In this article considering political, social, environmental, as well as economic and technological factors, we introduce a new approach in analyzing and resolving the world energy problem. We focus on the United States and selected members of OPEC-namely, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. We describe a "forward" and a "backward" process. In the forward process, possible future strategies and counterstrategies of each actor are matched against one another and analyzed for their effectiveness and stability. In the backward process, using previously derived information, desired scenarios for the actors are compared, the problems facing the attainment of each scenario are identified, and policies which could resolve these problems are formulated and assigned priorities.