While on a net basis the United States imports nearly 60 percent of the oil it consumes, this reliance on imported oil is not by itself a major national security threat, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

The study finds that the economic costs of a major disruption in global oil supplies—including higher prices for American consumers—pose the greatest risk to the United States.

“The fact that the United States imports nearly three-fifths of its oil does not pose a national security threat,” said Keith Crane, the study’s lead author and senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “There is an integrated world oil market, and embargoes do not work. But a large, extended drop in the global supply of oil would trigger a sharp rise in oil prices and significantly affect the United States, no matter how much or how little oil the United States imports.”

The RAND study evaluates commonly suggested links between oil imports and U.S. national security, and assesses the economic, political and military costs and benefits of potential policies to address threats to U.S. national security associated with imported oil. The work was sponsored by U.S. Institute for 21st Century Energy, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As with all of RAND’s work, the study’s conclusions were reached independently.

The report finds that the two most serious threats to U.S. economic security are a large disruption in global oil supplies and higher consumer costs associated with the disruption.

Links to PDF documents are below:

http://rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG838.pdf

http://rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG838.sum.pdf