This is due to the fact that China is willing to go anywhere in the pursuit of oil. As a result, it has helped strengthen regimes like those of Sudan and Iran , regimes that the United States and its allies are trying to exert influential change upon.

Another responsibility I had was to moderate an Intern Discussion Series. The topic was the future of the United States ' energy security and I choose former director of the CIA, Mr. R. James Woolsey, as my guest speaker. He discussed the future threats the United States will face, such as the foreboding problems with oil, and gave suggestions on how to avert disaster. For example, he talked about the need to drive more efficient vehicles, including hybrid vehicles, as a means to limit our oil dependency. He also discussed the possibilities of alternative fuels and the use of coal sequestration. He stressed one of the surest ways to ensure our energy security was the alteration of the transportation system.

I believe the duties that were required of me at the internship where beneficial in achieving the goals I had established for myself in the internship proposal. I learned extensively about the United States ' energy needs and the various directions it will go in the future. I also gained a better understanding of my career interests. I realized that I am more interested in national security and potential threats to it, such as our energy vulnerability. I would like to pursue this career path after I graduate. I also realized from the internship that I would like a career that requires physical involvement instead of simply being a researcher. The internship also helped me achieve my goal of preparing for my senior project. I gained a valuable knowledge base about energy security and the threats to it that the United States will face. I also learned valuable methods of approaching the study of the topic. For example, before starting the internship I planned on researching the topic by simply breaking it down into domestic and international problems. However, since numerous countries are often energy interdependent, it was often hard to separate into the subject areas. A better way is to view energy security in the short term/long term analysis. This gives a better perspective of the numerous existing threats and then allows, if applicable, the topic to be further explored on the domestic and international level. This has given me a better concept of where to begin my senior project.

Currently, my senior project proposal needs further defining, but I am considering researching the short and long-term threats that the United States ' energy needs will present in the future. For example, I would like to highlight our oil dependency problem and how this makes the United States vulnerable in numerous ways. I would then like to research how improvements in our automobile fleet could help to curtail this problem.

Overall, I believe my summer internship experience was very advantageous. It helped me to gain a better understanding of a topic that interests me, an idea of future career aspirations, and to prepare for my senior project. I would recommend the internship program at the Atlantic Council of the United States to future Goodwin-Niering Center students.