The International Politics of the Persian Gulf

8. Saudi Arabia’s Regional Security Strategy

169 Saudi Arabia’s Regional Security Strategy F . G r e g o r y G a u s e , I I I Saudi Arabia’s regional security strategy has remained remarkably consistent in the decades since the Middle East emerged from colonial control as an autonomous regional system. The overriding goal of Saudi regional policy has been to maintain the security of the regime, in the face of both conventional regional military threats and transnational ideological challenges to the regime’s domestic political stability and legitimacy. The pursuit of that goal regionally has at times created tension for the Saudi leadership in their most important international security relationship—that with the United States—but Riyadh has more or less successfully managed those tensions. This chapter will assess the Saudi regional security strategy on two geographic levels: the Saudis’ immediate neighborhood , the Arabian Peninsula, where they assert hegemony, and the broader Middle East, where the Saudis have to deal with numerous powerful regional states. It will discuss the means used by Riyadh to secure Saudi interests in the region, including financial power, diplomatic balancing, and its own transnational ideological networks. It will conclude with an analysis of Saudi regional policy since the Iraq War of 2003. National Security and Regime Security in Saudi Regional Policy Like any regional power, Saudi Arabia’s security policy is aimed at maintaining the independence and security of the country itself. It seeks to prevent regional 170 | F. Gregory Gause, III hegemony and to check stronger regional military powers through the classic balance -of-power policy of finding international and regional allies. However, Saudi regional security policy cannot be understood simply in terms of the framework of national security. The Saudi ruling elite also uses its regional policy to secure the political stability of the regime against both foreign and domestic challengers .1 Regime security can certainly be threatened by military invasion and conquest . But it can also be challenged by transnational ideologies and movements that can mobilize domestic opposition to the ruling elite. In the Middle East, there are powerful transborder identities grounded in Islam and Arabism that have attracted the political loyalty of publics across state borders. The Saudi regime has in the past been particularly vulnerable to such transnational ideological appeals, as a result of its own particular history of state building. The Saudi state is in no way a “natural” political unit with a long history of central governance and strong common identity, such as Egypt and Iran. On the contrary, Arabian history has been characterized by political fragmentation and decentralization for centuries. While the Al Saud have a 250-year history as a major political force in Arabia, the modern state of Saudi Arabia is less than 100 years old. It was united by force of arms, unassisted by any kind of regionwide sense of Arabian nationalism. The Al Saud justified their rule not by national identity but by Islam. However, the official interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, was not a unifying factor outside of central Arabia. It excluded the Shi‘a populations of eastern Arabia (Hasa and Qatif) and southwestern Arabia (the Ismaili population of Asir). It relegated to subordinate status Sunnis who did not follow the Hanbali school of legal interpretation, which included the vast majority of the population of western Arabia (Hijaz). Local and tribal loyalties and identifications remained strong through the early decades of the history of modern Saudi Arabia and persist up to today. Thus the Saudi rulers have had to confront a number of challenges to their domestic stability and security that sought from abroad to mobilize opposition to their rule among their subjects. Four such challenges stand out: The Hashemite challenge, from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. The founder of the modern Saudi state, Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman Al Saud (Ibn Saud), expelled the Hashemite rulers of the Hijaz in 1926, but British colonialism had installed Hashemites in power in their mandates of Transjordan and Iraq, presenting a dangerous irredentist threat to Saudi control over the Hijaz. The Saudi Arabia’s Regional Security Strategy | 171 Hashemite rulers of those countries, particularly Prince Abdallah of Transjordan (after 1950, Jordan), maintained contacts with Hijazis for decades after the Saudi conquest.2 The Nasserist challenge, from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Egyptian president Gamal Abd al-Nasir (Nasser) asserted his leadership of the Arab world by mobilizing Arabs...