The JUICE (Japan, US, India, China) energy entities are influential energy consumers in the international system. JUICE may be divided into two main categories, the fast-growing and newly emerging economies, including India and China, and the developed advanced economies, including Japan and the US. It may be possible to discuss the JUICE constituents in a realist framework, if they are described in terms of weaknesses and strengths that they have vis-a-vis each other in energy, other natural resources, their geopolitical reach to these resources and the ability to keep and maintain that reach. That discussion would be useful to establish a descriptive paradigm of the JUICE constituents, which are not only major energy consumers but also influential states in their own right.

It may also be possible to focus on the complementarity qualities each JUICE constituents has and to look, not in terms of weaknesses and strengths, but the inherent contradictions embodied in each of these constituents. It may, thereafter, be useful to examine the complementarity between them in terms of energy, whether in environmental technologies, usage or common needs. Realism promotes a zero-sum perspective that may be reflective of the competitive nature of states and their economies. The principle of ‘complementarity’ allows us to look at the element of coexistence, and to learn to live with energy giants in the age that inquires as to sustainability. In the process of nurturing coexistence we should expect a fair share of conflicts, tensions, cooperation and accommodation.