The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin announced today it has received a $250,000 grant from the Confidence Foundation to support its Global Energy and Security Issues research program. The program is designed to study the geopolitics of energy and identify practical policy solutions to the global challenges of energy security in the 21st century. The grant will be used to fund research projects, fellowships, conferences and collaborative workshops on energy issues.

“The question of energy ““ its availability, its location, its environmental effects, its role in the world economy, and the potentially dangerous competition between states who acquire it ““ will perhaps be the most important international security issue that the United States and the world will face in the decades to come,” Strauss Center Director of Studies Francis J. Gavin said.

“These are complex issues spanning a variety of disciplines. The Strauss Center’s multidisciplinary approach will bring together experts from UT’s top-rated policy and energy science programs to look at these tough issues.”

One of the projects funded by the grant will analyze the security of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea passage between Iran and Oman. Each day, 17 million barrels of oil transit the Strait, and Iran has repeatedly threatened that in a crisis, it would cause an oil shock by closing it down. Just last month, armed Iranian speedboats threatened to blow up U.S. Navy warships in the Strait. Strauss Senior Fellow Eugene Gholz is working with a group of students from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs to evaluate the potential effectiveness of an Iranian attempt to disrupt shipping and to consider ways to enhance the international community’s ability to protect traffic in the Strait. The report will be published in Summer 2008.