David M. Wight is a historian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of Oil Money: Middle East Petrodollars and the Transformation of U.S. Empire, 1967-1988.
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.
While still under negotiation, the general contours of a sweeping new agreement for a "strategic partnership" between the United States and Saudi Arabia are in keeping with two longstanding historical trends in the relationship between Washington and Riyadh. First, there is the general, if sometimes rocky, trend toward greater interdependence between Saudi Arabia and the United States since the 1930s, pursued by both countries to bolster perceived national security and ruling class interests. Second, there is the tendency of U.S.-Saudi cooperation to undermine the peace and civil and human rights of Arabs, Americans and other peoples around the world.
Yet while the proposed U.S.-Saudi deal is rooted in these historical continuities, some of its biggest reported components, particularly a treaty-level U.S. defense commitment to Saudi Arabia and American assistance for the development of a Saudi nuclear energy program, have the potential to lead to devastating transformations in the Middle East and beyond. Although events of the last year have stymied efforts to enact this new pact, the potential for it to be revived in the future should not be underestimated.
The purported agreement can be distilled into five key components: new economic and military collaborations between the United States and Saudi Arabia; restrictions on Chinese and Russian influence in the kingdom; Saudi Arabia's diplomatic normalization with Israel; a formal U.S. defense treaty with Saudi Arabia; and U.S. cooperation on Saudi nuclear energy.
The deal, as reported, would feature new U.S. arms sales to the kingdom and joint investments in the development of AI technologies. Such initiatives are consistent with the trend of Saudi Arabia spending and investing its vast petrodollars in the U.S. economy for projects that enhance the power of both Riyadh and Washington—a strategy that has served as the foundation of the informal U.S.-Saudi alliance since the 1970s. This structure has also routinely undermined civil and human rights. Saudi arms purchases from the United States, for example, have been used to suppress pro-democracy and labor movements within the kingdom for decades; to circumvent U.S. laws against the arming of the "Contras" trying to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist government during the 1980s; and to create a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen after 2015 with the Saudi-led air war against the Houthis.
While rooted in historical continuities, the proposed U.S.-Saudi deal has the potential to lead to devastating transformations in the Middle East and beyond.
- David M. Wight
New arms sales and AI co-investment are thus the latest iteration of a long-standing trend, and one can expect similar outcomes from them: strengthening not only ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States, but their mutual economic and military power, at the expense of civil and human rights, and any prosect of peace in the region. These economic and military collaborations face relatively few hurdles from the U.S. Congress. Given that such petrodollar-funded exchanges have served as the cornerstone of U.S. relations with Riyadh for five decades, they are almost certain to be pursued even if other components of this supposed "megadeal" are not reached. Indeed, some aspects of this U.S.-Saudi arrangement are arguably already underway, as the Biden administration quietly lifted its ban on the sale of "offensive" weapons to the kingdom in August.
An agreement may also include Saudi pledges to not purchase Chinese arms and limit Chinese investments within the kingdom. Since the dawn of the Cold War, Washington's paramount goal regarding Saudi Arabia has been to block the influence of rival superpowers there and throughout the Gulf region. This was achievable vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, but in the last three decades, China and Russia, while not displacing the U.S. as the House of Saud's military ally, have significantly deepened their economic and political ties with Riyadh. For Washington, a primary rational for a new deal appears to be reversing Saudi Arabia's closer relations with Beijing and Moscow and their challenges to U.S. global prerogatives.
In reality, however, it seems highly unlikely that a new agreement would significantly stifle Riyadh's ability to cooperate with China and Russia, particularly in areas of greatest concern for Washington. With China as Saudi Arabia's No. 1 import and export partner, there is almost no scenario in which the kingdom would cut off oil to the Chinese. Similarly, there is little to prevent the Saudis from continuing to collaborate with the Russians on boosting the global price of oil. On the vast majority of geopolitical issues, Riyadh will continue to take advantage of a more multipolar world at Washington's expense, any new deal notwithstanding.
A third proposed component of a new U.S.-Saudi agreement would be the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. While formal Israeli-Saudi ties would have significant, if unpredictable, implications for the Middle East, they would not be a significant change in terms of the already existing, if unofficial, partnership between Israel and Saudi Arabia—under the aegis of Washington—to primarily confront Iran and its regional allies.
Israeli-Saudi normalization could have far more significant consequences for the U.S.-Saudi relationship. If it is part of a sweeping deal, the White House and Congress are both much more likely to support the most momentous parts of a new U.S. "strategic partnership" with Riyadh: a formal defense treaty and U.S. support for a Saudi nuclear energy program. In the near-term, however, normalization appears unlikely given the sharp rise in popular Arab outcry against Israel—over its war in Gaza, tightening control over the occupied West Bank, and now expanding military assault on Lebanon since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In September, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declared that Saudi Arabia would not recognize Israel without "the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital"—a higher bar than its previously vague calls for "irreversible steps" toward Palestinian statehood. The current Israeli government, and a sizeable majority of the Israeli public, oppose either scenario.
A formal defense treaty, akin to something like NATO or the U.S.-Japan security treaty, would mark a major transformation in U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, and for the entire Arab world. While the U.S. government has repeatedly declared its prerogative to militarily intervene in Arab countries in defense of American interests and its local partners—from the Eisenhower Doctrine to the Carter Doctrine to the Bush Doctrine—Washington has always kept decisions on U.S. military action in the region to its sole discretion. A binding defense treaty with Saudi Arabia would, for the first time, obligate the U.S. to militarily protect an Arab country in the case of foreign attack, or else severely undermine the credibility of other U.S. defense agreements around the world.
At a minimum, a new U.S.-Saudi agreement would perpetuate the undermining of peace and the human rights of Arabs, Americans and others. In the worst case, the new deal would result in an unprecedented catastrophe.
- David M. Wight
A mutual defense treaty would provide obvious benefits to the House of Saud, strengthening its position against Iran and any other regional challenger. Far less obvious is what Washington would gain from such an arrangement. Nothing in the proposed deal would justify being on the hook for such an unprecedented U.S. obligation. Given that American officials have bemoaned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a strain on the NATO alliance and America's promotion of democracy, how would they see Saudi Arabia? Under Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom would be far more taxing as an official U.S. defense ally, given that the crown prince has already behaved more like a miniature Vladimir Putin than Orbán could ever reasonably hope to.
Furthermore, a defense treaty would reward Mohammed bin Salman despite his disastrous war in Yemen, his engineering of the regional diplomatic blockade of neighboring Qatar—a close U.S. partner in the Gulf—and his assault within the kingdom on the rights of the Saudi people. Emboldened, the crown prince could once again undertake risky military interventions under a presumption of impunity from U.S. security guarantees. Among other risks, revived Saudi adventurism could lead to counter attacks by Iran and its allies, with the U.S. then compelled by treaty to deploy military forces into yet another quagmire in the Middle East.
Establishing a formal U.S. defense treaty would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, meaning it is currently unlikely to be ratified with Israeli-Saudi normalization at an impasse. But down the road, the Saudi royals may calculate that the threat from Iran is greater than the threat of pro-Palestinian Arab sentiment and drop their insistence of a Palestinian state. Or Washington may determine that a threat to Saudi Arabia—with implications for American interests in the Gulf—requires a U.S. defense commitment even without formal Israeli-Saudi relations.
U.S. support for a Saudi nuclear energy program, the final component of a reported deal, could have the most transformative impact on the Middle East, if it facilitates the development of the kingdom's own nuclear weapons. Notably, U.S. nuclear energy cooperation with Saudi Arabia would be easier to achieve than a defense treaty. It would match the civilian nuclear agreements the U.S. has struck with 24 other countries, all governed by Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, known as "123 agreements," which aim to prevent any nuclear technology and material from being used to make weapons. If the White House pursued a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Riyadh, Congress could only veto it with a two-thirds vote.
For decades, the United States has consistently worked to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and its strategy of supporting a Saudi nuclear energy program is premised on the idea that U.S. oversight will make it less likely that Riyadh can use its nuclear energy program to develop a nuclear arsenal. But there is no guarantee that American supervision will successfully contain Saudi nuclear ambitions, regardless of the stated terms of a "123 agreement." Mohammed bin Salman himself has publicly committed that the kingdom would acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does.
At the same time, U.S. policies—first and foremost the abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 under the Trump administration—has led Tehran to develop its nuclear capabilities to the point where it can now produce a nuclear warhead in perhaps as quickly as a few months. A Saudi nuclear weapon could push Iran to complete its own nuclear bomb, or vice versa. If Iran and Saudi Arabia produce nuclear weapons, the Middle East—and U.S. foreign policy in the region—would be in uncharted territory. Other regional powers like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt may be spurred to develop their own nuclear arms. At a minimum, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and regional U.S. forces would have each other in nuclear crosshairs.
In such a scenario, fear of mutually assured destruction could serve as a deterrent to full-scale war. But given the region's long-standing conflicts and numerous state and non-state military actors, one miscalculation could lead to nuclear exchanges that could annihilate massive oil reserves, holy sites, and millions of people.
At a minimum, a new U.S.-Saudi agreement would perpetuate the undermining of peace and the civil and human rights of Arabs, Americans and others. In the worst case, the new deal would result in an unprecedented catastrophe. Given such high costs and risks for so little benefit, the proposed agreement should be scuttled.
