Paper Example on US-Saudi Alliance: Securing Peace Through Cooperation

Introduction

Saudi Arabia's primary foreign objective is to maintain its security at the desired state, promote collaboration among Islamic nations as well as maintain functional associations amongst oil producing and consuming countries. The United States plays a pivotal role in assisting the kingdom in maintaining peace in its territories through the provision of funding and weaponry. The United States and Saudi Arabia alliance has been in existence over a significant period based on security cooperation and solid business relations led by interests of Oil in the Gulf state by the U.S. There were numerous challenges in the association such as 1973 oil restraint as well as the 9/11 attacks (Ehteshami, 2007). However, consecutive administrations in the U.S have insisted on the importance of Saudi Arabia business partnership. Nevertheless, the relationship has faced repeated scrutiny, critics concerning its association of economic and security cooperation (Jones, 2012). Moreover, the differing positions concerning the Palestinian-Israeli battle as well as the differing stands on domestic political systems have often resulted in doubts on the relationship structure between the states.

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The U.S-Saudi relation has significantly grown with the general effort of countering Iran, who is the chief primary rivals of Saudi Arabia. However, the association is also facing criticism with the development of the Middle East regional policy. The assessment of the foreign policy and subsequent justifications is often a contested issue on the intentions of the United States in Saudi Arabia. History shows that Congress is at odds with the United States security policy towards the Kingdom, and it is a constant challenge in the U.S-Saudi association. The recent disagreement concerns the Congress leveraging prior techniques used in influencing security policy such as resistance to the sales of arms and foreign assistance as well as war power resolution. The objections primarily point towards humanitarian concerns in Yemen, although there are additional structures beyond the humanitarian crisis that complicate the relation such as a growing examination of the kingdom's internal politics and increased the potential of the United States to produce oil (Haass, 2008).

Problem Statement

The desire of Saudi Arabia to import more weapons has significantly increased because its regional drives have also grown. The major drivers of the importation are the ongoing war in Yemen, issues regarding the influence of Iran in the region both signify the increasing importation of weapons in the kingdom. SIPRI indicates that Saudi Arabia leads globally in buying weapons, and the majority are imported from the United States.

A report recently published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concerning the global sales of arms to countries in the Middle East/West significantly increased by 87% between 2009 and 2018. The report further highlights the United States as the leading arms exporter globally. Within the same period, the arms exports of the United States increased by 29% while its export to the global market grew to 36% from 30% (SIPRI)

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare the increase of arms sales between the United States and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the last decade. This relation has now different dynamics because of the tradition client state of US interest. Over the past five years, the US accounted for 61% of significant arms sales to the Saudis. How did arms sales help Saudi Arabia to become the largest importer of a multi-billion dollars arms purchase industry from the United States? The paper brings a perspective by examining the history of US-Saudi relations and the politics of past oil and arms sales in light of the geopolitical goal of United States foreign policies in the Middle East.

Hypothesis

The ongoing war in Yemen and the increasing concerns about the influence of Iran to the Middle East are the primary concerns for increased weapon importation in Saudi Arabia from the U.S.

Literature Review

History of US-Saudi Relations

For a long time, the armed forces of Saudi Arabia have depended on the United States arms sales, training, and service support. Saudi Arabia has received support from the United States Congress for arms sales. Some of the Congress members have raised their views regarding the probability of the United States sales in contributing and helping to drive arms races in the Saudi Arabia usage of the United States source weaponry in Yemen (Stork, & Paul, 1983). Congress supports arms sales because the partnership improves inter-operability, reduces the United States deployments' needs, deters Iran, and supports the United States industries. Saudi Arabia purchased United States military training at a low cost through Foreign Military Sales. There was a lack of regular report of the net benefit that was generated from the cost savings to Saudi Arabia. However, Congress started directing the executive administration to report to them about arms sales. They also needed a report from the administration of President Obama about the net savings provided to Saudi (Stork, & Paul, 1983).

In 2008, the agreements with Saudi Arabia recommenced in 2008 and between 2010-2018, Saudi Arabia was the only principal beneficiary of the United States defense exports (Cordesman, 2003). Between 2004-2009, Congress implemented numerous legislative proposals to ban the addition of the United States foreign aid to Saudi. Because the whole amount of the United States aid to Saudi Arabia is reasonably tiny recently, the applied outcome of the ban was to withdraw appropriateness of Saudi Arabia to buy the United States military training at a lower cost by preventing the provision of presidential waiver or the affirmation of current executive branch. Several people who supported the ban had uncertainty about Saudi Arabia's dependability being the counter-terrorism partner. However, rivals of the assistance prohibitions stated that the supplies would unreasonably endanger the extension of the supportive diplomatic and security struggles with a durable local allay. Every legislative plan contrasted in its cited reasons for banning assistance together with the uncertainty of provision of the state security waiver for the President (Cordesman, 2003).

From 2019, several high-value arms sales have been declared in Saudi Arabia after being proposed by the United States. For instance, in 2010, there was a declaration that the Royal Saudi Air Force can rebuild and enlarge its fundamental fighter forces using innovative United States' airplane. In 2017, Trump indicated an extension and expansion of joint defense collaboration, announcing accomplished, and recommended defense sales when he visited Riyadh carrying a possible value of over one hundred and ten billion dollars. The sales comprised of the cases proposed by President Obama's Administration and passed to the Congress, cases established underneath Obama's Administration with Congress consultation, and new sales remaining under improvement (Cordesman, 2003). The continuing and planned sale cases are supposed to develop the abilities of the Saudi Arabia armed forces significantly. Additionally, the sale cases are viewed by representatives from both nations as symbolic obligations to collaboration within a period of local disorder and leadership modification.

Saudi Arabia Military Support in Yemen

In 2015, Saudi Arabia started a military mediation in Yemen's civil war that triggered congressional analysis of the United States security association with Saudi Arabia. This is because the war led to humanitarian crises. President Trump's administration indicated help for Saudi's alliance actions in Yemen to prevent regional interference from Iran. Additionally, President Trump's administration intervened to enhance humanitarian access, trail an agreement to the war, and to take precautions to avoid civilian victims (Wedeen, 2010). In Yemen's operation, the U.S. helps in deploying advisors to Saudi for securing the border, aerial refilling, intelligence sharing, and aiding in anti-flying missile activities. The counter-terrorism and internal security collaboration between the United States and Saudi Arabia have enlarged since 2008 after the establishment of the joint technical collaboration treaty for provision of protection advice on infrastructure (Wedeen, 2010). The United States advisors help the Saudi Arabia government to focus on protecting its citizens and essential infrastructures. The United States agency also helps Saudi to enhance its capability of preventing terrorists before they take actions and defending against terrorist attacks in case of occurrences.

High Growth of Arm Sales

Research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute indicate that the rate of arms supply to Saudi Arabia has increased over the years. The ongoing war in Yemen causes increased purchase. The U.S. is the major supplier of arms in Saudi Arabia. 61% of arms sales come from the United States, 23% from the United Kingdom, and 3% from France. President Trump stated that it is very unwise to cancel the significant arm sales contracts with Saudi Arabia because countries like China and Russia would be the next beneficiaries if the U.S. opted out. Between 2016-2017, the importation of arm from the United States increased by 38% (Thomas, 2017).

Political Motives of Oil and Arms Sales

It is mostly political for the countries that export weapon. Armed forces assistant and sales are a vital policy tool. In the U.S., the military helps in protecting and making the nation stronger. Arm sales provide technicians and advisors who assist in establishing effective methods of fighting terrorism without having citizen casualties. There is also a relationship between a nation's capacity and the performance of mercenary tasks for the power supply. The oil reserve in Saudi is the 2nd largest internationally, making Saudi the largest crude oil exporter in 2016 (Blanchard, 2010). The influential people in Saudi stated that their intention of increasing oil export to the United States differs on the sustainability and probable impacts of a long-term production increase by the nation.

It is challenging to ascertain the influence of media to the U.S foreign policy. The bombing of world trade center had wide consequences to the U.S foreign policy and the violent actions weakened its relationship with the middle-east while some countries such as Israel and Egypt tried to capitalize. This resulted to tougher actions from the U.S advocates in 1993 and harder policies towards the Islamic states.

Methodology

The research will employ a literature review approach in examining the increase in the arms sales between the United States and Saudi Arabia between 2008 and 2018 concerning US-Saudi relations on the past oil and arms relations. The paper will base on sources that assess the different aspects of the association between the two states and assist ground the historical trajectory. Primarily, this paper will examine secondary sources, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative research. It will mainly depend on the literature review to explore the relations.

Data Gathering and Procedure

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an independent resource on global security institute dedicated to research on armaments, arms control, and conflict. It provides data arms trade data through the SIPRI arms transfer database, which contains all the information on the sales of conventional weapons since 1950 to current. Therefore, the primary source of statistical information will be the SIPRI database, which provides the range of years to cover...