Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy, By Robert Vitalis, 2020.
“Scarcity” means there is not enough of something. “Security” means being safe. Vitalis, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says the U.S. has been haunted, almost like a ghost story, by two false fears: that oil is running out, and that America must use its army to keep oil safe.
His big idea is simple. Oil is a product like wheat or copper. People buy it and sell it on markets. It is not a magic power that a country must grab and guard with soldiers.
Vitalis’s main goal is to dispel, or break, the myth that America must trade military protection for oil. Many people believe a deal like this: the U.S. protects Saudi Arabia, and in return the Saudis keep oil flowing and cheap. Vitalis says this deal is a story, not a fact.
The title is a word game. “Crafts” identify patterns, skills and beliefs deemed integral to the successful management of the craft. These beliefs are based on peoples repetition of stories and myths rather than supporting evidence or facts.
Statecraft, Racecraft and Witchcraft are all discussed in relation to Oilcraft. Statecraft and witchcraft base their beliefs on patterns or spells, while racecraft treats different groups of people according to an invented idea as if it is a fact of nature. Like witchcraft and racecraft, oilcraft myths lasts because powerful people repeat it, not because the facts support it. All these crafts share one pattern. People make up a story, act on it, and then point to the results as proof the story was true.
Oilcraft is worth reading for anyone who has ever heard “that war was about oil” and nodded along. In a short book, Vitalis shows how a myth can shape wars, alliances, and budgets for a century. His ideas of witchcraft and racecraft help explain why bad ideas last so long. The book is short on solutions, but it asks the right questions, and those questions matter more than ever in 2026.
Listen: Vitalis talks about the book on the New Books Network podcast: Robert Vitalis, Oilcraft: (https://newbooksnetwork.com/oilcraft).
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Implications of Oilcraft: A Deep Dive
So why do U.S. troops stay in the Middle East? Vitalis says it is not because America needs them to get oil. The belief in Oilcraft keeps them there. Leaders, think tanks, and even activists on the left keep repeating that wars are “about oil,” which makes the myth feel true.
Vitalis makes three main points:
- Oil is just a product. Oil is bought and sold on markets like the New York Mercantile Exchange. If one seller stops selling, prices go up and other sellers step in. No army is needed to make that happen.
- The Saudis do not control the price. Vitalis argues the Saudi royal family does many things for American companies and government offices. But keeping oil cheap or steady is not one of them.
- The 1973 oil crisis is misunderstood. Most people remember 1973 as the year Arab countries used oil as a weapon. Vitalis says the “embargo” did far less than people think. He argues it became a scary story used to win arguments for decades.
This review of Oilcraft argues history points to something deeper. The belief that a nation must control resources is a leftover from mercantilism.
Oilcraft comes the old idea of mercantilism, as a way of thinking about money and power. Popular in Europe from about the 1500s to the 1700s, countries got rich by piling up gold, selling more to other countries than buying it back, and taking control of colonies. Colonies supplied cheap raw materials like sugar, cotton, and metals. The home country then kept the profits. Neomercantilism is the modern version of the old idea. Countries no longer collect gold or colonies the old way. Instead, they use tariffs, trade deals, military bases, and control of key resources like oil to grow their power and wealth.
Around 1900, rich nations like Britain, France, and the U.S. raced to grab land in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Leaders believed that owning resources overseas made a nation strong. Vitalis traces the idea of “control” of foreign oil fields back to this time, around World War I.
U.S. military bases and wars in the Middle East can be read as neomercantilism, the old “grab and guard” mindset dressed in modern clothes. Oilcraft is the story that keeps that mindset alive.
Why racist and imperialist strategies continue
This review reads Oilcraft as an answer to a hard question: why do rich industrial countries keep using racist and imperialist strategies? The book suggests three reasons.
1. Myths make control feel necessary. Oilcraft paints Middle Eastern countries as dangerous people sitting on something the West “needs.” That picture makes military bases and arms deals feel like common sense. Vitalis’s earlier book America’s Kingdom showed how U.S. oil companies in Saudi Arabia ran segregated camps, much like Jim Crow in the American South.
2. Racecraft hides the real reasons. Just as Racecraft makes inequality look natural, Oilcraft makes Western control of poorer regions look like a matter of safety. People stop asking who actually gains. In this review’s reading, the winners are weapons makers, oil companies, and those who profit from a big military, not ordinary citizens.
3. Old habits protect wealth. Imperialism means a strong country controlling weaker ones for its own benefit. The mercantilist habit of controlling resources and trade routes still helps rich countries keep their lead. Vitalis’s own work on the history of U.S. international relations argues that the field was born studying how white nations should rule others. Those ideas did not vanish; they changed names.
Vitalis wants readers to see through the spell. Once the myth is gone, he asks, why should Americans fear a Middle East without the kings and rulers the U.S. now supports?
Climate change and the falling need for oil
The fight against global warming is shrinking the world’s future need for oil, and that makes the Oilcraft myth even weaker. Climate change is not the main topic of Oilcraft, but it supports the book’s point that oil is not a forever resource worth fighting over.
Because burning oil heats the planet, many countries now push electric cars, solar power, and wind power. The numbers show the change:
- Electric car sales passed 17 million in 2024, about one in four cars sold worldwide (IEA, Oil 2025).
- The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects electric cars to replace 5.4 million barrels of oil a day by 2030.
- Oil use in rich countries is already going down. The IEA forecasts it will fall by 1.7 million barrels a day by 2030.
- The IEA expects world oil demand to level off around 105.5 million barrels a day by the end of this decade.
Not everyone agrees with how fast this will happen. In late 2025 the IEA said that under current government policies, oil demand could keep growing until 2050. Slower electric car sales in the U.S. and rollbacks of climate rules were part of the reason (S&P Global).
Still, Vitalis’s lesson holds either way. For a hundred years, people warned that oil would run out. Now the bigger question is when the world will stop wanting so much of it. A product the world is slowly moving away from is a strange reason to keep troops overseas.
Oilcraft and the Strait of Hormuz today
The 2026 war between the U.S. and Iran is a real-life test of Oilcraft. Vitalis has not written about this war himself, so this section shows how his ideas could be used to read it.
Development (as of October 25, 2026). The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow sea passage between Iran and Oman. Before the war, about one fifth of the world’s oil passed through it. Here is the situation:
- The war began on February 28, 2026, when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran. Iran then attacked ships and largely closed the strait.
- The U.S. Navy blocks Iran’s own ports, so Iran cannot sell its oil. The U.S. also escorts other countries’ tankers through the strait.
- On October 25, the U.S. military said more than 3,000 ships and 1.5 billion barrels of oil have passed through with its help in six months.
- Iran tells a different story. It says ships still hit their sea mines, including seven ships damaged in one day this week. The UN’s shipping agency says it cannot promise ships will be safe.
- Oil prices are still high, even though more oil is now moving.
Each side alleges it controls the strait, so it is hard to know the full truth.
How an Oilcraft reading sees it.
- The strait was open before the war. In this reading, the war created the oil danger that the military now says it must fix. That fits Vitalis’s warning that fear of losing oil drives costly choices.
- Prices, not shortages. Oil is still flowing, but at a higher price. Shippers want more money to take the risk. Vitalis would say this shows oil acts like any product: when risk goes up, price goes up, and buyers keep buying.
- America does not need this oil. The U.S. now produces more oil than it uses. Most of the oil from the strait goes to Asia. So the war is hard to explain as America is protecting its own supply. This is the “security for oil” myth the book attacks.
- The old mindset is back. A huge navy guarding a sea lane and blocking a rival’s trade looks a lot like the neomercantilism described earlier: grab and guard the key route.
The other side. Many experts say this war proves oil really is a weapon. Iran has a weak navy but has still raised world prices just by threatening ships. Higher gas prices hurt voters, and that pressure matters to leaders. A Vitalis reader would reply that this is power over prices and politics, not proof that oil must be controlled by armies. Readers can decide which view the evidence supports better.
Strengths, weaknesses, and what critics say
Oilcraft is bold and well researched, but it is better at tearing down myths than at offering a plan.
Strengths
- Fearless. Vitalis criticizes everyone: Republicans, Democrats, activists, and professors. A review in the SAIS Review praised him for sparing no one.
- Deep research. All three scholars in the H-Diplo roundtable called the book carefully researched and powerful in disproving oil myths.
- Lively style. It’s an easy read that allows complicated concepts become easier to understand.
Weaknesses
- Few solutions. A U.S. Air Force reviewer said the book is light on proposals. It tells you what is wrong, but not what leaders should do next.
- A fuzzy main idea. Rosemary Kelanic, Director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, argued that “oilcraft” is defined so broadly that it is hard to pin down.
- The race link needs more proof. Some H-Diplo reviewers wanted Vitalis to back up his claims connecting racism and oilcraft more fully (https://issforum.org/about/subscribe-to-h-diplo).
- Hard for beginners. The Air Force review also warned that the book assumes readers already know a lot of history.
The other side. Some experts believe oil really is a strategic weapon. They point to the 2026 U.S.–Iran war: when Iran attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices jumped worldwide. Critics say this shows that whoever can block oil has real power. A Vitalis supporter would answer that this proves only that oil prices move, not that America must control the oil itself. Readers should weigh both views.