The United States has a strong reliance on the Middle East and other foreign countries for oil and natural gas. This dependence has led to international affairs that many Americans disapprove of including the Persian Gulf War, Iraq War, and the current fight against ISIS. Many of theses countries have unstable governments that oppose the American democracy. Terroristic groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS receive most of their funding from the oil industry in the Middle East. ISIS makes about one to two million dollars a day in oil sales, so everyday Americans are actually helping to support the terroristic group we so badly want to destroy. (Griffin). The hostility in the Middle East causes fluctuations in both the amount and price of oil that will be produced. At the United States’ import peak in 2005, they accessed more than 60 percent of their oil from outside the borders. It has been projected that within the next five years, the United States has the capabilities to only need domestic and Canadian oil. Most of the new oil in the U.S. is coming from Texas and North Dakota. The United States spends a very large sum of money in the Middle East. Princeton University reports, “The United States spends $166 billion annually – or 24 percent of its defense budget – on securing access to oil, according to a 2010 report by Princeton professor Roger J. Stern. The country spent $7.3 trillion keeping U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf from 1976 to 2007”(Wilmoth). This is an unreal amount of money spent for the access to oil. These costs do not include Americans lives. American soldiers will no longer need to put their lives at risk if the U.S. can obtain energy independence and withdraw from the chaotic, dangerous Middle East. More soldiers could be safe at home or put in combat at more important and safer areas. By extensively utilizing hydraulic fracturing, the United States has the potential to become energy independent. They would no longer need to pay $166 billion a year to secure oil and this money can be used to reduce the national debt or to improve other aspects of the United States such as the cure to diseases or poverty (Wilmoth). The first graph illustrates how oil imports are slowly decreasing while exports are steadily increasing. The chart below shows the amount of money is spent on the military and securing oil.
