| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Should countries care about where they get their oil? As Middle Eastern oil exports to Asia rise while shipments to the United States and Europe fall, analysts are asking whether this trade shift will have geopolitical consequences, drawing China politically closer to the Middle East while driving the West further away. In North America, the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported crude from Canada to the US Gulf of Mexico, featured proponents who trumpeted the value of relying on a friendly source of oil and sceptics who insisted that the origin of US oil imports doesn't matter. Throughout the world, many still worry that dependence on the Persian Gulf leaves countries exposed to blackmail; other analysts, though, insist that markets have rendered such threats impotent.
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