Kristin Diwan is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Editor's note: This article is adapted from a paper presented at a policy workshop on the proposed U.S.-Saudi security agreement, which DAWN co-hosted with Georgetown University's Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
The negotiations that have the United States and Saudi Arabia within reach of a new comprehensive security agreement represent a remarkable turnaround. Only two years ago, the decision by the Saudi-led OPEC+ cartel to cut oil production in defiance of Washington's understandings with Riyadh prompted President Joe Biden to insist: "There will be consequences." Yet that nadir in U.S.-Saudi relations instead served as a turning point. Today, even within the context of the U.S. failures to restrain Israel in its devastating war in Gaza and now Lebanon, the Biden administration's relations with Saudi Arabia are much improved.
How, and why, did this come about?
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the pivotal event that shifted U.S. outlook toward Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Saudi Arabia. Up until that point, Biden had been content to maintain a distant relationship with the young, de facto Saudi ruler, a policy implemented from the earliest days of his presidency, following an election campaign in which Biden had vowed to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah." But with the crisis in Europe, the Biden administration's priorities shifted toward the preservation of trans-Atlantic ties and fortifying the ability of European allies to stand up to Russia. Energy policy has been a key element of this strategy.
In October 2022, Saudi Arabia pushed other OPEC+ members to cut oil production, increasing Russian oil revenues and threatening to blunt the effectiveness of American and European sanctions on Moscow set to come into force only weeks later. The Saudi move—and its refusal to disassociate from Russia within the OPEC+ coalition following the Ukraine invasion—came as a shock to the Americans. It became clear that Saudi Arabia, even as a declining hegemon in the world's oil supplies, could still undermine U.S. strategic objectives. It also demonstrated the leverage of a determined middle power: If Saudi Arabia could thwart U.S. designs on Russia through its energy policy, what powers did it have to disrupt America's competitive advantage over China?
The looming U.S.-Saudi security pact has been forged out of American recognition of the energy and positional power of Saudi Arabia—a power that makes it a pivotal state in the emerging "multinodal" order.
- Kristin Diwan
The potentially looming U.S.-Saudi security pact has been forged, then, out of American recognition of the energy and positional power of Saudi Arabia—a power that makes it a pivotal state in the emerging "multinodal" order of shifting alliances and great-power competition. It also comes as Saudi Arabia plots its transition to a post-hydrocarbon energy future, and as the U.S. looks to establish an advantage in the emerging green energy economy. One can think of this new security agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which would be broad, binding and in fact extend far beyond security concerns, as an update of U.S.-Saudi relations within this evolving geopolitical order. In other words, it is a Carter Doctrine for the new energy era.
Energy concerns, security interests and the economy are as entangled and hard to separate in this new era as they were in 1980 when President Jimmy Carter declared that the U.S. would use military force, if necessary, to defend American interests in the Persian Gulf. As such, the long-rumored deal for a "strategic partnership" between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is said to run along four separate tracks, encompassing a mutual defense agreement, civil-nuclear cooperation, investments in artificial intelligence and long-term collaboration on energy. The new and substantial American security commitments will be enabled by a Saudi pledge to normalize relations with Israel, easing the concerns of both this key American ally and the U.S. Congress.
The assumption of the Biden administration is that these new shared commitments and mutual investments will act to better align Saudi and U.S. interests. Saudi Arabia will receive new access to American weapons and security guarantees. The kingdom will also be bound within an American commercial and security framework, the thinking goes, that encompasses both alternative energy, such as nuclear power and other green investments, and technology-sharing in strategic industries, such as artificial intelligence. These commitments will check other geopolitical competitors by drawing Saudi Arabia within the U.S. orbit through the energy and technology transition.
One can think of a new U.S.-Saudi security agreement as a Carter Doctrine for the new energy era.
- Kristin Diwan
There are many questions one might ask about these assumptions.
First, on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, can the Saudis trust that any agreement would be maintained by the next White House, in the face of political polarization and the abrupt policy changes it has experienced across shifting administrations in Washington for the past decade or more? This is especially a concern as such a sizeable military commitment and technology investment, as reportedly outlined in the agreement, run counter to foreign policy trends in both Democratic and Republican parties centered on lessening the U.S. military footprint abroad and focusing on domestic concerns.
Second, do the presumed dynamics of a new U.S. grand strategy reminiscent of the Cold War—setting the U.S. against its new strategic competitor, China—work within today's more nationalist and networked international environment? Saudi Arabia's pursuit of its national interests when it comes to energy and the economy are still likely to eventually be in friction with U.S. plans, especially when considering the kingdom's sizeable energy and commercial ties with China and Russia, and the imposing demands of an economic transformation under the grand plans of "Vision 2030."
Third, and perhaps most vexingly, how can the two main protagonists of American Middle East policy, Saudi Arabia and Israel, be aligned? Normalization between the two was already difficult given Saudi insistence on a pathway to a Palestinian state, which Mohammed bin Salman has more recently declared means the "establishment of a Palestinian state." Within the context of Israel's wars in Gaza and now Lebanon, and its looming confrontation with Iran, the prospect of Saudi leaders agreeing to normalization with the current Israeli government, or another one like it, may be off the table.
And finally, would the U.S. really be prepared to extend its security commitments, with all of the attendant risks of the current inflamed situation in the Middle East? As Andrew Leber has argued, "The past year demonstrates the extent to which the U.S.-Israel security relationship—not a treaty alliance—increases U.S. exposure to destabilizing regional conflicts while affording the United States limited influence over its security partners' actions." Would a U.S.-Saudi security agreement, not to mention Saudi-Israel normalization, be able to align worldviews and foreign policy stances enough to reduce, rather than inflame, conflicts in the region? And how would Washington and Riyadh weather the political pressures when issues of Saudi national security—and of the Al Saud regime's own security—are at their most threatened?
The still unpublished U.S.-Saudi security agreement may in fact provide a roadmap to better align American and Saudi interests within the emerging infrastructure of a new era defined by the transition from fossil fuels and the adoption of revolutionary technology. But it appears destined to flounder on the realities of the conflicts currently engulfing the region.
