Also, if you have your own overflowing domestic supply, and plenty of refineries (as we did in the past), then, like with a full SPR, you can cruise over the rough stretches.
But if you domestic production is way down, refineries are closed and none built, and the SPR depleted as a cheap political trick....
Your country is screwed.
(All three of the supply corners wrecked, “by accident,” or on purpose? Sabotage.)
The SPR is a political trick, and it has been so for many decades, but “depleting” that has had only a marginal effect, if any, on current shortages of refined products.
The US is screwed for much bigger and broader reasons than that. The inability to construct refineries is just a symptom of an entire social system curdling into decadence and paralysis. “Decadence” here doesnt mean just sexual excess.