What were the short-term and long-term consequences of the OPEC oil embargo?

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Oil in NigeriaA Nigerian woman ferries fuel drums across Warri Harbor, near an abandoned oil tanker. Nigeria’s oil has brought great profits to some, but boom-and-bust cycles and corruption keep wealth out of the hands of most Nigerians. (© George Steinmetz/Corbis)

IIN 1973 WAR ERUPTED AGAIN between Israel and its neighbors Egypt and Syria. The conflict became known as the Yom Kippur War. Armed with advanced weapons from the Soviet Union, Egyptian and Syrian armies came close to defeating Israel before the U.S. government airlifted sophisticated arms to Israel. Israel counterattacked, reaching the outskirts of both Cairo and Damascus before the fighting ended. Arab oil-exporting countries retaliated against U.S. support for Israel by imposing an embargo on oil sales to countries that had supported Israel during the war.

Amid the oil embargo, the war in Vietnam, and political conflict within the United States, U.S. political and economic influence as a global superpower seemed to decline.