WI: American Invasion of the Middle East in response to 1973 Oil Crisis

Cook

Banned
And there were few Saudis or Kuwaitis working those fields to do that destruction.

In the 1970s, Saudi locals were working the fields; it was only after the embargo that oil revenues lifted to the point where royal largesse was generous enough for the Saudi's to refrain from manual jobs and import overseas labourers. The Saudi army and national guard would have destroyed the fields; it was their publicly stated policy.
 

Cook

Banned
...the after affects of such an invasion on relations between the U.S. and third world powers would probably be drastic.

Not just the Third World; this would be a case of blatant imperialism, seizing a foreign country's resources because they are unwilling to sell to you. Public opinion globally would be outraged, including in the United States; the street protests in America and Europe would make 1968 seem calm in comparison.
 
Not just the Third World; this would be a case of blatant imperialism, seizing a foreign country's resources because they are unwilling to sell to you. Public opinion globally would be outraged, including in the United States; the street protests in America and Europe would make 1968 seem calm in comparison.
Most of Europe got their Oil from the Gulf States.

They want Oil, or freeze in the next few months and walk everywhere? North Sea Oil didn't have many operable platforms yet.

Did you sit in the Gas Lines during the embargo? I did, and I don't think there would have been many who felt bad about it, unlike Vietnam, that had nothing the US, or rest of the World, needed.
 
In the 1970s, Saudi locals were working the fields; it was only after the embargo that oil revenues lifted to the point where royal largesse was generous enough for the Saudi's to refrain from manual jobs and import overseas labourers. The Saudi army and national guard would have destroyed the fields; it was their publicly stated policy.

The Saudi Army had equipment from several countries. It could neither identify the spare parts it had on hand nor distribute them to the sites where they were needed for maintenance and repair. Moreover, Saudi personnel lacked the training and skills necessary to operate, maintain, or supply the vehicles in their possession. Nearly new trucks, including an immaculate looking Mercedes truck with only 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) on its odometer, sat abandoned in virtual junkyards apparently because the Saudis did not know how to service or maintain them.

In 1967 AD, the Saudi Arabian Army, excluding the national guard, nominally numbered twenty-five thousand and was organized in five brigades. (Its real strength may have been fewer than eighteen thousand.) The forces lacked training facilities and had no modern combat equipment, communications equipment, or logistical transport. Given a hostile and well-armed Egypt that espoused a secular Arab nationalism, civil war in the Yemens, and unrest in the other states of the Arabian Peninsula, modernization of the military represented a pressing need for the Saudi monarchy.

A quick preliminary inventory in 1967 indicated that the Saudis used nearly two hundred fifty different makes and models of automotive equipment. This multiplicity of models defied efficient maintenance, repair, and supply. A large percentage of the fleet was inoperable, with many vehicles beyond economical repair. The Saudis had no records indicating what problems had put vehicles out of service. No manuals existed to guide repair, and no records identified the location of vehicles or their status. According to MODA’s own estimates, it had 3,666 vehicles—tanks, mobile armaments, and commercial and service vehicles—of which 769 (21 percent) were categorized as unserviceable. A more thorough inventory conducted during the first year of the Saudi Arabia Mobility Program revealed that MODA had 8,213 vehicles, more than twice as many as its records indicated.

When the business of the Ministry of Defense and Aviation expanded, HRH Prince Turki bin Abdulaziz Aal Saud was appointed as Deputy Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General on 10/5/1389 AH [1969 AD]. By June 1970, the Saudi Arabian Army’s fleet of vehicles totaled 13,148, including over five hundred vehicles in field units that did not appear in the formal inventory. The maintenance contractor, Commonwealth-Tumpane, had identified over one thousand vehicles that were difficult to support and gathered them at Taif, Al Kharj, Tabuk, and Najran for elimination from the fleet.

Given the small demographic base and the absence of obligatory military service, meeting recruitment goals was difficult and selectivity impossible. Moreover, commanders of Saudi Arabian Army units frequently had little acquaintance with principles of logistics, maintenance, and supply. The Saudi command structure in the 1960s further complicated the effort to make a training program effective, because it largely ignored the experience and training of individuals in making military assignments.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/rslf-history.htm

Not exactly the terrors that were Ibn Saud's forces that took over Arabia decades before.
How well do you think they would fare in 1973? Their last combat in Yemen wasn't exactly glorious.
 
Their stated policy at the time was that they would not defend the oil fields, they would destroy them.

So Saudis had demo charges set, waiting to blow? And they are harder to destroy than you realize.
Really think they would do as good a job as Saddam's Army did in Kuwait?
 
Well, say hello to the much earlier Super War on Terror.
Well, except that unlike OTL's "War on Terror", which, at least in its Afghanistan prong was legitimate, and even in its Iraq prong pretended to legitimacy; this war would be sheer outright Imperialistic resource grabbing, with no international support (probably anywhere), and would blacken the US's reputation massively. Or rather, even more massively.
 
The Soviets are going to love the oil price going to the stratosphere with the European NATO members begging them to sell them whatever they have.

What's the chance of this becoming the USAs version of the Soveit experience in Afghanistan? Cheap RPGs and AK47s are far more capable against modern militaries in the 70s than today.
 
The Soviets are going to love the oil price going to the stratosphere with the European NATO members begging them to sell them whatever they have.

What's the chance of this becoming the USAs version of the Soveit experience in Afghanistan? Cheap RPGs and AK47s are far more capable against modern militaries in the 70s than today.

Unlike Afghanistan, areas where the Oil is at can't support guerrillas. Nowhere to hide, no local population to 'Swim' in
273px-Oil_and_Gas_Infrastructure_Persian_Gulf_%28large%29.gif
258px-Saudi_Arabia_population_density_2010.png
This is 2010 data, 1973 Saudi had 1/5th the population, but similar distribution, fewer pipelines.
 

Pangur

Donor
So Saudis had demo charges set, waiting to blow? And they are harder to destroy than you realize.
Really think they would do as good a job as Saddam's Army did in Kuwait?
Do you really think that the Saudis would do nothing? The two immediate questions that come to mind are how much damage they can do and how will the invading US work the oil fields? Specifically who, that's before you get to question of holding down the occupied nations. You don't need much to make that exercise very difficult.
 
Do you really think that the Saudis would do nothing? The two immediate questions that come to mind are how much damage they can do and how will the invading US work the oil fields? Specifically who, that's before you get to question of holding down the occupied nations. You don't need much to make that exercise very difficult.

You can look to see what the rest of OPEC would do, seeing that the USA just went insane and occupied an nominal ally, call it similar to what the USSR did in '56. UN won't be able to do a thing, given US vetoes.

Do the other OPEC members doing the embargo want to stick with solidarity and be next next on the list, and have their Oil infrastructure wrecked in a heroic scorched earth defense like the Saudis planned-- all while the US freezes all assets and plans more invasions?

Saying you will destroy your major source of exports, and doing it, are two different things. The Gulf monarchies were not that secure.
 
You can look to see what the rest of OPEC would do, seeing that the USA just went insane and occupied an nominal ally, call it similar to what the USSR did in '56. UN won't be able to do a thing, given US vetoes.

Do the other OPEC members doing the embargo want to stick with solidarity and be next next on the list, and have their Oil infrastructure wrecked in a heroic scorched earth defense like the Saudis planned-- all while the US freezes all assets and plans more invasions?

Saying you will destroy your major source of exports, and doing it, are two different things. The Gulf monarchies were not that secure.
Is joining WP for protection an option?
 
And with the embargo, the US did keep going, after all.
from what I remember, it was more the 'bolt out of the blue' suddenness of it all that caused the gas lines and problems; if there had been any kind of warning, the US could have shifted gears and prepared better. That said, although no one thought so at the time, I always regarded the embargo as a long term positive for the US... it forced us to focus on energy efficiency more, prompted us to find more oil from outside the Middle East, and look for more oil here at home.
 
Is joining WP for protection an option?

Not really.
Rump Saudi Arabia, protector of the Holy sites, going with the Godless Communists? Thats a hard sell to the rest of Royal Family, after the example of Soviet assistance did to the Royalty in Egypt and Iraq

Besides burning bridges with the USA, then that?
There would be a Coup from within the Royal Family to get back to Status quo ante
 
back in the 1970s you could game it out

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5382/oil-war

the Soviet Union would have enjoyed a massive propaganda coup if we had done it, but certainly the Gulf States would have been screwed militarily. Most of their technical support was from American and Western European technical specialists, including keeping their jets operational and their tanks going. While they might have blown up a significant number of oil wells, the success in putting out the fires in Kuwait post 1st Gulf War shows that at best this is a short term impact.

Iran might have even helped the US, as a nice foreign war against the Arabs might have drawn away some of the criticism from the Shah
 
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