If anything, the potential for conflict in such countries is likely to grow as demand for their petroleum rises. The reason is simple. Increased petroleum output in otherwise impoverished nations tends to widen the gap between haves and have-nots -- a divide that often falls along ethnic and religious lines -- and to sharpen internal political struggles over the distribution of oil revenues. Because the wealth generated by oil production is so vast, and because few incumbent leaders are willing to abandon their positions of privilege, internal struggles of this sort are prone to trigger violent clashes between competing claimants to national power. In many cases, these clashes may take the form of attacks on the oil infrastructure itself, further jeopardizing the global availability of energy. As shown in Colombia and Iraq, where raids on oil pipelines and pumping stations have become a near-daily occurrence, such infrastructure -- stretched out over miles and miles of jungle or desert -- represents an unusually vulnerable and inviting target for terrorism. Not only do such attacks deprive the prevailing regime of vital revenues, but they also constitute an assault on the United States and the large multinational corporations that are deemed responsible for so many of the developing world's afflictions. With oil demand regularly outpacing supply and disorder spreading in major producing areas, global shortages and resulting high prices are likely to become the norm, not the exception. Ideally, the United States could compensate for any shortfalls in the global availability of petroleum by increasing its reliance on other sources of energy. When producing electricity, for example, it is often possible to switch from coal to natural gas and back again. But most of our petroleum supplies are used in transportation -- mainly to power cars, trucks, buses, and planes -- and, for this purpose, oil has no readily available substitutes. Indeed, we have so organized our economy and society around the availability of cheap and abundant petroleum that we are severely ill-equipped to deal with the sort of shortages and supply disruptions that are likely to become the norm in the years ahead. It is here that the performance of the Bush administration should come in for close scrutiny. In response to the earlier energy crisis of 2001, the President appointed a National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, to analyze America's energy predicament and devise appropriate solutions. The NEPDG issued its final report, the National Energy Policy (also known as the Cheney Report), in May, 2001. How the group arrived at its final assessment is a matter of some speculation, as the administration has refused to make its deliberations public, but its conclusions are incontrovertible: rather than stress conservation and the rapid development of renewable energy sources, the report called for increased U.S. reliance on petroleum. And because domestic oil production is in an irreversible decline, any rise in American oil usage necessarily entails an increased reliance on imported petroleum. In a crude attempt to mislead the public about the nature of our oil dependency, the Cheney Report called for increasing U.S. energy "independence" by exploiting the untapped oil reserves of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other protected wilderness areas. But ANWR only possesses sufficient petroleum to provide this country with (at most) 1 million barrels per day for an estimated 15-20 years, a tiny fraction of the 20 million barrels of additional oil that will be needed to supplement domestic output in 2025. What this suggests is that the overwhelming bulk of this additional energy will have to be acquired from foreign sources. To obtain all this imported energy, the Cheney Report calls on the President and his chief associates to place a high priority on acquiring additional petroleum from producers in the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea basin, Africa, and Latin America -- that is, from regions especially susceptible to instability and anti-Americanism. As a result, we are more dependent on foreign oil in 2004 than we were in 2001, and all the indicators suggest that this dependency will only become more pronounced during Bush's second term. Yes, the administration has proposed modest investment in the development of hydrogen-powered fuel cells and other new energy systems; but, at current rates of development, these new technologies will not prove capable of substituting for oil on a significant scale during the next few decades. This means that we will face our looming energy crisis with no viable fallback measures in sight. We remain trapped in our dependence on imported oil. In the long run, the only conceivable result of this will be sustained crisis and deprivation. When, and in just what form, the United States enters the coming energy crisis cannot be foreseen. Perhaps it will be provoked by a coup d'état in Nigeria, a civil war in Venezuela, or a feud among senior princes in the Saudi royal family (possibly brought on by the impending death of King Fahd). Or it could be thanks to a major act of terrorism or a catastrophic climate event. Whatever the case, our existing energy system, already stretched to its limits, will not be able to absorb a major blow like this without considerable readjustment and pain -- or worse. While President Bush is likely to respond to a new energy crisis, as he has in the past, with renewed calls for drilling in ANWR and the further relaxation of U.S. environmental standards, nothing he has proposed to date even suggests a viable exit strategy from perpetual crisis. Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books). back