Why the Saudi Arabian Defence Binge?

Abstract:

Saudi Arabia is one of the most proliferate military spenders in the world, and this article assesses the multiple reasons for Saudi Arabian defence spending. Possible motives include arming against external threats, buying internal loyalty, gaining national prestige, and soliciting support from important external patrons, especially the United States. The article argues that while Saudi Arabia does seek to improve its military capability through increased defence spending, and gain prestige and internal support, the most significant reason for the increased investment for arms sales is to gain political support in the United States, as Saudi military money preserves some defence sector jobs in the American defence industry, potentially replacing American employment that would otherwise drop because of expected US defence budget reductions. By contributing in a small but targeted way to the American economy, Saudi Arabia can try to leverage American support for its security and foreign policy requirements.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank Christopher Hemmer, W. Andrew Terrill, Grant T. Hammond, and four anonymous CSP reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft. I also thank Aaron Karp for supplying some useful information to clarify my arguments. The views expressed here are the authors and do not represent those of the Air War College, the United States Air Force, or the Department of Defense.

Notes

1. CIA World FactBook 2013, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html. These figures are for 2012, the latest that the 2013 edition reports.

2. Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), pp. 425–46; Peter W. Wilson and Douglas F. Graham, Saudi Arabia: The Coming Storm (Armonk, New York: M.E. Shape, 1994), pp. 146–9. As Wilson and Graham indicate, some of this spending went for infrastructure, including construction of the causeway between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, initiated in response to fears of an Iranian coup on that island country. In 2011, Saudi Arabian and other Gulf Cooperation Council forces crossed that causeway to help quell an anti-regime movement.

3. CIA World Factbook (note 1).

4. Sam Perlo-Freeman, Elisabeth Sköns, Carina Solmirano, and Helén Wilhandh, Trends in World Military Expenditures, 2012. SIPRI Factsheet, April 2013, http://books.sipri.org/files/FS/SIPRIFS1304.pdf.

5. Richard F. Grimmett and Paul K. Kerr, ‘Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Countries, 2004-2011’, Congressional Research Service, Washington DC, 2012, p. 15. Figures are in current dollars. India was a distant second at around US$46 billion, and the UAE and Egypt ranked fourth and fifth at US$20.3 and US$14.3, respectively.

6. These figures are for contract value, not actual arms deliveries, which often stretch out over many years.

7. ‘2010–12 Saudi Shopping Spree: F-15s, Helicopters & More’, Defense Industry Daily, 7 August 2012.

8. ‘Saudi Shopping Spree: A Hardened, Networked National Guard’, Defense Industry Daily, 24 June 2013.

9. It is tempting to portray the Iran-Saudi conflict through religious lenses, as both countries claim to be the centres of Shi'a and Sunni Islam, respectively. However, it is much more likely that the politicization of religion by Ayatollah Khomeini to construct a political base was one source of the conflict, and that Saudi Arabia reacted to that politicization by its own campaign against Shi'a. Prior to 1979, Saudi ‘Wahhabist’ clerics regarded the Saudi Shi'a as deviants who needed guidance, but not as enemies of the Saudi state. The portrayal of Saudi Shi'a as a threat to the Saudi state grew largely after 1979. Raihan Ismail, ‘The Saudi Ulema and the Shi'a of Saudi Arabia’, Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn 2012), pp. 404–6; Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 85–90.

10. ‘Region will Lose Sleep Over Iran Deal: Saudi Advisor’, Reuters, 24 November 2013.

11. ‘Saudi Coastguard Capture 15 Iranians: Statement’, Beirut Daily Star, 20 October 2012.

12. For example, ‘Ten More Arrests Made in Spying Case’, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 21 May 2013, http://www.saudiembassy.net/latest_news/news05211302.aspx.

13. Najah Mohamed Ali, ‘Iranian Politician Says His Country can “Easily Occupy Saudi Arabia”’, Al Arabiya News, 17 October 2011.

14. Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 131.

15. ‘GCC to Iran: Stop Issuing False Statements’, Saudi Gazette, 19 July 2001.

16. All figures from The Military Balance 2012 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2012).

17. The Basij are a militia force associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. See Steven R. Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and its Armed Forces (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009), p. 323.

18. Joshua R. Itzkowiz-Shrifinson and Miranda Priebe, ‘A Crude Threat: The Limits of a Iranian Missile Campaign against Saudi Arabian Oil’, International Security, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Summer 2011), pp. 167–201.

19. Author's interview, Interior Ministry, Riyadh, March 2010.

20. Christopher M. Blanchard, ‘Saudi Arabia: Background and US Relations’, Congressional Research Service, Report 7-5700, Washington DC, 19 June 2012, p. 5.

21. Anthony H. Cordesman, ‘Is Big Saudi Arms Deal a Good Idea?’, Council on Foreign Relations, September 2010.

22. F. Gregory Gause, ‘Is Big Saudi Arms Deal a Good Idea?’, Council on Foreign Relations, September 2010.

23. 'SIPRI. The UAE bought over USD 4 billion of weapons, Kuwait USD 4.2 billion, and Oman purchased 18 F-16 fighters for USD 1.4 billion’, Elizabeth Dickenson, ‘US Arms Sales Hit Record Highs, Over Deals with Arabian Gulf Countries’, The National, 28 August 2012.

24. ‘Iran Imports ₤350 m. in Weapons in 3 Years’, Jerusalem Post, 3 May 2012.

25. There are conflicting reports on whether China continues to sell Iran arms. Gentry stated that, ‘And in March 2013, confirming suspicions that China continues to supply weapons to Iran, an Iranian vessel off the coast of Yemen was found to be carrying Chinese-made QW-1M man-portable air defense (MANPAD) systems … ’ Yet he does not supply evidence that these were recent purchases, rather than missiles possibly sold by China before 2010. James Brandon Gentry, ‘China's Role in Iran's Anti-Access/Area Denial Weapons Capability Development’, Middle East Institute, 16 April 2013, http://www.mei.edu/content/china%E2%80%99s-role-iran%E2%80%99s-anti-access-area-deniAl weapons-capability-development.

26. Ward, Immortal (note 17), chs8–9.

27. Mehran Kamrava, ‘Iranian Foreign and Security Policies in the Persian Gulf,’ in Kamrava (ed.), International Politics of the Persian Gulf (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011), p. 197.

28. Anthony H. Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid, National Security in Saudi Arabia: Threats, Responses, and Challenges (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2005), p. 13.

29. Jeff D. Colgan, Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 225–50.

30. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, ‘Internal and External Security in the Arab Gulf States’, Middle East Policy, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Summer 2009), p. 42.

31. Rami Khouri, ‘The Iranian-Saudi Cold War’, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 19 October 2011.

32. ‘Yemen's Foreign Minister Discusses Planned Yemeni Dialog, Iran's ‘Interference’, Al Arabiya Television, 12 November 2012, Open Source Center, GMP20121112650001. The term ‘Ja'farite’ refers to Imam Ja'far Al Sadiq, who continued the line of Imams beyond the death of the seventh Imam, thus allowing the succession line to continue to the Twelfth Imam. See Hamid Dabashi, Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 114–5; Moojan Momem, An Introduction to Shi'a Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 54.

33. ‘Large Arms Shipment Intercepted off Yemen, Iran Eyed as Source’, Asharq Al Awsat, 29 January 2013; ‘Yemen Demands Iran Halt Support for Insurgents’, Lebanon Daily Star, 7 February 2013; ‘Yemen Authorities Prevent Smuggling of Weapons’, Yemen Post, 6 May 2013.

34. Author's interview, US Embassy Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 2011.

35. Author's interview, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 2011.

36. Marwan Noman and David S. Sorenson, ‘Reforming the Yemeni Security Sector’, Center for Development, Democracy, and the Rule of Law, Working Papers 137, Stanford University, June 2013, http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/24151/No_137_Yemen.pdf.

37. Author's interview, Yemen Coast Guard Headquarters, Sana'a, March 2005.

38. Robert F. Worth and Eric Schmitt, ‘Jihadist Groups Gain in Turmoil Across Middle East’, New York Times, 3 December 2013.

39. Toby Craig Jones, Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); Madawi Al Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 176–85; Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).

40. Jones, Desert Kingdom (note 39). Raihan Ismail, ‘The Saudi Ulema and the Shi'a of Saudi Arabia’, Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 403–22.

41. One of the best accounts of the regime response to the Shi'a uprisings in Saudi Arabia is Toby Matthiesen, ‘A “Saudi Arab Spring”: The Shi'a Protest in the Eastern Province, 2011-2012’, Middle East Journal, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Autumn 2012), pp. 628–59.

42. Thomas Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Lacroix, Awakening Islam (note 39).

43. Christopher Boucek, ‘Terrorism Out of Saudi Arabia’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2 September 2011, http://carnegieendowment.org/2011/09/12/terrorism-out-of-saudi-arabia/8kyf#inside.

44. F. Gregory Gause, III, ‘Saudi Arabia's Regional Security Strategy,’ in Mehan Kamrava (ed.), International Politics of the Persian Gulf (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011), p. 170.

45. Toby Jones, ‘Seeking a “Social Contract” for Saudi Arabia’, Middle East Report, No. 228 (Autumn 2003), pp. 42–8.

46. Ellen Knickmeyer, ‘Saudi Center Aims for Life After Jihad’, Wall Street Journal, 24 April 2013.

47. For discussions of rentier state behaviour and motives, see Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian, ‘Saving Iraq from Its Oil’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 4 (July/August 2004), p. 81; Gawdat Bahgat, ‘Military Security and Political Stability in the Gulf,’ Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Fall 1995), p. 55–6; Gwenn Okruhlik, ‘Rentier Wealth, Unruly Law, and the Rise of Opposition: The Political Economy of Oil States’, Comparative Politics, Vol. 31, No. 3 (April, 1999), pp. 296–7; Michael L. Ross, ‘Does Oil Hinder Democracy?’ World Politics, Vol. 53, No. 3 (April 2001), pp. 325–61; Michael Herb, ‘No Representation without Taxation: Rents, Development, and Democracy,’ Comparative Politics, Vol. 37, No. 3 (April 2005), pp. 297–316; and Meliha B. Altunisik, ‘A Rentier State's Response to Oil Crisis: Economic Reform Policies in Libya’, Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Fall 1996), p. 63.

48. F. Gregory Gause III, ‘Saudi Arabia in the Middle East’, Special Report No. 63, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 2011, p. 6.

49. ‘Saudi Cabinet Approves Record Budget’, Asharq Al Awsat, 30 December 2012.

50. Jean-Pierre Filiu, The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 138; Simon Mabon, ‘Kingdom in Crisis? The Arab Spring and Instability in Saudi Arabia,’ Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 33, No. 3 (December 2012), p. 540; Stéphane Lacroix, ‘Is Saudi Arabia Immune?’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 22, No. 4 (October 2011), p. 54.

51. ‘Saudi Arabia's 2013 Budget,’ Jadwa Investment, 29 December 2012, http://susris.com/documents/2012/121230-jadwa-2013budget-en.pdf.

52. OECD, Arab World Competitive Report 2011-2012 (Geneva: World Economic Forum and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2011), p. 17.

53. Figures from the 2013 CIA World FactBook (note 1).

54. Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia (note 42); Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), esp. ch.2.

55. Toby Matthiesen, ‘Hizbullah Al Hijaz: A History of the Most Radical Saudi Shi'a Opposition Group’, The Middle East Journal, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 179–97. Despite the similarity of the name with the Lebanese Shi'a group, Hizbullah Al Hijaz has no connection with it.

56. Author's interview, US Embassy Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 2011.

57. Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), p. 82. During the Yemeni war of the 1960s, some Saudi Arabian military units turned their loyalty to Egypt's Nasser, and a few Saudi Arabian air force pilots defected, resulting in the grounding of the Saudi air force for a time. J.C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), p. 250–251.

58. James T. Quinlivan, ‘Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequence in the Middle East,’ International Security, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Fall 1999), p. 144; Mabon, ‘Kingdom in Crisis?’, p. 541 (note 50); Sorenson interview, Ministry of the Interior, Riyadh, March 2011; Gause, ‘Saudi Arabia in the Middle East’ (note 48), p. 7.

59. ‘Hagel Warns of Deep, New Cuts to Defense Budget’, Washington Post, 3 April 2013.

60. Pollack, Arabs at War (note 2) pp. 425–46.

61. Pascal Ménorer, The Saudi Enigma’ A History (London: Zed Books, 2005), p. 122.

62. Gause, 2011, p. 177 (note 48).

63. Sinem Cengiz, ‘Turkey Approves Military Deal with Qatar, Saudi Arabia amid Syria Conflict,’ Today's Zaman, 11 November 2012. Today's Zaman is a media outlet for the Turkish Gülen movement, but is generally accurate in its news reporting.

64. Author's interviews, Riyadh, March 2010.

65. Joe Stork and Jim Paul, ‘Arms Sales and the Militarization of the Middle East,’ MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project) Reports (Middle East Research and Information Project), No. 112, ‘The Arms Race in the Middle East’, February 1983, p. 7.

66. Newspapers surveyed for December 2013 were Al Madina, Saudi Gazette, Asharq Al Awsat, Arab News, Al Weeam, Al Watan, and Al Riyadh, both Arabic and English versions.

67. Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington DC, http://www.saudiembassy.net/issues/foreign-relations/.

68. For a discussion of Arab military social media policies, see David S. Sorenson, ‘Soldiers on Twitter: Arab Military Use of Social Media’, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association annual conference, San Diego, California, April 2012.

69. ‘Saudi Arabia Promises to Aid Egyptian Regime,’ New York Times, 19 August 2013.

70. ‘Jordan Secures Financial Assistance from Saudi Arabia’, Jordan Times, 28 November 2012.

71. ‘Saudi Arabia shows its Financial Might with Aid for MENA Nations’, Al Bawaba, 20 September 2012.

72. John Stanley and Maurice Pearton, The International Trade in Arms (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972); Anne Hessing Cahn and Joseph Kruzel (eds), Controlling Future Arms Trade (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977); Andrew Pierre, The Global Politics of Arms Sales (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982).

73. ‘Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Other Security Cooperation Historical Facts’ (Washington, DC: Financial Policy and Analysis, Business Operations, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, 2011), p. 3.

74. Rachel Bronson, Thicker than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 127.

75. Anthony H. Cordesman, ‘Tracking the Defense Budget’ (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2013).

76. Stephen Daggett and Pat Towell, ‘FY2013 Defense Budget Request: Overview and Context’, Congressional Research Service, Washington DC, 2012.

77. ‘Proposed Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia, Hearing and Markup before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 99^th Cong., 2^nd Sess’, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC,1986, p. 14.

78. Jason Ukman, ‘US, Saudi Arabia Strike $30 Billion Arms Deal’, Washington Post, 29 December 2011.

79. Larry Abramson, ‘Defense Contractors See Their Future in the Developing World’, NPR, 6 July 2013.

80. Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein, ‘Arms Away’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 5 (2012), pp. 125–33. Three critics dispute Caverly and Kapstein's findings, with Daniel Katz claiming that US arms exports have actually increased, though Caverly and Kapstein respond by claiming that Katz's figures include unfulfilled future contracts. See ‘Outgunned? A Debate over the Shifting Global Arms Market’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92, No. 3 (2013), pp. 177–82.

81. Thom Shanker, ‘US Arms Sales Make Up Most of Global Market’, New York Times, 26 August 2012.

82. David Lerman and Robert Wall, ‘U.S. Defense Contractors Focus on Foreign Buyers’, Bloomberg-Business Week, 14 November 2013, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-14/2014-outlook-u-dot-s-dot-defense-contractors-focus-on-foreign-buyers.

83. Gordon Adams, ‘In Search of Greener Pastures, Lockheed and Friends Venture Abroad’, Foreign Policy, 21 June 2013.

84. Author's interview, US Embassy Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 2011.

85. Ibid.

86. ‘Saudi Arabia: Defense Production and R&D’, in Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment: The Gulf States (London: Jane's Information Group, 2011). Of those jobs, 57 per cent went to Saudi nationals.

87. ‘Special Joint Press Briefing on U.S. Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia’, U.S. Department of State, Washington DC, 29 December 2011.

88. Offsets in Defense Trade. Seventeenth Study Conducted Pursuant to Section 723 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as Amended, Bureau of Industry and Security, US Department of Commerce, February 2013, p. 1.

89. ‘Guns and Sugar’, The Economist, 25 May 2013.

90. ‘$60bn in Defence Deals Expected to Lift Saudi Economy’, The National, 20 November 2010.

91. ‘Increased Security: Defence Offsets Programme Helps to Create Local Benefits,’ Oxford Business Group, 2013, http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/increased-security-defence-offsets-programme-helps-create-locAl benefits. ‘Saudization’ refers to a long-standing Saudi Arabian plan to replace foreign workers with Saudi citizens, though it has not reduced the foreign workforce much, as expatriate workers labour for much lower wages than do Saudi citizens. While Saudi Arabia recently deported thousands of illegal immigrant workers (mostly Ethiopians), many young Saudis would prefer government jobs where the labour requirements are less than in the private sector, so ‘Saudization’ has been slow. Gause, ‘Saudi Arabia in the Middle East’, p. 12. Some defence firms pioneered ‘Saudization’, as Advanced Electronics Company had a workforce consisting of over 60 per cent Saudi nationals in 1996. Author's interview, Advanced Electronics Company, Riyadh, March 1996.

92. ‘As Firms Target Exports, Offsets Create Headaches’, Defense News, 20 May 2013.

93. The literature is voluminous: Michelle Mart, Eye on Israel: How America Came to View the Jewish State as an Ally (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006); Transforming America's Israel Lobby (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009); John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007); Gabriel Sheffer (ed.), US-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads (London: Frank Cass, 1997); Timothy P. Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), for a short list.

94. In a February 2013 poll, when asked to rank countries relative to ‘favorable’, 36 per cent of respondents rated Saudi Arabia as ‘favorable’, while 58 per cent chose ‘unfavorable’. ‘American Least Favorable towards Iran’, Gallup, 7 March 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/161159/americans-least-favorable-toward-iran.aspx.

95. Wilson and Graham, Saudi Arabia (note 2), p. 148–9.

96. ‘2011-2012 Saudi Shopping Spree, F-15's, Helicopters, and More’, Defense Industry Daily, 3 January 2013, http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/A-2010-Saudi-Shopping-Spree-06520/.

97. Ibid.

98. Technically the US army wants to suspend US tank production from 2014–2017 when a new version is supposed to be ready for production. ‘Contracts: Army’, No. 668-13, US Department of Defense, 18 September 2013, http://www.defense.gov/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=5136.

99. ‘Equipment Purchases Boost Gulf Defences’, Strategic Comments, Vol. 34, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 2013.

100. The entire weapons sale includes 650 AGM-84H Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), 973 AGM-154C Joint Stand Off Weapons (JSOW), 400 AGM-84 L Harpoon Block II missiles, 1000 GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB), 40 CATM-84H Captive Air Training Missiles (CATM), 20 ATM-84H SLAM-ER Telemetry Missiles, four Dummy Air Training Missiles, 60 AWW-13 Data Link pods, 10 JSOW CATMs, 40 Harpoon CATMs, 20 ATM-84 L Harpoon Exercise Missiles, 36 SDB Captive Flight and Load Build Trainers, containers, mission planning, integration support and testing, munitions storage security and training, weapon operational flight program software development, transportation, tools and test equipment, support equipment, spare and repair parts, publications and technical documentation, personnel training and training equipment, US Government and contractor engineering and logistics support services, and other related elements of logistics support. ‘Saudi Arabia: Various Missions and Support, Defense Security and Cooperation Agency’, 25 October 2013, http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/saudi-arabia-various-munitions-and-support.

101. ‘Company to Help Establish Saudi War College’, SAIC, 25 August 2009.

102. ‘Lockheed Wins Two Training Contracts’, Defense Procurement News, 31 May 2013.

103. See: http://www.raytheon.com/businesses/rids/businesses/patriot/patriot_amdp/saudi/index.html.

104. Ukman, ‘US, Saudi Arabia Strike $30 Billion Arms Deal’ (note 78); ‘Saudi Arms Agreement Advances,’ The Wall Street Journal, 12 September 2010.

105. A.F. K. Organski, The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in US Assistance to Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

106. The Saudi Arabian royal family finds considerable opposition inside the country to its relationship with the United States. Some came from Al Qaeda elements in Saudi Arabia, though this was quite limited, but after the regime tried its best to quash them after a series of violent Al Qaeda attacks inside the country, the primary opposition has come from the ‘Sahwa,’ or ‘Awakening’ movement that originally stemmed from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and grew in anti-Americanism after American forces arrived in Saudi Arabia to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia (note 42); Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 145–150, Bronson, ‘Rethinking Religion: The Legacy of the US-Saudi Relationship’, pp. 127–8; Lacroix, Awakening Islam (note 39).

107. Bronson, Thicker than Oil (note 74), pp. 126–8.

108. Author's interview with senior Saudi Arabian official, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, January 1989. As a reminder of Saudi displeasure on the F-15 refusal, Vice President Bush, visiting Saudi Arabia in 1986, the scheduled Saudi Air Force flyover of F-15s was replaced by a Saudi Tornado flyover. Gerard Posner, Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 117.

109. ‘Proposed Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia’ (note 77) p. 15.

110. David Leigh and Rob Evans, ‘The Al Yamamah Deal’, The Guardian, 7 June 2007.

111. ‘Grand Salaam! Eurofighter Flies off with Saudi Contract’, Defense Industry Daily, 8 August 2013. The House of Lords ended the corruption trial for unspecified reasons.

112. Matthias Grebaur, ‘Military Assists in Tank Tests in Saudi Arabia’, Spiegel Online, 5 July 2012, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-military-assists-in-tank-firing-tests-in-saudi-arabia-a-842840.html.

113. ‘A Riyadh, François Hollande et le roi Abdallah affichent leur entente’ [‘In Riyadh, François Hollande and King Abdullah Displayed their Agreement’], Le Monde, 29 December 2013.

114. This is not the only reason; the Royal Saudi Arabian Air Force began in 1920 with British assistance, and it bought mostly British aircraft and British contractors until the 1970s, so the other reason to buy British aircraft now is to continue those ties.

115. David E. Long, ‘U.S.-Saudi Relations: Evolution, Current Conditions, and Future Prospects’, Mediterranean Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Summer 2004), pp. 24–6.

116. See, for example, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) criticize the lack of religious expression in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror? Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 109^th Cong., 1^st Sess., 8 November 2005, GPO, Washington DC, 2005, p. 2.

117. ‘Egypt's Favorability Rating in U.S. Slips to Two-Decade Low’, Gallup International, 15 March 2013.

118. ‘US Congress Notified of $60b Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia’, The Guardian, 20 October 2010. In comparison, the Senate blocked a missile sale to Saudi Arabia by a 73–22 vote margin in 1986. Opposition to Saudi sales weakened by 2008 when a joint resolution attempting to block a J-DAM weapon upgrade failed both the House and Senate.

119. Thom Shanker and David Sanger, ‘Obama is Said to be Preparing to Seek Approval on Saudi Arms Sale’. New York Times, 17 September 2010.

120. ‘Saudi Arabia and Syria: Improving Bilateral Relations, Advancing U.S. Interests’, A Minority Staff Report Prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 111^th Cong., 2^nd Sess., 21 July 2011, p. 6.

121. Khaled bin Sultan, Desert Warrior (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), p. 462.

122. Turki Al Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, ‘Saudi Arabia's Foreign Policy’, Middle East Policy, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter 2013), p. 41. See also Steve Erlanger, ‘Saudi Prince Criticizes Obama Administration, Citing Indecision in Mideast’, New York Times, 16 December 2013. Theologically there are important differences between the ‘Twelver’ Shi'a beliefs and the Alawites, but Sunni Jihadi Islam views both as apostasy, thus Iran has a common interest in supporting the heterodox version of Asad's ‘Shi'aism’.

123. ‘US and Saudis in Growing Rift as Power Shifts’, New York Times, 25 November 2013.

124. Quoted in ‘Senior Saudi Diplomat Slams Iran Nuclear Deal, Says Kingdom May be Forced to Act Alone’, Jerusalem Post, 18 December 2013.