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Saudi Arabia in International Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Robert R. Sullivan
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Extract

SaudiArabia as a state has rarely been an object of interest for political scientists in the West, and the reasons for this are clear. Fluid in the location of her territory, lacking power and a sense of threat to her vital interests, encumbered with a xenophobic religion and a society in compressed transition from a nomadic to a feudal way of life, Saudi Arabia until the mid-1950's was inactive in international politics, even at the regional level. Like the United States and Russia in the early stages of their national development, Saudi Arabia first found her energies absorbed in affairs that could only with difficulty be distinguished as “domestic” or “foreign.” Saudi Arabia's main concern was to consolidate a territorially and socially expanding habitat and thereby to become an Arab state equal in scope with the Arabian peninsula. Specifically, this meant expansion in a south-easterly direction to the outermost limits possible, for Saudi Arabian power was too limited to challenge the more established positions of Great Britain in Iraq and Transjordan in the north. Only when revenues derived from oil resources being exploited by ARAMCO (the Arabian-American Oil Company) provided Saudi Arabia with the economic base of modern power and when revolutionary pan-Arabism gave her a political rationale for exercising her growing power did she begin to pursue a consistent “foreign” policy at the regional level.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1970 , pp. 436 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1970

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References

1 My thanks are due to Miss Claire Sanford for skilfully editing this paper.

2 There are no systematic and comprehensive studies of Saudi Arabia's foreign policy or of the country's role in international politics. J. B. Kelly has written excellent descriptive analyses of Saudi Arabia's relation with her neighbors in Northeast Arabia (footnote 26), as has Manfred Wenner on Saudi Arabia's relations with the Yemen (footnote 6). Kelly, also published a fine survey of political problems in and around Arabia in International Affairs (London: 10, 1966)Google Scholar. The only competent country study is Lipsky, G. A., Saudi Arabia (Human Resources Area File: New Haven, 1959)Google Scholar. Another competent work, mainly economic in focus, is by Twitchell, K. S., Saudi Arabia (3rd ed.: Princeton, 1959Google Scholar. A well-written biography that yields a good picture of the first fifty years of Saudi Arabia is Howarth's, DavidThe Desert King, Ibn Saud and His Arabia (New York, 1964)Google Scholar. Harry Philby's works are on the whole disappointing, and periodical literature is even less helpful than book literature.

3 See Kelidar, A., “Struggle for Arab Unity,” World Today (07, 1967)Google Scholar. Faisal used the term Entente, which traditionally has had a milder meaning than alliance.

4 See Watt, D. C., “Postponement of the Arab Summit,” World Today (09, 1966)Google Scholar.

5 New York Times, Nov. 10, 14, 1968.

6 By far the best study of Yemeni politics is Wenner's, ManfredModern Yemen, 1918–1966 (Baltimore, 1967)Google Scholar. See, also, Ingrains', HaroldThe Yemen Imams, Rulers, and Revolutionaries (New York, 1964)Google Scholar.

7 Wenner, , op. cit., pp. 206–210Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., pp. 214–215.

9 The Jidda Agreement is reprinted in the Middle East Journal (Winter, 1966).

10 Guldescu, Stanko, “Yemen: The War and the Haradh Conference,” The Review of Politics (07, 1966)Google Scholar.

11 Ibid.

12 See New York Times, Jan. 11, 1969.

13 See Klieman, Aaron S., “Bab al-Mandab: The Red Sea in Transition,” Orbis (Fall, 1967)Google Scholar.

14 New York Times, Feb. 10, May 12, and Sept. 22, 1968.

15 For excellent background material on the border conflicts of Yemen and South Yemen, see King, Gillian, Imperial Outpost — Aden: Its Place in British Strategic Policy (London, 1964), pp. 79–90Google Scholar. In November, 1968, Yemen's first National Assembly held its first meeting and reserved 12 of 57 seats for South Yemen, despite South Yemen's protests. New York Times, Nov. 22, 1968. In April, 1969, Premier al-Shaabi of South Yemen charged that Saudi Arabia was continuing to support armed incursions into South Yemen and was doing this in collusion with Yemen. Ibid., April 14, 1969.

16 Ibid., Nov. 24, 1968.

17 Ibid., March 23, 1969.

18 See ibid., July 29, Aug. 5, Sept. 5, Sept. 22, and Dec. 3, 1968, as well as April 14, 1969, for reports with varying degrees of credibility of the fighting in the South Yemeni hinterland. See also ibid., March 18, 1968, for a report on South Yemeni Royalist exiles being housed in Jidda by Saudi Arabia.

19 For stimulating discussions of changing Soviet policy aims in the Middle East, see Laqueur, Walter, “Russia Enters the Middle East,” Foreign Affairs (01, 1968)Google Scholar, as well as a lengthy feature article by Baldwin, Hanson W. on developing Soviet policy toward Arabia in New York Times, 03 3, 1969Google Scholar.

20 For excellent background material, see Seale, Patrick, The Struggle for Syria, A Study in Postwar Arab Politics, 1945–1958 (London, 1965)Google Scholar; Kerr, Malcolm, The Arab Cold War, 1958–1964 (London, 1965)Google Scholar; and Binder, Leonard, “The Tragedy of Syria,” World Politics (04, 1967)Google Scholar.

21 Holden, David, Farewell to Arabia (London, 1966), pp. 120–121Google Scholar.

22 Longrigg, Stephen H., “New Groupings Among the Arab States,” International Affairs (London, 07, 1968)Google Scholar.

23 Monroe, Elizabeth, “Kuwait and Aden, A Contrast in British Policies,” Middle East Journal (Winter, 1964)Google Scholar.

24 In the context of the Saudi Arabian-Egyptian contest, Saudi Arabian policy in the Summer of 1966 was to withdraw its financial support from all inter-Arab organizations. Even prior to 1966 Faisal had been holding back on Saudi Arabian financial support to anti-Israel programs. Saudi Arabia contributed only $20 million as against Egypt's $48 million to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the United Arab Command and the project to divert the Jordan's waters. See Watt, D. C., “The Postponement of the Arab Summit,” World Today (09, 1968)Google Scholar. Reliable sources report that Faisal, a very religious man, is deeply stirred by the loss of Jerusalem to Israel. His call for a Holy War and other emotional remarks just before and during the Arab summit of August, 1969, attest to this, but it is to be doubted that Faisal will allow these sentiments to shape his actions to any significant extent.

25 New York Times, May 23, 1968.

26 The writings of J. B. Kelly are indispensable for an understanding of the political problems of eastern Arabia. Above all, see Eastern Arabian, Frontiers (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, and “Sovereignty and Jurisdiction in Eastern Arabia,” International Affairs (London; 01, 1968)Google Scholar.

27 In 1968 the Front for the Liberation of Dhofar (Dhofar is the southern province of Muscat and Oman) changed its name to the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf but it continues to operate from Aden. It is unknown whether it receives support from the South Yemen government. See New York Times, Dec. 10, 1968, Jan. 13, Feb. 9, and May 28, 1969.

28 Ibid., May 19, 1969.

29 There is no clear proof that this is one of the Shah's aims, but logic suggests it. The offshore boundaries in the Persian Gulf are still to a great extent undefined, and on, at least, one occasion Saudi Arabia and Iran came into conflict because ARAMCO was drilling in an area Iran considered to be within its jurisdiction. See Petroleum Press Service (March, 1968), “Tension in the Gulf.” On Iran's renewal of its claim to Bahrain, see the Economist (Feb. 10, 1968), the Middle East Journal (Summer, 1968), pp. 328–329, and New York Times, Jan. 10, Feb. 10, and May 23, 1968.

30 New York Times, Feb. 2, May 23, 1968.

31 The literature on oil and international politics is extensive, but two books stand out: Hirst, David, Oil and Public Opinion in the Middle East (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; and Hartshorne, J. E., Oil Companies and Government (London, 1962)Google Scholar. See, also, Longrigg, Stephen, Oil in the Middle East (3rd ed.: New York, 1968)Google Scholar; K. S. Twitchell, op. cit., and Penrose, Edith T., The Large International Firm in Developing Countries: The International Petroleum Industry (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

32 Hirst, , op. cit., pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

33 See Petroleum Press Service (March, 1967), “Oil's Rivals in Europe.”

34 Petroleum Press Service (May, 1969).

35 For a brief presentation of the Tariki argument, see Hartshorne, , op. cit., pp. 23–24, 140–142Google Scholar.

36 In March, 1969, ARAMCO relinquished 20,000 sq. miles of its concession area, which now covers 105, 000 sq. miles. Future relinquishments will reduce the area by 1996 to 20,000 sq. miles, or less than 3 per cent of the 672,864 sq. miles once held by the company. Petroleum Press Service (May, 1969), “Saudi Arabia Diversifies.”

37 Idem as well as ibid. (May, 1965 and Jan., 1968) for complete details of the agreements.

38 Lawrence acknowledges the leadership problem all through Book One of Seven Pillars. He described the area then controlled by Abdul Aziz as the “true center of Arabia, the preserve of its native spirit, and its most conscious individuality. The desert lapped it round and kept it pure of contact” (p. 34). Lawrence also acknowledged that the Arab revolt would have done better had it proceeded from Mesopotamia rather than from the Nile (p. 60). Nonetheless, “the British in Mesopotamia remained substantially an alien force invading enemy territory,” and this was mainly because they failed to cultivate Arab leadership in the region as Allenby had done in the Hejaz (pp. 59–60). Lawrence, T. E., Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Garden City, 1936)Google Scholar.