Would the USA be willing to relinquish it's status as the most powerful nation on the planet, because it most certainly will not be able to sustain it's present level of millitary might without oil.
No we will not be willing to relinquish out status, but I don't think we'd have to without oil. If anything, a large portion of innovations start with the military, so any movement to another power source may come from them. If nothing else, the possibility of losing our status may be what spurns them to head the research. Maintaining our military dominance is paramount.
If the US would not be willing to do this it means that it cannot take the lead in implementing these alternatives and in fact would necessarily be the last nation on earth to do so.
Completely disagree based on what I posted above.
American society is built on fear. Americans have always been afraid of something. Something that they believe will try to end their way of life.
That is a vast over-simplification. By your statement, all societies are based on fear because all societies fear the end of their way of life.
For many decades it was communism and now it is Islam. This fear is what fuels all the modern wars you have been involved in
yes and no. Again, it's a fast over simplification and the US doesn't fear Islam, it fears Islamic states. There is a difference.
While this fear remains is the United States going to start going green while other nations continue to power their armed forces with oil and leave itself "Vulnerable" to it's "enemies" ?
If anything, our armed forces are MORE vulnerable because of our dependence on foreign oil. The Japanesse learned this lesson in WWII, and it has not been forgotten by us. When we cut off their oil supply, they attacked. That reality alone is enough to push the armed forces to look for alternative, independent power sources. Look at our navy. It's mostly powered by nukes (the big ships and subs anyway) even though one of the biggest reserves of coal in the world. And having that type of independence means that our navy will dominate the seas, and hence international commerce (or more pointedly makes sure that no one else uses a navy to dominate international commerce), for the foreseeable future. The navy made this change because 1) it was more efficient) and two it made the large fleets much more independent of port calls, particularly the subs.
Is your present system of government even going to be available to the kind of scrutiny that will allow the people to even ask such questions of it ?
Well, I think you questions are invalid obviously, but yes, our government is able to scrutinize itself when it really matters. The most powerful thing about the American economy has always been its adaptive ability. Whether we are talking about off-shoring jobs or commodities constraints, we have always adapted quickly, partly because the government is fairly hands off. It's the beauty of capitalism.
EDIT: One more thought. We have a good amount of untapped oil reserves (ANWR, and most of the shoreline), plus the shale oil, plus crude oil reserves (not sure how big, but pretty big). If we got to a point where oil imports were low enough to be causing actual national security concern, the government would open those in a heartbeat to the military. The military uses a lot of oil, but it's not a significant amount of our overall consumption. Those reserves would keep our military fully functional for a long time.
In short, the US military dominance isn't going to end during any of our lifetimes from a lack of oil. Maybe something else, but not oil.
