For 15 years I have taught and written in the fields of energy law and military law. The two fields cruelly intersect in the Middle East today.

First, the nature of the war will govern the impact on oil prices. A prompt surgical victory and a sensitive attention to its political consequences for the alliance can have a favorable impact on petroleum prices. Unfortunately, it also may tempt us to ignore the need for sensible thinking about energy policy.

A longer war, even if successful in liberating Kuwait, will temporarily push prices higher. An unsuccessful war — one that leaves Saddam in power and the major force in the area — will have consequences on far more than oil prices.

Second, we are confronted today by the choices imposed by our energy policies, or lack thereof. In 1973, the Arab embargo, which in fact caused a reduction of not much more than 5 percent of total supply, put the nation in economic panic. In 1979, President Carter promised we would never again be so dependent on foreign oil as we were then. For a time the promise held, but over the years we grew less concerned.

In 1991 we again face hard facts. Most of the reserves of petroleum and a considerable amount of current production come from the Middle East. Petroleum continues to fuel the world economy, and consequently the Middle East will remain uniquely subject to decisions based on politics, not only economics.

Can we force our way out of the consequances of those realities? At a minimum, we should reassess our energy policy. We must reconsider the choices that detemine what fuels we use to what ends and with what environmental consequences. A broad-based energy policy must be high on the national and world agenda.

Third, a study of both military and energy policy reminds us how inaccurate predictions, including these, can be. According to the best computer-assisted calculations, we should have won the Vietnam War in 1967 and exhausted world oil supplies in the 1980s. Reality tells us otherwise.

A host of factors affect both military and energy results. Few forces can compel an orderly resolution of all the interrelated aspects of war and resources. And chance — an accient at Chernobyl or a desert sandstorm — can upset the most organized plan.

Last April, 300 energy lawyers from companies, governments, private firms, and universities met in the Netherlands to discuss the state of energy in the world. Few, if any, of us could have predicted the sobering events now unfolding. Those events, I suspect, have left that group of experts with very divergent thoughts on policy in the years to come. I also suspect that international group has been reminded that our primary allegiances remain national ones.

Last semester, I was a visting professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The war, whch seems surreal as I watch it break into full scale over television, comes home when I remember that the bright, stimulating, young students I taught at West Point in the fall will be next spring’s crop of new second lieutenants. They know too well what their immediate future may hold.

Donald Zillman is dean and Edward S. Godfrey Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law. In the fall he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Miliary Academy at West Point.