What you're missing is that a substantial cut in oil supply to Western European nations would not have as big an impact on their economies as ours. Yes, their economies aren't as big, but their energy use structure is also different. They'd feel a hurt, but not as big as the hurt we'd feel.
There is a good reason that a lot fewer Europeans drive SUVs than Americans. I don't care if that's good or bad, but there's definitely a reason.
They drive fewer SUVs because they don't camp as much.
Summarizing your other posts, you expect high gas taxes to give us a moribund economy, but with more mass transit. What a vision for America!
You're absolutely right about Europe being different. Last I heard, France currently gets around 2/3 to 3/4 of its power from nuclear. No wonder they have so much experience left over to build reactors for other countries (coughcough THE MIDDLE EAST coughcough).