Other than oil and the gold that they have accumulated as a result of it,Saudi Arabia doesn't have much else to sell.
It takes a lot of desert to graze the few sheep that are their only other asset.
Unless things have changed since I was there in 90-91.

Pretty sure some if not most of those powers to be actually do want that system to collapse so they can remake the usa and the world .

The only thing that makes oil worth anything is what industrial economies can use it for.

Well for starters, to ensure their control & political survival every military option on the table will be utilized...Manpower, they would sacrifice every able bodied person without hesitation, pay close attention to future requirements for any draft registration.

Food, water sabotage, leveraging other countries for support, intelligence assets, bio warfare, etc....There are no limits, nothing they won't do out of desperation, it will be a fight for all the chips, IMO... Winner takes all.

To quote Elrond from the LoTR movies..."Our list of allies grows thin". Which imaginary allies do we have that would be willing to go along with us?

I've been hiring and firing 18-30 year old men, if we have to count on the coming generation to pick up a gun and fight a war we're in for a rude awakening. You can draft them all you want but only about 10% will be of any real use, most the rest can't handle raking a yard or splitting wood.

I don't know about that. You been paying attention to those military age men coming across the border?...You fight and you get citizenship.

The domestic ones who don't pan out would still draw fire & pull down the opposing forces ammo.

Mercenaries, etc...There is nothing that can't be arranged when you control the purse strings.

I'm sure BOCO and his Canadian Immortals would be with us !!!

w

I confess that I haven't read all the posts above. If the US produces more oil than any other country, can't we dictate the price per barrel for our oil? Seems like we would be in the driver's seat. I know the Saudi government has a lot of clout, but they need our expertise to extract their oil.
Russia has obsolete technology I think.

My daughter in Denver is employed by a large oil producing company. She says our US oil is harder to refine, and our refineries are designed around lighter foreign oil. We export our fracked oil because it is difficult to refine.

Why don't we build compatable refineries where the oil is? We wouldn't need to send our crude through a pipeline to New Orleans, and then pump gasoline and Diesel back to our home locations? Nobody wants a refinery in their neighborhood. There you have it.

Do you really want to rely on conscripts and mercenaries? The russia-ukraine war is a good recent example of why those ideas are bad.

Heck no, that wouldn't be the best scenario...But is it possible if things get dicey?...You better believe it.

It's another "La La La" " I'm Not Listening" day.

No. Its sort of the difference between air supremacy vs air superiority. Air supremacy means that your side has pretty much destroyed the other side's ability to challenge you for air power. Air superiority means the other side(s) still have ability to shake things up, make things difficult, [possibly even reverse things but usually not in the historical context.

There's a lot of countries that produce oil and some can turn the cranks more if needed to either 1) affect the raw price or 2) change their competitive advantage. There are far fewer "whales" in oil consumption. These are pre- 'vid numbers and I haven't looked lately but there were only two countries that used more than 10 million barrels of oil a day in say 2019, the U.S. and China. The I think the Nipponese were in (distant) 3rd place at 4 million barrels a day. If the biggest current whale says we'll only buy in USDs, then most of the producers, especially smaller ones, stay in line. If that largest whale considerably loses its market share, then its ability to dictate the currency for oil buying of use diminishes.

If the world truly wants to wean itself from oil, then the next critical control is over the various "rare earths" that right now at least are needed for most of the alternative energy "machinery". So far, the Chicoms have everybody else, especially us, by the short hairs when it comes to rare earths. Its not that we don't have any, its that we simply don't mine them or refine them (most are a fairly nasty business in taking them from their raw state into useful components). Bad juju all around...

Climate activists and an administration at war with carbon has more to do with it than the NIMBY folks. Too much money to invest and too many hurdles in an uncertain future.

Besides, what it would cost even if there wasn't opposition to it. I suspect a major new oil refinery would cost multiple tens of billions $$ to create. We're living on past infrastructure in many ways.

They see biotech and pharmaceuticals as a possibility

Exactly right.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/ma...r-systems-demise-are-fake-news-heres-why