Americans used to assume that whenever a hostile regime seized Middle Eastern oil fields, we would simply send in the Marines to trounce the troublemakers and rescue the oil. But now we see that their networks are diffuse and difficult to disrupt. And we're more aware than ever that our energy infrastructure is vulnerable to cheap, low-tech means of attack - as simple as jumping a fence or firing at a pipeline.

The lion's share of world oil reserves - 77% - lies beneath the desert sands of a handful of Persian Gulf sheikhdoms. As the world depletes non-OPEC oil, the market share of those regimes will only grow - a dependence that makes supply disruptions all the more attractive to terrorists. Moreover, our oil addiction forces us into unholy alliances with untrustworthy allies that inflict repression on their own people and intolerance on everyone else. Nuclear power alternatives are now prime targets for terrorist disasters.

• The U.S. spends $30 to $60 billion a year guarding Middle Eastern pipelines to import just $10 billion worth of oil. The real price at the pump is several times what we think we're paying.
  
  
• The Bush energy plan would double oil imports over the next forty years.
  
  
• If the average car got 40 mpg, we'd save as much oil as the U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf.

Up to now, we've sought to insure against politically inspired supply disruptions by policing oil fields and supporting unsavory regimes in unstable regions around the globe while drilling in environmentally sensitive wild lands at home. But many experts argue that conservation and increased energy efficiency represent the quickest, cheapest, and cleanest route to national energy security, reducing both pollution and the risks of foreign wars. Utilizing available technologies could reduce oil use by 20 % while boosting the economy.

How much blood and money is it worth to keep import prices at "acceptable" levels and conceal from ourselves the true costs of "cheap" gas? Are there simpler and safer steps we can take to increase our energy security?