[rmlew]

And how could we have done that?
We cannot shut ourselves off from the petroleum market. We could not ignore the Soviet threat.

[Age of Reason]

And how could we have done that? We cannot shut ourselves off from the petroleum market.

I think we could have.

Being dependent on imported oil was a new thing--until around 1960 or 1970, most of our oil was domestic.

All we needed to do was stop wasting energy, lessen demand for energy by ending population growth from immigration, and develop alternative energy sources--which could have been as simple as bicycles or as complex as fusion reactors.

We could not ignore the Soviet threat.

The Soviet Union was much less of a threat than we thought.