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General: Dependence on oil a ‘serious’ national security threat

With gasoline prices at five-year lows, it’s easy to lose sight of the realities of U.S. dependence on oil. We’re still beholden to other nations for much of our supply; we still have to expend much energy and resources defending the free flow of oil around the world; and we still need the long-term solution of alternative fuels to keep prices low.

One person who’s done a lot of thinking about this is retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Ronald Keys, who lays out the argument for reducing our consumption of oil in a guest piece for The Hill. Keys, who spent 40 years in the Air Force (and flew combat missions in Vietnam), is now chairman of the Military Advisory Board at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit military research group.

Keys writes:

Our nation’s over dependence on oil is a serious threat to our national security—militarily, diplomatically, and economically. It limits our ability to act on the world stage and increases the likelihood that we will send Americans in uniform into harm’s way. It leaves us open to impacts from wildly gyrating prices …

And:

Importing less oil will loosen the bonds that tie us to regimes that don’t always have our nation’s best interests at heart. That will make it easier for the United States to act in its own national interest on the world stage, and make it less likely that we will have to send troops to defend the free flow of oil.

And:

Oil prices will always fluctuate, but the need to cut our nation’s oil dependency will endure. This need doesn’t get any less urgent just because pump prices tick downwards for a while.