ISLAND VOICES
Almighty oil: We're in a trap

By James Weatherford

The viability of the U.S. economy is contingent on the uninterrupted availability of low-cost fossil fuels, most especially petroleum.

The share of petroleum products used in the United States that are imported hit 46.5 percent in 1977, and went down to a low of 28.8 percent in 1985 before climbing to 57.4 percent by 2002. In this context, for the United States, the cost of and reliance on imported oil is of such economic magnitude as to represent the difference between precarious affluence and certain destitution.

The seriousness of the U.S. economy's dependence on imported oil is reflected in national security policy now based on the necessity of ensuring access to foreign oil reserves. Put aside for now the practical alternative of less reliance on foreign oil. How is it proposed that access to foreign oil be ensured?

Contemporary U.S. policy has it that military invasion and occupation are legitimate means for securing access to oil reserves of other nations. Besides the unabashed self-interest of using military force to secure oil under the sands of other lands, there is yet another popular pretext for military force. This ploy is to preemptively secure foreign oil to prevent a hostile force from gaining control of those resources and using the resultant power to the harm of the global community in general, and the United States in particular.

U.S. access to foreign oil is being ensured by means of a posture of global military dominance that, in practice, does not merely serve as a defensive deterrent, but is also active in offensive operations that have real cost in public treasure and lives. This cost is not reflected in the retail price of gasoline and diesel fuel. What if the cost of an oil war were directly paid for in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel? Gasoline and diesel fuel sales would pay for tanks, ships and planes, as well as bullets, bombs and body bags; and the price of regular unleaded might get well above the $5 per gallon now fearfully whispered about.

An alternative that could also increase petroleum prices would be to allow international market forces, rather than U.S. military forces, to distribute the global oil supply.

Market forces, in the absence of military forces, could make the United States and other oil-importing nations quite vulnerable to the market power of petroleum-exporting nations.

That is, unless we no longer set aside the practical alternative of less reliance on foreign oil.

James Weatherford, Ph.D., is a rural economist who lives in Kea'au, Hawai'i.