US Oil Geopolitics

In fairness, USA oil production doesn't have the same sort of "tuning knob" that Saudi or even Russian oil production has. It isn't that government officials play no role, since they can delay permits or employ similar bureaucratic inertia (EDIT: and the bureaucrats in question consider many other values, like the environment, to be more important than international economic strategy), but mostly it's private investors who decide where and how much they will drill. I

Why doesn't the US take Saudi Arabia's oil then?

The US, due to fracking, is now a net exporter of oil most years. Hopefully with more electric cars in the fleet each year oil use will also decline dramatically. We should use that opportunity to distance ourselves from Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately I think one factor driving US engagement that is not often discussed is the tens of billions Saudi Arabia spends on US weapon systems each year, not just oil interest.

The Saudis dropping oil prices when USSR was already hugely dependent on oil prices? :)

Why would the US, the country dependent on oil prices being low, would want to destroy the oil industry of a major producer?

please read what I've written carefully. if the us didn't use so much oil, global oil prices would be much much lower and wouldn't enrich these countries.

The oil market is international, but not immune from politics. The Saudis are currently willing to sell their oil to the US for a fair price. That isn't a situation that is guaranteed to continue, if the US digs up all their oil now they lose the future negotiating position of "screw you guys, we'll just dig up our own oil".

It's a political thing. Oil is a fungible resource. Saudi Arabia helps control the market. US doesn't want to lose that power by pissing them off.As oil goes, so goes the world.

Incredible how the US has transformed into the largest producer of crude oil in the world in the matter of a few short years. It's definitely a geopolitical weapon to attack those in the Middle East with, especially the Saudis, although it's not clear to me whether they are complicit or not with this current US policy of pumping and dumping oil. Now that ISIS is all but dismantled, maybe the other target is Syria and Iran or even Russia. In a similar way Reagan outspent the Soviet Uni

It's not about needing the oil to use, it's about profit for American oil companies. Resource extraction from foreign countries at gunpoint is a major basis of the US economy.