The Fading Arab Oil Empire
Published In: The National Interest, no. 120, July/Aug. 2012, p. 38-43
Posted on RAND.org on July 01, 2012
The author discusses the geostrategic importance of the Middle East. The region matters to the United States chiefly because of its influence in the world oil market, but that influence has been in terminal decline for a generation, a fact almost wholly unnoticed by outside observers. A confluence of developments—including rising prices and production costs, declining reserves, and the availability of alternate fuels and unconventional sources of oil—will decisively undermine the defining role of the Middle East in the global energy market.
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