“Energy independence” has become an American battle cry and a veritable panacea for much that ails the United States, especially in regard to its foreign policy. It has been touted as the ideal means to counter challenges posed to America, to democracy, and to the global order by authoritarians, ranging from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamanei to unnamed “Arab sheiks.” Russia’s annexation of Crimea, for example, has been taken as evidence of the leverage provided Moscow by virtue of Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, with accompanying lamentations that the United States is as yet unable to plug a sufficient amount of the potential supply gap to embolden its European allies. But the underlying message in response to the crisis in the Ukraine and to other threats to U.S. interests is along the lines of, “Just wait, an energy independent, and hence more muscular, America is on the way.”