Red Adair fire fighting crew work on a blown-out well damaged by retreating Iraqi soldiers in Al-Ahmadi oil field in southern Kuwait, March 29, 1991. Romeo Gacad | AFP | Getty Images

As the North American shale boom propels domestic production to near 9 million barrels per day, some believe that America's geostrategic interests could realign—and focus more inward. While still in its infancy, the U.S. oil and gas boom is credited with offsetting supply disruptions from conflict-ridden places such as Iraq and Libya. Despite turmoil there and in other petroleum-exporting countries, U.S. oil prices have remained remarkably stable.

Read MoreObama: Major step forward in Iraq

In a note this week, Bank of America Merrill Lynch posed the question of whether the U.S. energy surge will keep the country out of foreign entanglements—if it will, in effect, bring about an "isolationism" that could create a geopolitical void as the U.S. retrenches militarily. "Can the U.S. preserve geopolitical stability?" the bank asked in a research note. Noting that the U.S. still has 30 far-flung outposts across six continents, BofA wrote that "America still takes up 38 percent of global military spending, but appetite for foreign adventures is low."

For decades, U.S. security interests in petro-states have been broadly defined as keeping energy supplies secure, and projecting "hard power" in the process. That has triggered repeated criticism that conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere were being waged exclusively for oil. Regardless, many experts feel that not much will change. Although the geopolitical backdrop has been altered—America's reliance on imports is at its lowest levels in nearly 20 years—analysts and officials say the U.S. still has compelling interests to defend in the relentlessly rocky Mideast. Read MoreThe oil spike that wasn't: Prices defy global turmoil "It's not simply a matter of what we import ... it's what happens to the global economy if oil prices suddenly peak," said Anthony Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The strategic regions for being in the Gulf haven't really changed very much."

Cordesman, who chairs the CSIS' strategy center, pointed out that the Energy Information Administration's baseline forecasts see the U.S. importing at least 32 percent of its oil through 2040.