by Brady Webb

The United States dependence on foreign oil has decreased to a level where they don’t need foreign intervention. Will America still have the same interested in the middle east then?

There is no doubt that the U.S. guzzles oil like no other country. 6.87 billion, that’s the amount of barrels used by the U.S. every year. That’s more than the whole European Union combined. 70 percent of the oil used in the United States is imported from other countries, with 35-45 percent of that coming from the Middle East, and ten percent coming from Saudi Arabia alone. So the question comes up of how we are lessening this demand for foreign oil. Well here’s how: With the growing natural gas infrastructure in the united states we can now say that our oil dependence from countries like those in the middle east has gone down steadily. Also, with the growing market of hybrid and electric cars, the amount of oil it takes to run the U.S. has had a steady decrease. With these two factors, the dependence on foreign oil has seen a strong decrease from years past.

With this strong decrease there is no doubt the U.S. interest in the middle east will decrease, and almost no doubt that the withdrawal of half of america’s troops in Afghanistan has any attribution to the decrease in oil dependency. After all, 66,000 troops aren’t all there just to put down Taliban and other viscous rebel uprisings.

So while the dependency for foreign oil is there, with the increase in the natural gas infrastructure and the decrease of use of oil in general, these are definitely the first stepping stones into a future of no-foreign aid for oil in the U.S., and maybe in the future no dependency on oil at all.