Volume 28, Number 5 · April 2, 1981
Insolvent America
By James Chace
Our response to the oil crises, of the 1970s was dangerously reminiscent of our behavior during the Vietnam war. In both cases, we were profligate. Waging the Vietnam war to contain communist expansion, we expended lives and treasure and spread destruction in a region that was hardly vital to our national interest. In refusing to curb our use of imported oil, we not only put ourselves in economic jeopardy through inflation but we made ourselves dependent on oil supplies far away from us, and controlled by unstable governments adjacent to Soviet forces whose geographical proximity gave them a clear tactical advantage.
Feature, 5788 words
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