“If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
Winston Churchill
Anti-communist Churchill made an alliance with the Soviet Union. Hitler was the greater threat. It was war. You do what you need to do.
President Biden will be asking a favor of Saudi Arabia.
The American citizenry isn't accustomed to sacrificing when America fights its wars. We turn war over to specialists in an all-volunteer military. We don't raise taxes to pay for wars; we add the cost to the deficit. We do drone strikes and drop bombs on others far away and out of sight; we don't expect to get attacked here. Foreign wars are popular, at least at first. We like wars where we think we are doing the right and moral thing. We watch how it plays out and expect no particular inconvenience.
Our involvement in the war in Ukraine is popular. People wear yellow and blue. After all, we can't just sit back and watch Russia steamroll over Ukraine, we say. This is 1938 all over again, we say. We had to do something, and we are. We are sending Ukraine arms and we are trying to disrupt the primary source of income for Russia, its sale of oil to the world, with sanctions and import bans.
The results are predictable. We are taking oil off the market so we see a conspicuous increase in the price of gasoline at the pump. The American public appears to consider this a surprise and an error. Why should a proxy war with a major oil supplier have any effect on the American consumer? Someone in government must have screwed up! News stories describe the shock and distress over gasoline prices returned to the inflation-adjusted level we had eight years ago. We want the low prices that came with the recent COVID recession.
We are at war. Russia produces 10% of the world supply of oil. Oil is about 54% of the final cost of a gallon of gasoline, and disruptions brought the world price to $120/barrel this week, up from $40/barrel a year ago. Gasoline prices have doubled in the past year. Gasoline prices are far higher elsewhere, but Americans expect war to hurt others, not themselves. Biden is in political trouble. Voters blame him.
Biden is responding. People who are paying attention might be troubled by what he is doing. The U.S. is already a net energy-independent country. The one country that could quickly increase oil production to increase the world supply of oil and bring down the price is Saudi Arabia. Americans are making a policy choice, one with long term consequences involving norms and behaviors of countries supposedly at peace with one another. Saudi Arabia's leaders ordered the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. Biden will meet with Saudi Arabian leaders to ask a favor: Please sell more oil to make up for Russia. This request ends our legitimacy and leverage in defense of norms for protecting Americans. You can reach out and kill some of us if they are inconvenient to you, but we will overlook it.
Americans are making an ugly choice. It is the kind of choice that happens in wartime. To disempower Russia we need to empower Saudi Arabia and tacitly accept their behavior. The American consumer has spoken.
Corporations and advertising have brainwashed Americans. We have a country made of consumers rather than citizens. And this is how it plays out at the policy level.