[steve-b]

Precisely. National security always distorts the free market to some degree (if only because the government needs to collect taxes in order to pay for it), but is nevertheless essential.

A bit of economic distortion calculated to (in the short run) reduce the revenue to hostile regimes and (in the long run) replace oil-based fuels altogether so that these regimes would have their air supply choked off is definitely the lesser of the two available evils.

[DManA]

You grossly underestimate the distortion we are talking about.