THE AMERICAN THREAT TO SAUDI ARABIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100060026-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: September 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100060026-7
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ARMED FORCES JOURNAL INTERNATIONA
September 1980
e Ameiric~ Threat to Sau r . F y ,
IT IS ONE OF THE MANY IRONIES of
the Carter Administration's foreign policy
that while the US is deeply enmeshed in
planning measures to protect Saudi Ara-
bia, and is almost obsessed with concern
that Saudi Arabia may follow Iran, the
Saudis now view the United States as the
most serious threat to their own se-
curity, and Saudi Arabia's ability to pro-
vide the US with a stable oil supply. This
American "threat" to Saudi Arabia is the
result of the seven major problems and
trends in Saudi-US relations:
? The depth of Saudi Arabia's align-
ment with what the world perceives as a
weak and ineffective US Administration
inevitably ties world perceptions of Saudi
vulnerability to the growing feeling that
the US is not capable of effective and
well planned action. The Saudis feel that
almost inevitably, the image of US weak-
ness increases the willingness of other na-
tions to test Saudi vulnerability.
? The US focus on military interven-
tion capabilities in the Persian Gulf has
been so awkwardly handled that hiany
Saudis are becoming convinced that the
US is doing more to prepare to seize the
Gulf oilfields in Saudi Arabia than to de-
fend the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia.
? Saudi reliance on US military assis-
tance creates such a serious risk that the
Saudi military and much of Saudi society
may become convinced that the Saudi re-
gime is tied to an ally which will neither
provide objective advice, nor the military
equipment Saudi Arabia needs. These prob-
lems are reinforced by the lack of disci-
pline shown by former and current mem-
bers of the US advisory team in publi-
cizing their criticisms of both the Saudi
government and the Saudi military effort.
? The constant discussion of every in-
dicator of internal instability in Saudi
Arabia within the US national security
community, now has the end result of
publicizing every real or rumored problem
in Saudi society throughout the Washing-
ton diplomatic community, and is acting
to persuade more and more nations that
the Saudi's are both in trouble and vul-
nerable.
? The continuing problem of the Camp
David agreement: although the Saudi gov-
ernment has conspicuously, opposed both
the agreement and the lack of US support
for self-determination in Palestine since
the agreement, it remains identified with
the US; thus, every further incident on the
West Bank tends to increase the risk that
opposition to the'Saudi government will
grow because*of its continued ties to the
g
United States. Aer the overthrow of at least the pro- virtually every anti-I IS intrr.'ct in the
Declassified in Part - Sanitized-Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/24: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100060026-7 nse
per day: a substantial portion of the royal
family and most leading Saudi technocrats
feel their government is wasting the na-
tional patrimony by producing more oil
than Saudi Arabia conceivably needs to
sell, and by underselling other exporting
nations to keep world oil prices down.
There is growing internal opposition to
such sales, and in this case educated
Saudis are joined by conservatives who see
Saudi Arabia's high oil revenues as leading
to uncontrollable change as Saudi society
tries to cope with more income than it can
effectively utilize.
The Saudis now view the
United States as the most
serious threat to their own
security, and Saudi Arabia's
ability to provide the US
with a stable supply of oil.
America as An Inadequate and
Untrusted Ally
During the last four years, most
Americans have become steadily more
concerned with the image of US weakness
and indecisiveness that has increased with
virtually every crisis, in foreign affairs.
Yet many Americans have not perceived
the practical implications of the decline in
US power for.our allies. The fall of the
Shah, the failure of US efforts to rescue
the hostages, and American inability to
do more than protest Soviet action in
Afghanistan have had a powerful impact
in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
From a Saudi point of view, this image
of American weakness has created the fol-
lowing problems:
? Enough of the aftermath of Vietnam
still lingers to cast into serious doubt US
willingness to intervene in any major con-
flict. This has been reinforced by Ameri-
can indecisiveness over the fall of the
Shah and the Administration's near total
? Changes in US law and tax structure silence on the once-dominant issue of
have created a situation where the former hostages in Iran since the attempt to
partnership between the US private sector rescue them failed last April. For all
and Saudi Arabia in major construction the rhetoric about US rapid deployment
and development projects is being eroded capabilities in the Persian Gulf, the real
to the point of destruction. While major signal seems to be that the US may not
increases in South Korean and other for- react to any threat to Saudi Arabia of any
eign corporate activity in Saudi Arabia kind, and almost certainly will not react to
were inevitable, US policy is breaking anything less than the most overt attack.
the commercial links between the US and ? This is compounded by a broad der,
Saudi Arabia that were of major aid in ception that the US lacks the intelligence
providing a secure source of assistance in and special operations capa tires to deal
development and economic growth. with lesser threats. is a road-per-
US Military Sales caption int e i _ ere e ast an2FPers;an
Gulf aiea t at t e an mi i ary
to Saudi Arabia inte i ence is effectively hamstrung y
S i
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Fquing straints now placed on any covert ac-
Construction Equipment
Totals
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FY1980 3.000 2.800 5.800 employees7ac s t e ac gTc nouns , trair,Tng,
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Source: US Defense Department
These seven problems do not yet directly
threaten Saudi stability or alignment with
the United States. They are, however, stead-
ily creating a climate which will virtually
force the Saudi government to create a
more visible distance between itself and
the US. At best, they are probably forcing
Saudi Arabia in the direction of a split
with the US over the military assistance ef-
fort, and another oil embargo in response
to the Palestinian problem. At worst, a
truly major crisis on the West Bank, or a
badly handled US military action in the
Persian Gulf, could lead to a major inter-
nal political crisis and possibly trig-
* President Carter is broadly per-
ceived as well meaning, but weak and in-
decisive. There is the feeling that he will
not act if even moderate care is exercised
in any attempt to undermine the Saudi re-
gime, or would temporize and vacillate if
such action is slow and steady enough..
This already has led to a steady 'in-
crease in the attempts of various libera-
tion groups to undermine the govern-
ments of the other Gulf states. It has also
led nations like Iraq and Kuwait to back
as far away from the United States as they
can in an attempt to avoid becoming tar-
gets for either Soviet or radical action
against them. The result is that Saudi
Arabia tends to become the key tar
et for
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