What Will Happen To Saudi Arabia If The World Does Not Need Its Oil?

A man looks out over central Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from the Faisaliah Tower in 2003. (Peter MacDiarmid/Reuters)

Jim Geraghty, NRO: What Happens to Saudi Arabia When the World Doesn’t Need Its Oil?

Over on the homepage, our Kevin Williamson writes a really great, thought-provoking essay laying out how to synthesize the competing instincts of idealism and realism in the world, and particularly in the Muslim world. Read the whole thing; it’s difficult to summarize, but the gist is that if the United States really wants to prevent bad outcomes and increase the odds of good incomes, we need to be doing a lot of non-military intervention and relationship building with all kinds of forces for civil society in every country that matters to us. He concludes, “We can do better. But we can’t do it easily, we can’t do it on the cheap, and we can’t do it in a week.”

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WNU Editor: It is going to happen one day .... the world no longer needing Saudi Arabia's oil. But before that happens one can only hope that the leaders in Saudi Arabia will be able to position the country to withstand such a shock, both financially and economically. Fortunately for Saudi Arabia, the world does need its resource, and it has enough current reserves to last to the end of the century.