Re: "...disagree with your analysis and predictions, though."
Ok. That's what makes it a ball game!
Re: "As you make clear, oil will be used to finance any conflict. But rather than causing oil prices to drop as you suggest, I'd contend that oil production and delivery facilities would become prime targets for all sides of the conflict."
That is ALWAYS a possibility, but I'd argue that history has already proven the unlikeliness of that ever reaching a material level that negatively impacts us.
For example... the first 'Gulf War' (the decade long Iran/Iraq War... extremely bloody and violent, with possibly in excess of one and half million people killed), DID NOT SEE noteworthy targeting of either side's oil production.
In fact --- as I believe I mentioned --- BOTH SIDES were SO PRESSED FOR FINANCING to keep their war effort up that they PUMPED FULL OUT... and that ushered in a decade or so of ROCK BOTTOM oil costs to the West, and a big economic boom for us.
So long as the coming conflict does not see MASS INVASION ATTEMPTS of the Saudi/Kuwaiti Gulf coastal regions, or an invasion of Persia proper --- (both *exceedingly unlikely* in my book, and with most everyone that I'm aware of who's written on the issues) --- then I FULLY EXPECT to see a repeat of the Iran/Iraq War situation (albeit muted, and in a more minor key).
Expect to see hydrocarbon prices FALL, not rise, in such an event.
Re: "And, many nations would seek to assure the flow of oil to themselves by aligning with one side or another of those directly involved in the conflict. One way or another, the rest of the would would be forced to get involved in such a conflict, merely for economic survival."
Nah.
The producers (state-owned 'national champion' companies nearly all) to *not* partner-off ownership of their sovereign assets in such a manner. So, the consumers DO NOT have any 'ownership rights' over the production, and oil itself is sold into GLOBAL markets. Since there will be no cut-off in oil flow (the desperate combatants will need every drop of oil revenue they can muster...) expect to see MODERATION of pricing (after the inevitable short, sharp peak in risk insurance for carriers is priced in). Same as the 'eighties.
Re: "...I'd partially agree with your analysis, and concede that in a hundred years or so, they'd fight themselves into peace. But such is not the way of the modern world."
It took the 'Christian West' WELL *OVER* '100 years' for Catholics and Protestants to fight and grind themselves into such a bloody, economically disruptive pulp that the general populations of various nations practically demanded a more secular future... and the Reformation was birthed (&, later, the Enlightenment that was the font of ideas for the birth of our own nation).
Islam has YET to have that fight (absent the Ataturk revolution in Turkey...), and *ONLY the nations of the region* can take that, possibly bloody, step forward into a future that respects pluralism and secularism... and where Theocracy is held in wide disrepute.
No one (not us, not anyone) can lead them by the nose and *force* such a decision.
So, the sooner they get about the business of fighting a religiously-tinged 'inter-Islamic' civil war, and contesting all the myriad of unsettled regional land and ethnic issues that are overhead, the sooner the radicals will be tossed upon the trash heaps of history, and progress can resume.
The GOOD NEWS, I believe, is that things move so much faster in our modern world... and I certainly DON'T expect the Middle East to take ANYWHERE NEAR as long as the West did to bring about a 'Reformation'. Think a couple of decades, not '150 years'. (And, that would be a relative bargain, considering how many centuries these issues have been papered-over and left festering.)
"Back in the '70s, Jimmy Carter declared the Mideast as a region of our national interest, and specifically stated that it was in the interest of the US to prevent anything that would stop the flow of oil from that region. It was so then, and it remains so today."
NONSENSE!
All that is conditioned upon us 'NEEDING' to import their oil --- which wasn't true even then, and is less so now. (Most Middle Eastern oil goes to EUROPE & CHINA & JAPAN, not to the US.) Our largest foreign sources are Canada, Venezuela, Nigeria, etc. In fact, when heavy/sour oil and or bitumen reserves are counted in the 'reserve totals', Venezuela has greater reserves then Saudi Arabia... and Canada greater still then that.
(So, maybe if we 'need' to invade somebody to 'preserve our economy', we should just invade Venezuela and capture their oil reserves. HINT: it would be a HELL of a lot MORE COST/EFFECTIVE then what we spend on the Middle East!)
Canada, I hope you'll agree, probably *doesn't* need to be invaded to keep it's supplies fairly secure for us. :-)
(Although THEY, TOO, have the right to sell to whoever the highest bidder is... Japan, China, etc. Just as the nations of the Middle East do....) |
