What would happen if countries all of a sudden decide not to supply oil to the U.S.?

The USA will wage wars on those oil countries.What would happen if countries all of a sudden decide not to supply oil to the U.S.?
We actually import 60 percent of our oil. So we would have our own 40 percent, plus the strategic petroleum reserve, so we could last for some time. It is hard to say what would really happen, but not much good would. Good thing we are such good friends with canada, eh? (We import mostly from them, followed by saudi arabia)What would happen if countries all of a sudden decide not to supply oil to the U.S.?
If you were a little older, you'd remember the oil boycott of 1973 when that's exactly what happened. Enough countries blacklisted us that the pain was excruciating.





Buses and public transit systems neglected for years and years couldn't handle the crush loads. People ran out of gas on the highways or on the way to work and lines stretched for miles at gasoline stations, sometimes only to end with pumps running out at outrageous prices.





We haven't learned a thing from that (which followed a war in the Middle East) or the second time around ... OPEC has in its wisdom allowed us to dig our own graves.





We are worse off than ever. Public transit continues to be neglected, especially under Republican presidents. Rather than build an extensive high speed rail system, we've built more roads and more inaccessbile suburbs where only cars work.





The French, while they fall short in many areas, saw what happened and acted accordingly. They had been planning to use turboliners for their projected high speed line, but quickly decided to switch to all electric rail for high speed, fed from Nuclear power plants with an assured fuel supply. They didn't neglect roads or airports, but the rail lines take a lot of pressure off them -- and if there's a cutback in gasoline, most of France will function. Only 2 percent of their economy reliant on oil supplies.





One other thing they've done in the years since 1973 is to reward industries that have adopted much more energy efficient methods. The results in some cases have been startling. One glass factor reduced its energy consumption by 90 percent. The French have a somewhat autocratic, strong central government and they saw this as a matter of national security and they were right.





Us? We elected the village idiot from the United State of Oil Companies and we've let him wreck the economy, encourage greater oil consumption and he's burning more than we can imagine in his little war to prove he has a penis.





And he seems determined to start a war with Venezuela, one of our biggest suppliers, or to at least permanently alienate them. He's p*ssed on Canada, which supplies a lot of our oil and especially natural gas. And a lot of our politicians hae all but declared war on Mexico over immigration without looking to see how much oil we import from them.





That's a little known fact. We don't import that much oil from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is important, but it's roughly on the same scale as some of our other suppliers closer to home. We import more oil from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and West Africa than most places. But it's a global market -- if the Arabs shut us off, we don't have anywhere else to go.





We're running out of time here. 20-40 years may seem a long way off -- I'll be dead by then -- but it's come down on us like crazy. Oil and energyis about to get so much steeper than what already seem like high prices that we're going to squeak.





For now, there's enough. But we need to start moving toward real energy independence. And that doesn't mean drilling in Wildernesses. That's a mere drop in the bucket. We need more efficient industry, high speed rail (good for national security as well), high speed commuter transport and better planning of our land use so as to minimize energy consumption.





I generally don't approve of subsidies, but we could offer tax incentives for significant reductions in inefficiency. We could substitute electric cars for gasoline ones in areas where there is good public rail commuting -- and they'd be worth a subsidy i we did enough.





There are all sorts of answers to what we can do, but as it is, we're looking at catastrophe. It's just a question of when.
Someone said 'the US would wage war on those countries'. Not all that well thought out: try powering a globally deployed army without oil. We'd be crippled. Government would declare marshal law and order massive cuts in energy consumption. Severe curfews with sharp penalties for violations. The nights would be very, very dark. Dollar would collapse, and government would probably 'call in' all the gold (force citizens to turn in all non-jewelry gold for some form of nominal payment, as it did in 1931).





The reason for marshal law, curfews etc., and energy restrictions is that without all this, the entire country would go dark within a few months, the price of food would go straight to the stratosphere (which it would do anyway), and if we weren't forced to stay in our homes and starve to death, we'd be in the streets shooting each other. Which would probably be happening on some scale anyway.





If we DID try to wage war -- which I suppose we might -- we'd have to get real, real lucky, because if it's a LOT of countries withholding oil from the US, reason dictates those countries would be resolved to stand together against us, militarily AND adequately supplied with oil, no matter who we attacked.





It's too scary a scenario to even contemplate, even tho I just did.
dude kaos it would be like mad max out here in a week
The US would just take it anyway. Why do you think the US is invading Iraq