as a proportion of total energy consumption. Petroleum accounts for 42 percent of total American energy con sumption (Energy Information Administration, 1990). American production of petroleum accounts for less than 50 percent of the country's petroleum consumption (Energy Information Admin istration, 1990). Net petroleum imports, account for 22.2 per cent of total American energy consumption, and 97 percent of American energy imports (Energy Information Administration, 1990).
American dependency on foreign energy sources is not the only energy related concern with respect to national security. The energy surplus and deficit characteristics of both the country's friends and its potential enemies are also important. 3 The United States, Canada, and Western Europe have a col lective 38.9 percent deficit in total energy production, while the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Peoples Repub lic of China have a small surplus 4.9 percent. The strategic areas in the context of energy supply sources are the Middle East, Africa, and Central America, each of which has a signifi cant energy surplus. None of the three areas alone could over come the collective energy deficit of the United States and its allies, even if the entire surplus of an area were available to the western allies. Further, the Central American surplus, combined with that of the Middle East, would not overcome the collective energy deficit of the United States and its allies. An enemy of the United States, thus, could conceivably deal a severe blow to the western allies by denying them access to the energy supplies of any one of the three strategic regions (Rothstein, 1985).
American dependence on foreign energy sources causes the locations of world energy reserves to be of as crucial a con cern as are the energy surplus and deficit characteristics of the international regions. Existing production/consumption patterns might be able to be alte...