The Role of the Government in Meeting Military Energy Needs: A Literature Review of Defense Energy Strategies and Policies

Abstract

This study employed a qualitative approach with a systematic literature review design, involving peer-reviewed journal articles, institutional policy documents, and academic monographs selected through purposive sampling based on criteria of temporal relevance and thematic specificity, with priority given to sources published between 2010 and 2024. Data were collected using systematic documentary analysis and analyzed using a two-stage process combining descriptive thematic mapping and comparative cross-contextual analysis. The findings indicate that legislative mandates produce more durable defense energy reform outcomes than administrative directives; that a persistent and consequential gap exists between declared policy objectives and actual budget appropriations, with reactive rather than anticipatory budgeting constituting the dominant pattern across cases; that a portfolio approach combining diversification, efficiency reform, and renewable integration rather than any single strategy best addresses the full range of operational demands; and that the body of defense energy policy knowledge has developed almost entirely through Western, high-income defense establishment experience, generating frameworks that require reconceptualization rather than direct translation for developing-country contexts. This study also provides opportunities for further research on the institutional and political conditions shaping defense energy policy development across ASEAN member states.