Oil Decided World War II – Daniel Yergin

Daniel Yergin argues oil shaped World War II’s outcome across every major theater, from Baku to the Pacific.

• Six of every seven barrels used by the Allies in WWII came from the United States.
• Hitler’s push into Russia targeted Baku oil fields, not just Moscow — oil was a strategic objective.
• Admiral Nimitz said a third Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor’s oil tanks would have extended the Pacific war by two years.
• Rommel and Patton were both stalled by oil shortages, not battlefield defeats.
• Kamikaze pilots flew one-way missions partly to conserve Japan’s dwindling fuel supply.
• Japan attacked Pearl Harbor partly because US oil embargoes threatened to turn its fleet into, in one admiral’s words, scarecrows.
• Synthetic fuel from coal could not scale fast enough for Germany, and Allied bombers destroyed the plants anyway.
• Post-WWI fear of running out of oil drove the US government to back American companies entering the Middle East.

2024-09-20 · Watch on YouTube