by Chuck Correll

Created on: December 07, 2008   Last Updated: December 29, 2010

Plenty of attention has been paid to the amount of oil our country currently imports (70% +). Some pundits have warned that depending on oil from certain foreign sources, such as those with extreme religious or political views, is a national security threat, while others diffuse this suggestion by pointing out that our largest supplier of oil is Canada, which is hardly a threat to national security. For may Americans, this true but totally misleading point is enough to make this a non-issue.

Actually, there are numerous materials in addition to oil that are critical to our country's national security and whose import percentages are alarming. Not being a national security expert, I can't say with certainty that loss of import channels would, or would not, put our country in a tenuous position. However, one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that if we leave ourselves exposed long enough, there will be certain foreign countries that will use critical materials supplies as a political or military wedge.

The numbers are enough of a concern that our newly elected government should closely review the national security implications for certain materials in light of the fact that a major global conflict between nations will likely occur in the future and the U.S. will be drawn directly into it. How would our willingness to defend an ally or help a country in need be influenced if the aggressor is a major supplier to America of steel, aluminum or oil? How vulnerable would our country be if a Muslim dominated OPEC decided to cut off oil supplies or raise the price to unforeseen levels?

While our global economy is highly intertwined and interdependent, we cannot afford to assume that the supply of certain critical materials will never be used as a political or economic weapon. The United States has used economic embargoes in the past as a weapon of political policy and it isn't unreasonable to think that perhaps Russia, Venezuela or even Saudi Arabia could do the same to us in the future.

Let's address oil first, since that particular product has been at the forefront recently. The United States possesses only 3% of the world's proven oil reserves and consumes 25% of all oil produced. The hype about drilling offshore and wherever else we can is purely a ploy to divert the anger that consumers feel about oil prices, even though prices have dropped recently. All the drilling we can muster won't significantly impact the percentage of oil our country produces

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