I think Pat’s article is about a quarter of the whole story, and he misses a number of points.
The change in oil pricing over the past six years has changed the perspective of the Saudis, and challenged their long-term survival.
The leadership today? Heavily focused on issues which weren’t apparent back in the 2010 era. Financially, they need oil prices back at $80 to $100 a barrel, today? It’s resting at $55 to $65.
The reality of corruption, money-laundering, and sponsorship of ISIS by private Saudis? It threatens the very core of Saudi stability. The Iranians? By the US getting this nation back up and giving them an open window to the world economy? It’s invented a massive problem for the Saudis in the long-run.
The Saudis need Yemen’s little war to conclude, but no one can say for sure how the end would be achieved, or recognized.
The relationship with the Russians? Growing day by day. Some are shocked that some relationship now exists with the Israeli government and business interests.
If ISIS now shows up to start a civil war within Saudi Arabia? They don’t have the manpower to put it down and would have to approach Trump (with money) and get US assistance. Trump might say no, and then the Russians enter to say they’d do the dirty-work for the right sum of money.
All of this is just begging for a massive market correction in 2018.
Why not? What's wrong with all their men? Then why don't they just hire some rag-head savages from elsewhere in the region to do their fighting? They've got the money, "freedom isn't free".
and would have to approach Trump (with money) and get US assistance. Trump might say no...
Hell to the no!
Take the oil! and blow up the bad-guys whenever and wherever needed from the air. Confiscate the Soddie money and food-bomb the starving masses with bundles clearly marked "A gift from the American People".
You are wrong. They need prices at $55-65, because otherwise, many massive deposits in the US that are slightly more expensive to extract suddenly become worthwhile to start pumping once again. Several areas of the US would enjoy another boom, as they did previously when oil prices went that high. The Saudis would not benefit nearly as much, as they would lose a significant amount of market share. The last thing they want is the US as a major competitor for customers... especially with a pro-energy and pro-economic-growth president.
“I think Pat’s article is about a quarter of the whole story, and he misses a number of points. ...” [pepsionice, post 2]
“... Buchanan is correct in his analysis of post World War I. Our actions set in motion World War II. ...” [cdpiii, post 3]
Pat Buchanan is completely erroneous in his “analysis” (if it can be called that), and he has missed many points.
He may have been born in the United States, but he has permitted his anti-British sentiments to blind him to the realities of the strategic situation that predated World War One, and to strategic developments of the period 1919-1939. He is not alone in doing so: many Irish came to America to escape British rule, but they insisted on dragging along their prejudices and their antipathies, and have since delighted in indoctrinating their descendants to nurture old feuds and long-gone grievances.
Irish immigrants were not the first to come to these shores, then behave thus; many other ethnic or national subgroups have trod the same path.
A dimwitted response to the world’s realities: folks who fled oppression and terror of the Old World do themselves no favors by clinging to enmities. They make life more difficult for the rest of us, who have no stake in their unending squabbles, but who must deal with their griping, their ornery attitude, and their periodic temper tantrums.
Pat has been less than honest in describing the UK’s involvement and prosecution of its part in World War One, leaving out numerous important details:
Germans were not victims in the First World War.
They bore the bulk of responsibility, first egging on Austria-Hungary as they deliberately deceived the other Euro powers about what they were doing. Then, when war loomed, they attacked France and Belgium - not because there were ongoing disagreements, but because it was part of their plan. The German General Staff had for years harbored greater fears of the Russians; reckoning they would fare badly in a two-front war, they planned to hit the Western Allies first, knocking them out of the war. Then they would redeploy troops to the east, to finish off the Russian Army - a more massive foe, but one which would come to battle more slowly.
Merely the culmination of a pattern of German brinkmanship and agitation dating back a generation, to the moment when Otto von Bismarck was forced from power: every other nation was hoodwinked, insulted, fibbed to, and outmaneuvered.
The Germans also worked to seduce the Ottoman Turks, selling modern weapons, organizing and training troops, pouring capital into construction projects and other aspects of civil society. A major challenge to the British, who they reckoned to be competitors in the region. Ultimately, they succeeded in dragging the Turks into it on the side of the Central Powers.
But in 1914 and after, the Germans miscalculated.
They reckoned Czarist Russia would back down, but after a string of face-losing incidents, the Russians were in no mood to give in, to yet another German-contrived setback. Even then, the Germans figured it would be a short war - in their arrogance they assumed France would capitulate, that Italy (then an ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary) would protect the Central Powers’ southern flank, and that the Ottomans would materially aid in grinding down the Russian forces.
None of which happened as they expected: France held out, the Royal Navy contained the High Seas Fleet and rushed its own regular forces across the Channel, then transported troops from its own colonies, and those of the Allies, to the fronts.
The Ottomans dithered, the Italians refused to help the Germans, then switched sides. Serbia and the Balkan states proved much tougher to subdue than German staffers guessed. And despite early German successes against the Russians, Austro-Hungarian forces proved unable to make headway against the Czar’s armies.
The possibility that Britain would even become involved was never a factor in German planning nor diplomacy. By their standards, British ground forces were too small to notice, and they gave little thought to war at sea or blockades, reckoning their recently-built-up High Seas Fleet would forestall the Royal Navy.
Any war of a sea power (Britain) against a land power (Germany) is slow and cruel, courting stalemate. The Royal Navy retained naval superiority throughout World War One and brought all German trade via oceangoing traffic to a halt. Many smaller nations attempting to remain neutral (Netherlands, Norway, Sweden etc) were badly affected.
The United States did trade with the Allies, but could not maintain trade with the Central Powers, as America was not strong enough to challenge the British blockade, nor as a neutral could it stir up any sentiment to change the situation.
Germany was not helpless: it held the technological edge in submarine capabilities, but shrank at first from using subs against British merchant marine traffic; general opinion then was that attack without warning by subs against surface vessels was against accepted rules of conflict. Judging their situation otherwise hopeless, German leaders eventually began unrestricted submarine warfare; even before their final declaration in early 1917, German sub efforts of the “restricted” sort had Britain - a nation far more dependent on maritime trade than Germany - on the ropes and the end was foreseen by both nations to be mere months away.
100 years on, American upset at unrestricted submarine warfare can be looked on as naïve and backward-gazing. But it was a bigger deal in 1917 and was the proximate cause that brought the United States into the war.
Forum members ought to unconfuse themselves about “armistice” versus “peace treaty”.
The war was not over on 11 November 1918; Germany merely agreed to stop fighting for the moment. Britain did not flippantly decide to continue the blockade through June 1919 - the Allies did not trust the Germans and were thoroughly frightened over capabilities the German military still possessed.
Whether the Allies were too rough or too lax on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles is a question still unanswered; in his book _The Father of Us All_, Victor Davis Hanson wrote that a lasting peace will not occur unless the loser is defeated in truth, and made to feel beaten. This is an argument for unrelenting attack by the WWI Allies, and heavier oppression afterward. Resolve, and a stalwart resistance, are the only things an enemy understands. The Allies failed to do this after 1918, but made up for it in 1945.
Dating well back before 1914, the Americans have been very impressed with their own sense of morality and righteousness. Mostly, such self-aggrandizement has caused other nations to laugh, or to suspect subterfuge: denials of self-interest and appeals to universalism merely induce others (ally and enemy alike) to look harder for the “true” motives. Such claims work better when backed up by actual military capability - something Americans still condemn as inherently corrupting. Tends to give the lie to moralistic finger-wagging.
To add to your excellent comments, this one point needs to be expanded on.
The Saudi's need oil prices near $100/barrel because of the social spending they ramped up to unsustainable measures when oil prices were artificially inflated.
They've had to dramatically cut back their social spending which is causing social unrest and labor issues in-country, which are not being reported here.
Finally, as we've seen, the fracking industry here in the US which started up/grew up on $80+ barrel oil has become far more efficient and has wrung out much of the cost of fracking. I've read that they can now profit on $45/barrel oil and that's significant because it means the Saudi's (and the rest of OPEC) can no longer flood the oil market to drive the Frackers out of business. Cheap, sustainable, guaranteed energy reserves which the USA now has is what is going to drive our economic and manufacturing revival. We're only on the very cusp of it now. The boom IS coming. We ain't seen nothing yet.
Never, EVER bet against America.