Cold War political scientist and diplomat George Kennan once defined “national security” as “the continued ability of this country to pursue its internal life without serious interference.”
From that standpoint, America’s ever deepening reliance on imported oil–particularly from the Middle East–ranks as a serious and immediate threat to national security. Given the influence of extremists and the general instability in areas that are also principal suppliers of oil to the U.S., it is not a stretch to draw a parallel between oil dependence and vulnerability to terrorism.
Reducing America’s gluttonous consumption of imported oil is clearly in the national interest, and the nation ought to tackle this challenge with the same urgency and determination as any other threat to vital military or economic interests. The U.S. ought to put reduction of its dependence on imported oil at the center of the table–with all options available, from measures to reduce consumption to programs to tap domestic energy sources.
The campaign in Afghanistan has progressed faster than anyone expected. But it’s hardly over. Osama bin Laden and the top Taliban leaders are still at large. Strategists in Washington are said to be revving the military engines for action elsewhere in the Middle East, with Iraq as the most likely target.
Though Saddam Hussein’s megalomania is clearly a threat, it is Iraq’s location–at the crossroads of the Middle East’s immense oil fields–that makes him loom disproportionately large in the American foreign policy map. Indeed, the U.S. spends $30 billion to $60 billion a year in military equipment, direct aid and personnel, trying to balance all our policy plates spinning simultaneously in the Middle East.
As the world’s only superpower, the U.S. would be involved in those countries to some extent, but it’s safe to say this nation wouldn’t be spending nearly that kind of money and energy if the chief exports of Iraq and Saudi Arabia were cashews.
Every president since Jimmy Carter–who declared the energy crisis “the moral equivalent of war”–has paid lip service to energy independence, sometimes vehemently but often perfunctorily. When gasoline prices drop, everyone forgets there is a crisis.
In the long term, such zigzag strategy amounts to no strategy at all. Most measures to reduce oil consumption will require at least a decade to take full effect. A comprehensive energy independence strategy is needed now.
The U.S. imports 52 percent of the oil it uses–up from 42 percent just 20 years ago–and approximately one-fourth of the oil imported today comes from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. Oil consumption per dollar of gross domestic product in the U.S. is 40 percent higher than in comparably developed countries like France and Germany.
American dependence is bound to increase because those three countries, plus the United Arab Emirates, have more than half of the known world’s oil reserves, and their market share will expand in coming years as oil supplies in some other regions are exhausted. The U.S., meanwhile, has only 2 percent of the world reserves. Some experts predict that continuing the same trend of consumption will leave America having to import up to 70 percent of its oil by 2020. The lion’s share of those imports will necessarily have to come from the Middle East, which has the world’s largest reserves.
About 78 percent of the petroleum the U.S. imports goes into transportation, a relatively narrow segment of the economy where most efforts to increase energy efficiency must be focused.
The U.S. imports approximately 11 million barrels of oil a day, or approximately one-seventh of global production. One economist estimated that if the U.S. had made a sustained effort to improve fuel efficiency after the 1973 energy crisis, daily oil consumption today might have been reduced by as much as half.
There is an irony in seeing monster sport-utility vehicles, some with Edsel-like fuel consumption ratings of 10 or 12 m.p.g., driving down the road bedecked with flags. They illustrate the contradiction in American energy policy that allows greater energy consumption, even as that endangers security.
The steps to reduce that dependency have to be wide-ranging, effective and sustained: Half-measures, or merely waiting for the guy next door to take action, won’t solve the problem.
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First of two parts. Coming Tuesday: The steps America needs to take to protect itself.
