Alternate End to the 1973 Oil Crisis

Phyrx

Banned
In 1973 the US and several other countries supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. In return, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an oil embargo on Israel's allies. Yet despite these actions, the US helped end the war -- fortunately for the Egyptians, as the Israelis were practically in Cairo by October the 23rd.

This might be naive, but it seems to me that the US could have demanded that Egypt at least lift its oil embargo -- otherwise, the IDF would crush the Third Army and march right on into Cairo. Now, granted, most members of OAPEC were not at war with Israel, but would they have ended the embargo if Egypt had been forced to put pressure on them to do so?

Also, at the time Iran was a US ally, yet they too participated in the embargo. From what I've read this doesn't seem to have had any effect on relations. It seems strange that these countries, several of whom more or less dependent on the United States, were able to proclaim this embargo. Especially considering they were asking the US to intervene on their side in a war they started with no more of a legitimate casus belli than that of Germany in 1939.

What effects this would have is debatable; our technology might still be very energy-inefficient, but then again, it might not. Regardless, could the United States have used their power (in any way short of invading OAPEC) to end the Oil Crisis early on?
 

Anderman

Donor
How about a counter embargo, freeze all financial asset of this countries, no more weapon sells, no medicien or industrial goods etc....
Opec had and have only little industries so they should be quite vulnerable.
 
Didn't Nixon have a contingency plan to send in airborne and Marine forces to seize the Saudi refineries and pipelines?
 
What if the U.S public angered by high fuel costs demands that government and private corporations dramatic increase of efficiencies at all levels of the economy. The long term of the oil embargo is a crash of oil prices and the very governments that began the embargo find themselves under threat by their own constituents as the economic picture darkens in their countries.
 
Phyrx

A number of points:

a) The Israelis could very likely have destroyed the 3rd army but they wouldn't have had the resources to advance on Cairo, let alone seek to take such a huge urban area.

b) At the time Egypt was a Soviet rather than a western client. Hence there was the fear that the Soviets would intervene if the Egyptians were defeated too badly. [Similar reasons as to why the Arabs couldn't be allowed to win too large themselves].

c) I'm not sure how badly the embargo actually was. Remember it being reported at the time that since the Arabs had targeted the Netherlands because they had been unwilling to criticise Israel supplies had diverted oil to them to make up any shortfall.

d) Iran sounds an oddity but it was really about the only ME power other than Israel that was western orientated. Probably the Shah was feeling obliged to go along with religious pressure? Most of the other powers in the region actually looked to the Soviets for political and military support so it would have been difficult to have applied pressure. The fiscal measures Anderman might have had an effect but I think many of the actual oil fields were operated by western companies at the time so you might have seen OPEC nationalising the oil fields.

Steve

In 1973 the US and several other countries supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. In return, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an oil embargo on Israel's allies. Yet despite these actions, the US helped end the war -- fortunately for the Egyptians, as the Israelis were practically in Cairo by October the 23rd.

This might be naive, but it seems to me that the US could have demanded that Egypt at least lift its oil embargo -- otherwise, the IDF would crush the Third Army and march right on into Cairo. Now, granted, most members of OAPEC were not at war with Israel, but would they have ended the embargo if Egypt had been forced to put pressure on them to do so?

Also, at the time Iran was a US ally, yet they too participated in the embargo. From what I've read this doesn't seem to have had any effect on relations. It seems strange that these countries, several of whom more or less dependent on the United States, were able to proclaim this embargo. Especially considering they were asking the US to intervene on their side in a war they started with no more of a legitimate casus belli than that of Germany in 1939.

What effects this would have is debatable; our technology might still be very energy-inefficient, but then again, it might not. Regardless, could the United States have used their power (in any way short of invading OAPEC) to end the Oil Crisis early on?
 
How about announcing a ban on use of oil for electrical generation (to be phased in), ask Congress to pass laws streamlining the licensing of nuke plants. That should eliminate the (relatively small) market for oil to be used to generate electricity. Set up tariffs on oil imported from the countries involved in the oil embargo, with those tariffs to start small, but rise on a weekly basis depending on how long the country involved maintained the embargo. Set up gas taxes to rise as prices drop at the end of the embargo, raising the price of gas and permanently dropping demand.

A big part of the problem was Nixon's wage-price controls, which thoroughly screwed up the economy, so thoroughly that they were allowed to lapse on everything except energy after a few years. They stayed on for energy until the early 1980s, when they were finally repealed and the price of oil almost immediately dropped to about half of what it had been.

Economically Nixon was a moron, which was a major part of the energy problem and the economic problem. He screwed the country up in ways we've still not recovered from and probably never will.
 
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