64
oil for their refineries, and American consumers could purchase gasoline and other
petroleum products at bargain prices. It was a win-win process for everyone as long
as all the rules were followed.
4.1 The Yom Kippur War and OPEC Embargo
Since the establishment of Israel as a nation in 1947, it has fought a series of wars
with its neighbors. Depending on how these are counted, the total varies from eight
conflicts listed on the official government website of the Israel Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (accessed 8/21/2019; https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/History/Pages/
Israel-Wars.aspx) to as many as 15 different wars, incursions, uprisings, and police
actions considered to be “conflicts” by some historians (Bregman 2016).
Most of these events were over fairly quickly in weeks to months, with the shortest being the Six Day War in 1967. In the autumn of 1973, a war that lasted less than
3 weeks has been variously identified among historians as the Yom Kippur War, the
Ramadan War, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. Whatever
the name, hostilities broke out on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur on October 6,
1973 when Egyptian and Syrian armies invaded Israel, followed by armies from
Iraq and Jordan. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) responded with a counterattack,
there was a dust-up lasting for several weeks, and things eventually wound down
when a United Nations-brokered ceasefire was put into place on October 25, 1973
(Rabinovich 2004).
Although short, the Yom Kippur War had a number of underlying complications.
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were high during this
time, and the two Cold War adversaries had made proxies of the participants. The
Russians resupplied and armed Egypt, while the Americans supported Israel. As the
Israeli counterattack grew in effectiveness, the USSR even threatened direct military intervention, which prompted the U.S. to move into an elevated state of nuclear
readiness (Nichols 2014). Nearly everyone in the world was on edge.
America was certainly no innocent bystander or sideline player in the Yom
Kippur War. In addition to supplying Israel with military equipment and money, the
U.S. also provided the IDF with a substantial amount of actionable intelligence that
included U-2 spy plane overflights of Egypt and Syria to observe troop strength and
movements. A number of Arab nations felt that supplying crude oil to the United
States under these circumstances was clearly aiding an ally of their enemy. Ending
oil exports to the U.S. was therefore seen as a strategic requirement mandated by the
logic of war.
Things came to a head after U.S. President Richard Nixon requested that
Congress provide $2.2 billion in emergency military aid to Israel (Merrill 2007). At
a meeting soon afterward of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) in Kuwait on October 20, 1973, Libya introduced a resolution for members
of the oil cartel to halt exports to the United States as retribution for aiding Israel.
Most of the Arab members of OPEC joined in, and the embargo was also extended
4 The Energy Crisis and Unconventional Resources
oil for their refineries, and American consumers could purchase gasoline and other
petroleum products at bargain prices. It was a win-win process for everyone as long
as all the rules were followed.
4.1 The Yom Kippur War and OPEC Embargo
Since the establishment of Israel as a nation in 1947, it has fought a series of wars
with its neighbors. Depending on how these are counted, the total varies from eight
conflicts listed on the official government website of the Israel Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (accessed 8/21/2019; https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/History/Pages/
Israel-Wars.aspx) to as many as 15 different wars, incursions, uprisings, and police
actions considered to be “conflicts” by some historians (Bregman 2016).
Most of these events were over fairly quickly in weeks to months, with the shortest being the Six Day War in 1967. In the autumn of 1973, a war that lasted less than
3 weeks has been variously identified among historians as the Yom Kippur War, the
Ramadan War, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. Whatever
the name, hostilities broke out on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur on October 6,
1973 when Egyptian and Syrian armies invaded Israel, followed by armies from
Iraq and Jordan. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) responded with a counterattack,
there was a dust-up lasting for several weeks, and things eventually wound down
when a United Nations-brokered ceasefire was put into place on October 25, 1973
(Rabinovich 2004).
Although short, the Yom Kippur War had a number of underlying complications.
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were high during this
time, and the two Cold War adversaries had made proxies of the participants. The
Russians resupplied and armed Egypt, while the Americans supported Israel. As the
Israeli counterattack grew in effectiveness, the USSR even threatened direct military intervention, which prompted the U.S. to move into an elevated state of nuclear
readiness (Nichols 2014). Nearly everyone in the world was on edge.
America was certainly no innocent bystander or sideline player in the Yom
Kippur War. In addition to supplying Israel with military equipment and money, the
U.S. also provided the IDF with a substantial amount of actionable intelligence that
included U-2 spy plane overflights of Egypt and Syria to observe troop strength and
movements. A number of Arab nations felt that supplying crude oil to the United
States under these circumstances was clearly aiding an ally of their enemy. Ending
oil exports to the U.S. was therefore seen as a strategic requirement mandated by the
logic of war.
Things came to a head after U.S. President Richard Nixon requested that
Congress provide $2.2 billion in emergency military aid to Israel (Merrill 2007). At
a meeting soon afterward of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) in Kuwait on October 20, 1973, Libya introduced a resolution for members
of the oil cartel to halt exports to the United States as retribution for aiding Israel.
Most of the Arab members of OPEC joined in, and the embargo was also extended
4 The Energy Crisis and Unconventional Resources