Brian M Downing
Wars bring sweeping changes, most unforeseen. The First World War brought down three proud, venerable dynasties and began Europe’s decline and America’s ascendance, a process completed by the Second World War. The Russo-Ukraine war, the largest Europe has seen since 1945, will determine the future of Europe and East Asia.
The war may be accelerating Saudi Arabia’s detachment from the United States and alignment with Russia and China. The process, long followed here and deemed all but inevitable, has been underway for years through oil contracts, price fixing, and arms sales. The Russo-Ukraine war is making the process clear and perhaps irreversible. Biden arrives in Riyadh later this week. Putin sent a Chechen emissary last week.
Saudi disenchantment
President Roosevelt and the Saudi king forged a partnership in 1945. The US, then the dominant oil producer, judged it had expended too much of its crude against Germany and Japan and wanted Saudi Arabia to develop its resources for Europe’s reconstruction. A deal was cut: the kingdom provided oil, the US defended it.
The US became dependent on Saudi oil, highly so. More recently, however, American production has skyrocketed, ending dependency. Gulf oil now flows more to India and China. Riyadh sees its future in the East, the West in renewables.
There are other sources of conflict. The Saudis opposed the 2003 Iraq war. Saddam Hussein was a nuisance but he kept Iran and his own immense Shia population under control. His ouster brought greater Shia-Iranian influence in Iraq and the entire region. Islamist militancy proliferated. For years, Riyadh tried to get the US to attack Iran, but president after president refused. An independent analyst might call this judicious restraint. A Saudi monarch would brand it strategic unreliability.
Saudi security concerns include internal ones. Domestic opponents are considerable, packed into a bulging youth cohort, and ideologically diverse: liberal reformers, traditionalists, AQ and ISIL, the Muslim Brotherhood, and overlooked members of the royal family. The House of Saud knows it will one day face an uprising like those that crumbled Syria and Libya. It also knows the US won’t help keep it on top. Washington’s enemies, however, have shown determination to crush protests and democracy.
Russia and China
Saudi Arabia once despised Russia. Moscow was officially godless and supportive of secular Arab states like Egypt that clashed with the kingdom. When Russia sent troops into Afghanistan, the Saudis supported the mujahideen and perhaps more importantly, boosted oil output. Russian export revenue plummeted. Now, however, Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two largest exporters, coordinate production levels.
Benchmark prices have soared since the Russo-Ukraine war began. Despite requests for greater production, MBS and his Sunni allies have held fast. They know the impact: domestic troubles for western countries, especially the US, discounts to China, and more revenue for Putin’s war machine.
Aside from shared economic and geopolitical goals, Putin and MBS have important personal affinities. Both are ambitious, ruthless, and knowledgeable of the integral relationship between oil revenue and power expansion. The Russo-Ukraine war is helping both rulers, at least for now.
For decades now, China has been buying prodigiously from Saudi oil fields and others in the Gulf. The Long March to economic and geopolitical supremacy needs large quantities of oil and gas from stable, friendly countries. American bases up and down the Gulf pose a threat. A small task force could close off Chinese imports. Beijing wants Washington to be weakened at home and abroad and one day pushed out of the Gulf. American flags will be lowered, Chinese and Russian ones hoisted.
Next: a Chechen warlord comes to Riyadh.
©2022 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.