The Strategic Importance of Middle East Oil

Abstract

Introduction The Middle East is an area of decision for the United States in the critical years ahead. Few Americans realize this; they neither know how much nor care about the lands east of the Mediterranean. This lack of interest and understanding has spawned grave errors in our foreign policy that promise sorrows and dangers for the future. This is tragic, for the destiny of civilization has been decided there often in the past; and it may be again in our own lifetime. Many reasons will bring this about, but large among them looms oil. We live in an age of oil. Oil means power for peace or war as the Communists press on relentlessly to rule the world. We, of course, get energy from many sources, and coal that made our industrial age possible is still a basic one. Someday we may be able to get all we need from the atom and the sun direct. But the energy that drives man over the earth, carries him across the sea, and hurls him through the air comes from oil. Without oil our machines, many of our factories, our way of life would come to a halt. Without oil we could not hold the sea, which permits us to hold together the far-flung fragments of the Free World and thereby keep an uneasy peace. Without oil we could not fight a war with any hope of winning - if we could fight at all. Oil is a key to our survival. And the Middle East means oil for there lie most of the world's resources. This Middle East oil will help shape our destiny through this second half of the 20th century. At the moment we in the West have uneasy control of it, without realizing its almost priceless value. Most of us accept this great blessing with a casual carelessness that is frightening.