Steve Yetiv's central argument is that oil stability has improved in recent years in the sense that the market is resilient, enjoying a self-reinforcing equilibrium by its ability to deter, mitigate, and contain threats to supplies. The author explicitly distinguishes oil supply stability from oil price stability, as oil prices have become more volatile while supply volumes have stabilized. Implicitly, he argues that price flexibility stabilizes supplies and that the world oil market has become more competitive and less rigid, so that relations between oil exporters and importers have become more pragmatic and less politicized. Attention is on the physical availability of oil: Disruptions are unlikely, not on oil prices or their impact on incomes, inflation rates, and trade balances, but historically, oil has always been available in the world market, at a price. The book would have benefited from a more systematic elaboration of the key argument, early on. He examines the oil market from the perspective of international relations, emphasising the projection of U.S. military power in the Middle East.

The major contribution of the book is to show the connection between concerns about oil supplies and the massive U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf (p. 59 ff.), and perhaps unintentionally that the Iraq War also was about oil (p. 209), besides Israel's security (p. 149). Explicitly recognizing 9/11 as an excuse to take on Iraq (p. 91), the author implicitly confirms that the foreign and energy policies of the United States include the offensive use of war.

The author discusses the role of the (Arabian-Persian) Gulf in global oil supplies (p. 7), but not in world market price formation. Focus is on the risk of sudden supply disruption due to the political use of the oil weapon, not on the continuous impact of politics on the oil market. He belittles the importance of Saudi Arabia to oil market stability, but also points out, correctly (p. 40), that present conditions there differ from those of Iran in the 1970s, so that violent change and oil supply disruptions are unlikely. The author discusses the economic problems of Saudi Arabia (p. 33), but ignores the population pressure and the ensuing revenue needs that weigh on oil policy.

Yetiv dismisses the chances of a successful political use of the oil weapon today (p. 139). He maintains (p. 142) that the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo “unified western leaders in the pursuit of oil security” and “pushed industrialized countries to develop and exploit other sources of energy.” This reviewer disagrees; the embargo split the Western countries, as Japan and Western Europe refused to follow the confrontational policies advocated by the United States, wanting to offset their loss of leadership by a countercartel to OPEC to push oil prices down. The outcome was the fairly toothless International Energy Agency, whose crisis plan was activated once only, in 1990. OPEC, securing higher oil prices, gave incentives to investment in other energy sources and in North Sea oil.

Analyzing the Gulf power balance, the author argues that according to economic and military indicators, the position of Saudi Arabia has strengthened at the expense of Iran and Iraq (p. 58), but overlooks Iran's demographic weight, progress in food self-sufficiency, and military potential. He presupposes that for a long time, Iraq will be under U.S. influence (p. 58). His key point is that with bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, in addition to Iraq, the United States has become the chief guarantor of oil stability (p. 76), and is well positioned to protect regional oil supplies by military means. His core argument is that U.S. military power, enhanced by the 1990–91 Gulf Crisis and the 2003 Iraq War, not oil supply economics, stabilizes oil supplies.

In the summer of 1990, before the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein voiced concerns that the United States would use its position to influence oil prices to its own benefit (p. 96). At the time, Iraq was practically insolvent, unable to service its huge war debts, and the alternative to bankruptcy was invading Kuwait. Against this backdrop, it is remarkable that the author does not pay more attention to economic threats to Gulf stability.

Yetiv understates the problems and mistakes of the U.S. occupation of Iraq (p. 208). Referring to the fall of Saddam (p. 76), he omits that it was achieved by foreign troops, not the Iraqi people. Comparing the U.S. occupation of Iraq with that of Germany and Japan after 1945 (p. 75), he overlooks the fact that Japan attacked and Germany declared war on the United States; Iraq did neither, and was the target of an unprovoked assault. The author praises U.S. nation building in Iraq (p. 76), but regime change was the third pretext for war, after claims of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist links were invalidated. To many Iraqis, the would-be U.S. liberators have become occupiers, compromising stabilization. Regional and oil supply stability would suffer from a protracted insurgency or an involuntary U.S. withdrawal.

Crude Awakenings is a scholarly book in the sense that it examines a defined issue from a distinct perspective, but the perspective is narrow and the author's notions of the oil market are simplistic, sometimes inaccurate. The largest and fastest growing market for Saudi crude is not the United States (p. 83), but Asia. To underpin his case of oil market resilience and cushions against supply disruptions, the author presents unrealistic forecasts about excess oil production capacity (pp. 159–61), for which neither policy changes nor capital investment is forthcoming as required. Consequently, Saudi Arabia remains of crucial importance for oil supplies. Assertions about oil privatization and Iraq leaving OPEC (p. 188) seem inspired by wishful thinking, not political realities.

Yetiv sees the U.S. military presence in the Gulf and Iraq as a factor of stability. Two years after the Iraq War, oil prices have doubled, less because of OPEC or the physical balance of supply and demand than because of a risk premium in markets that discount regional and oil supply instability.