Saudi Foreign Policy under King Salman Regime - Report Example

• Introduction

Saudi Arabia can be considered as a non-aligned state. The objectives of the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia are to maintain the paramount position and security of Arabia Peninsula. Saudi Arabia can be considered as the largest oil producer and exporter across the world. Therefore, it is important for Saudi Arabia is to develop effective foreign policy. Effective foreign policy development and implementation process will help Saudi Arabia to maintain significant, peaceful and healthy relationship with major oil-consuming as well as other oil-producing countries across the world.

The stated policy of Saudi Arabia is focused on co-operation between Saudi Arabia and Oil-Exporting Persian Gulf’s Arab States. Moreover, there are other important objectives of the developed foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, such as support for the UN, developing solidarity and maintain Islamic Strength. Generally, in recent years the foreign policy is focusing on some important aspects. These are maintaining relationship with United States of America, focusing on the critical Palestinian-Israel conflict, perceived threat from Iran, the negative impact of oil policy and pricing and other issues. These issues are creating concerns for the regional as well as national sustainability of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the founding member of different important multinational organizations, such as Arab League, the United Nations and most importantly OPEC. This essay will argue on the effectiveness of developed foreign policy of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of King Salman including several important policy related aspects, such as forcing drives, foreign determinants, and power in influence. Lastly, the essay will also compare between King Salman and his predecessors regarding aggressiveness of developed foreign policies.

• Chapter One: Saudi Foreign Policy Forcing Drives

The foreign policy forcing drives of Saudi Arabia majorly includes protecting the country from external threats or domination and protecting the important domestic stability of Al-Saud Regime.

• • Protection from External Domination

Despite the lack of transparency, the transition of leadership from the King Abdulla top King Salman has been gone along with an audible shift in the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia. It is true that the regional attitude has been remained same but King Salman has taken a serious or critical stance or approach in order to counter the Iranian regional supervision. The strongest approach of Saudi Arabia can be considered as the reaction to the diplomatic initiatives of Obama Administration to Tehran regarding the most controversial nuclear agreement. President of United States of America, Mr. Barrack Obama proposed equilibrium between Sunni, Iran and other Gulf States in order to minimize the possibility of critical proxy warfare (Al-Rasheed, 2016, p.49). In addition to it, Obama’s Administration was concerned regarding the robust approach towards Riyadh as it may affect sustainability of Iran. However, considering these particular influences King Salman tried to avoid the interference of United States of America regarding the policy development. After this Saudi Arabia close its alliance with Washington regarding strategy development. Moreover, Saudi Arabia also tried to oppose the development of chemical weapon approach by Syria. Several members of the United Nations supported Saudi Arabia in this protest against the development of chemical weapon approach.

• • Protection of Domestic Stability

Saudi Arabia can be considered as an activist power. Saudi Arabia’s military power is factually fragile comparing to other bordering countries. Most importantly, the one-quarter of Saudi Arabia’s entire population are nonemployees outsourced from foreign countries. Saudi Arabia’s overall economic growth highly depends upon two key aspects factors, such as oil production as well as exporting activities and significant foreign direct investment. Previously, Saudi Arabia only focused on economic growth in order to attain positive economic growth. But, the regions of Saudi Arabia found it difficult to maintain internal economic sustainability and social peace due to lack of FDI and lack of investment from foreign investors (Blanchard, 2010, p.105). FDI is also known as foreign direct investment. FDI can be considered as an investment completed by a firm or a company based in a particular country into another country’s entity or company. King Salman understood this fact that Saudi Arabia cannot control internal violence and instability without the consideration of FDI. King Salman and his policy makers strengthen banking regulations and effective tax-free economic structure motivated large foreign investors to invest in the projects. Strong banking regulations, sound infrastructure and skilled human resource is influencing the foreign companies to start their business in Saudi Arabia. The new vision 2030 of Saudi Arabia, introduced by the defense minister Mr. Mohammed Bin Salman can be considered as an effective repackaging of diversification of existing policies. According to this vision, Saudi Arabia will gain effective economic reform as the current economy is overall depended upon the oil gas energy. The new vision 2030 will help Saudi Arabia to ensure new generation leadership and low oil price. It will automatically contribute in economic reformation and it is needed during the post-oil age. Boosting non-oil revenue is the major aim of this economic reformation. This New Vision 2030 also has significant impact on the military or defense industry. According to this reformation, 50 percent of military products will be produced within the country. Therefore, it will automatically help in creating job opportunities. Moreover, it will help to strengthen country’s economic as well as political security.

Despite the weak military force, Saudi Arabia has able to maintain its domestic stability due to its effective policy development and implementation process. Effective FDI, employment opportunities and effective working environment within the organizations helped Saudi Arabia to protect themselves from domestic violent and external threats (Bronson. 2006, p.216). However, the military of Saudi Arabia has done some excellent contribution towards the country’s internal as well as external security. The military succeeded in protecting the borders of states and country from external forces. The military also has succeeded in striking Houthis during the southern offensive activities committed by the Houthis. It also helped in the Saudi Arabian-led intercession in Yemen. Moreover, the military power of Saudi Arabia was also used and presented in the East Province in order to compact Shaite turmoil.

• King Salman Foreign Determinants

To review the Foreign policy of any State, in-detailed analysis needs to be conducted. King’s Salman foreign policy is new and hot topic to discuss. There are three important determinants of foreign policy of Saudi Arabia under the rule of Salman. These are domestic, regional and international determinant. Moreover, the domestic level is the most important since it gives legitimacy along with support on the external actions of the kingdom for the sake of maintaining the national security and interests.

• • Domestic

It has been mentioned earlier that one-quarter of the entire population are non-citizens. They have come for employment opportunities due to lack of skills, education and efficiency among the citizens of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, King Salman and his policy makers have developed effective policies for all individuals within the society in order to ensure safety for each and every foreign working employee as well as citizens of Saudi Arab (Hudson and Leidl, 2015, p.300). In addition to this, it is also true that Saudi Arabia is a tax free country. It helps to boost GDP rate of country.

In terms of maintaining social contract and domestic legitimacy, the most critical challenge for King Salman as well as Saudi monarchy to maintain the social patronage system when the price of oil is falling rapidly. The economy of Saudi Arabia highly depends upon the oil exporting revenue for nearly 77 percent of entire budget. It is way higher comparing to its archrival Iran. The oil revenue of Iran accounts for 33 percent of entire budget. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is facing difficulty to overcome domestic challenges to individual status as fall of oil price and champion of all Muslims force the government of Saudi Arabia to rethink the contained social contract by applying taxation on citizens. King Salman and his policy makers need to implement the opportunity to develop a sense of well-liked domestic legitimacy based on various political participations in order to establish a foundation for prosperity and peace in the upcoming decade (Shahbaz, 2016, p.1).

In terms of balancing the ruling elite and divisions, changes of leadership of Saudi Arabia have focused on power in Al-Saud dynasty’s inner circle. The leadership is focused on removing restraint on the monarch and develops strategic position of conservative kingdom less predictable. Previously the Kings along with the family members controlled the strategy development and decision making process. After becoming King, King Salman is solely responsible in strategy development and decision making process regarding national and domestic level policy implementation process. According to his strategy, there is no need to integrate the family members in any kind of strategy development process. This aspect is helping to remove internal power struggle. Moreover, it is also helping in maintaining domestic stability as major decisions will be made on collective basis.

In terms of maintaining the traditions and values, King Salman is trying hard to maintain a strong balance between pursuit of modernity and traditional cultural values. King Salman significantly knows the social, economic and political changes are predictable but need to be managed closely. The culture of Saudi Arabia is bit conservative but King Salman effective integrated the cultural values and tradition of Saudi Arabia with modern western life-style approaches. The social orientation and educational opportunities have been improved under the leadership of King Salman in order to capitalize on the potential opportunities developed by globalization. (Ghosh, 2009, p.201).( Fawcett, 2013, p.245).

Al-Saud is the protector of two holy cities. His major aim is to protect the cities from any kind of external attacks and internal religious violence. On the other hand, King Al-Saud is also concerned about giving respect to people of different cultural and religious background in order to maintain peace and sustainability.

• • Regional

King Salman significantly focused on effective relationship with MENA region. Recently, Saudi King met with Egyptian president in order to bring regional stability in the MENA region. Both the leaders joined their hands and called for unity in order to fight against terrorism. This close tie will help to bring regional equilibrium in the MENA region.

Strong Iranian expansion and influence in the Arab world can be considered as one of the major concerns for King Salman. Saudi Arabia highly focused on the overcome the negative impacts of revolutionary movements. Saudi Arabia is also concentrating on countering political Islam’s forces. These aspects have created tension within the Arab region. On the other hand, Iran has taken advantage of the created confusion in the developed policy of Saudi Arabia (ACS, 2015, p.4). The Iranian influence not only expanded to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, but also moved towards Yemen consequently that has become a regional threat for Saudi Arabia under the leadership of King Salman. A competition between Tehran and Riyadh for regional domination always exists. Iran always tries to dominate and control the traditional regions of Saudi Arabia. It is becoming a real direct security threat for Saudi Arabia (ACS, 2016, p.7). However, the major focus of King Salman has been shifted to slowdown the strong Iranian expansion through developing good relationship with MENA region. Therefore, King Salman made a bilateral tie between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and introduced joint military intervention force to fight against terrorism and slowing down Iranian influence. Moreover, King Salman is trying to establish a Saudi Arabian dominance in the GCC region. Saudi Arabia has succeeded to re-open the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Baghdad but cannot deny the fact that the high priority is being provided to Iran regarding decision making process. Therefore, King Salman is prioritizing strong intra-GCC relations to overcome the Iran threat. On the other hand, it is also helping in the development of good relationship with other GCC countries. It is true that Iraq is not that much powerful in this current era. King Salman has proposed that the Muslim brotherhood needs to be developed in MENA, GCC and other Arabian region. Therefore, all the states and nations are major player in maintaining the brotherhood. Close US tie is actually helping King Salman to maintain their economic and decision making dominance over other countries. Moreover, joint military actions with smaller countries and weaker neighborhoods are helping Saudi Arabia to create a significant balance between the stronger and weaker neighboring countries.

Last but not the least; the challenges of Islamic State need to be incorporated in this part of the essay. There was a junction of interests between the Islamists and Saudi States on the debatable Syrian Issue. Both sides supported this conflict on different reasons. UN estimated that almost 25,000 fighter jets are being provided by the foreign countries to Syria (Matthiesen, 2015, p.5). However, the support from Saudi Arabia started to fracture when the Islamists Jihadist groups started to quay more regional ambitions. These Jihadists and other Syrian revolutionaries started to join Islamic State group. Apart from Iran issue, the IS challenge also has become a serious concern for King Salman. Therefore, he is trying to make a strong alliance with regional countries and other powerful countries in order to overcome the threat of Islamic State.

• • International

Saudi Arabia is able to make a strong relationship not only with United States of America, but also other developed as well as developing nations around the globe. But, it is also true that the relationships between Saudi Arabia and other countries are blinking considering the inadequate regional conditions. It is highly recognized that Saudi Arabia can be integrated into the large world strategic and economic system as it is considered as one of the major oil producers and exporters across the globe. Still Under the leadership of King Salman, Saudi Arabia is considered as the largest oil producer and exporter. Saudi Arabia has most effective and flexible oil producing profile across the globe. Moreover, King Salman and his policy makers have unique ability to moderate the oil price considering the overall demand for crude oil. United States of America has effectively helped Saudi Arabia regarding economic and military activities. Effective oil revenue helps Saudi Arabia to become one of the most effective importers of military hardware from United States of America. This trade relation between United States of America and Saudi Arabia has helped them to maintain a strong political, economic and military relationship in the region.

The above mentioned close ties under the leadership of King Salman help Saudi Arabia to play a classical and important role in international strategic system. Moreover, close trade relationship with United States of America has helped Saudi Arabia to maintain a little autonomy over international economic and foreign policy development and implementation process. It is known to all that Saudi Arabia played an important role in the developed of OPEC in the year 1960 (Diamond, 2016, p.178). Therefore, it can be stated that Saudi Arabia can be considered as one of the strong economic powers among all the GCC countries due to strong trade relationships with United States of America (Hinnebusch and Ehteshami, 2002, p.199).

President Mr. Barrack Obama recently visited Saudi Arabia and this visit has indicated new healthy relationship between Saudi Arabia and United States of America. This new healthy relationship helped Saudi Arabia to protect its important regions across the states. Moreover, Mr. Barrack Obama also took initiatives to resolve the longtime conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran through his developed foreign policies. However, it is true fact that Saudi Arabia is the major oil producer and exporter across the globe. Despite this fact, it is appropriate to state that Saudi Arabia is only a follower of the developed policies of US government as US is the economic and military superpower across the world. Moreover, US have a strong influence in the oil pricing policies. Apart from these international issues, King Salman has succeeded in several aspects regarding international conflict resolution process. King Salman succeeded in developing strong relationships with other developed and developing countries apart from United States of America. Recently, Saudi Arabia and India joined their hand in “Make in India” campaign. According to this campaign, both will fight against terrorism collaboratively and Saudi Arabia has invested capital in this campaign to manufacture defense products. It is a strong step towards the mitigating terrorism threats.

• Foreign Policy Making and Their Power to Influence

The foreign policy is not made by one person; it is a combination of many elites and group. However, Saudi Arabia is a monarchy that every aspect of the state is governed by the ruling family. It shall be noted that, in the Gulf policy makers are the Ruler, however, some elite might intervene but depends on the Ruler’s personality. Saudi Arabia has long history regarding the relation between Al-Saud and the other social elites in the State, and without the help of Wahhabism and tribal support, Saudi Arabia has been unified in the 1930s. Saudi Arabia has many elites in all class: social, religious, economic and others, their influencing power difference according to the powerful of King’s personality and charisma.

• • Royal Family “Al-Saud”

The death of King Abdulla in the year 2015 has brought faultless transition of power within the Saudi Arabia (Hussain, 2016, p.356). After the death Prince Salman accepted the crown and has done a tremendous job to maintain effectiveness in the foreign policy development process. Under the leadership of King Abdullah, the Royal family played an important role in maintaining sustainability in politics, economy, socio-cultural orientations and defense. However, King Salman has tried hard to maintain the legacy of King Abdullah through good work. Still, the King, policy makers and new Price are facing difficulty in some key aspects, such as drop of petroleum demand, rise of ISIS issues and lack of conflict resolution regarding relationship with Iran. In the other hand, King Salman started his ruling period with strong moves in the regional level, whereas his son focused on the economic reforms by introducing a new vision for the Kingdom within the next few decades. The King’s personality is one of the factors that indicate the level of other Royal family members in the foreign policy. King Salman has showed a strong charisma in which most of the scholars believe that he will shift from the founder’s policy.

• • Al-Shaikh Family and Clerics

Earlier, Saudi Arabia faced issues like religious intolerance due to strong influence of Al-Shaikh Family and Cleric (Hussein, 2012, p.266). It is true that Al-Shaikh family played an important role in the development of new and flexible financial structure that impressed and influenced foreign investors to invest in Saudi Arabia (Kouzes and Posner, 2012, p.93). However, it is true that strong control and influence of clerics and Al-Shaikh family members created some social disputes and religious intolerance that forced some skilled employees as well as workers to leave Saudi Arabia (Dodge, 2015, p.64).

Wahhabism can be considered as an important aspect in the foreign policy development and implementation process. The inseparability aspects of Saudi Kingdom from the Sunni Islam’s Wahhabi form were first ever espoused in the year 1744. Similar to other neighboring countries, Saudi Arabia is also considered as a prime source of Wahhabi Jihadist’s resources. However, King Salman has succeeded to reduce the possibilities of terrorist activities through the help of strong foreign alliance and his initiated zero tolerance policies. It is true that Saudi Arabia is one of the most unrelenting sources of support from Wahhabism but modernity, globalization and flexible foreign policy helped King Salman to somehow overcome this threat. On the other hand, clerics are responsible to maintain intra-state relationships and sustainability. Moreover, the clerics should adhere to the state interest as it will help to develop conflict free foreign policy. The major role of clerics during the foreign policy development process is to maintain peace among states and maintain collaborative working performance among state employees while developing policies (Patrick, 2016, p.1).

• • Merchants Notables

Large oil base, oil production and effective oil exporting activities are always considered as major aspect in the enhancement of economic growth of Saudi Arabia (Krieger, 2013, p.160). However, it is true that merchants in Saudi Arabia played an important role to maintain effective economic growth rate due to their trade activities. In addition to this, they always tried to interfere in the political economy by taking part in the policy making, strategy development and implementation process. But, lack of effective input in the implementation process in order to fulfill individual interest and profitability can hamper the policy development and implementation process in near future.

• • Tribal Notables

Tribal notables do not have direct involvement in the foreign policy development and implementation process. However, they are loyal towards their king and their responsibility is to support the regime. Their major responsibility is to participate in the army and military activities in order to prove loyalty towards their king. Most importantly, Al-Saud used tribal people to maintain an autocratic religious fusion in own kingdom. Tribal people were so loyal to king that they could have fought for them against any party without having any kind of ideology. These tribal notables created difficulty for entire Saudi Arabian society to ensure better and improved Islamic credentials (Wilson, 2014, p.86)

• Similarity or Differences between Foreign Policies

King Abdullah and his followers as well as policy makers played an important role in the effective foreign policy development process. Saudi Arabia can be considered as one of the developed economies around the globe. Most importantly, strong relationship with different developed and developing countries under the leadership of King Abdullah helped Saudi Arabia to get economic momentum (Patrick, 2016, p.70). Last but not the least; development of OPEC and other oil control activities can justify the visionary leadership style of King Abdulla.

King Abdullah died in the year 2015 and Prince Salman accepted the crown of King after the death. He followed the pathway of King Abdullah (Schechter, 2015, p.244). However, King Salman is more aggressive and assertive comparing to King Abdullah. It is true that the demand for oil energy is reducing due to many reasons. Therefore, King Salman is focusing on aggressive FDI and globalization activities (Bhagwati, 2016, p.248). On the other hand, it is known to all that Terrorism has become one of the major concerns for the Middle-east countries. It is affecting FDI and other aspects. Investors are not motivated enough to invest in projects and skilled employees from international market are feared of ISIS and other small terrorist groups. King Salman has taken zero tolerance policy regarding terrorism. King Salman introduced “North Thunder” military drill in Saudi Arabia’s northern part. This particular defense action raised the war readiness. It is an action under collaborated military exercise of 20 countries. “North Thunder” is considered as the biggest military training campaign in the Middle-East. The King Salman has met powerful leaders across the world in order to make alliance to fight against terrorism. This particular approach helped Saudi Arabia. King Salman is one of the prominent leaders in this part of the world as he is concerned about education, basic public facilities, socio-cultural orientation, healthy trade activities and strengthening defense and military forces. Therefore, it can be stated that the vision of King Salman regarding stability maintenance is higher comparing to King Abdullah.

• Conclusion

It is clear from above discussion that Saudi Arabia has developed effective foreign policy under the ruling period of King Salman. Oil production and oil exporting play important role in the economic growth of Saudi Arabia and no one can underestimated Saudi oil power. But, it is also important to secure the oil base through strong military and defense forces, not only that, their inner security from any external threats shall not be compromised too. King Salman has ensured strong leadership of Saudi to confront the regional unrest and to balance it with a clear absence of Egypt, Iraq, and Syria as powers in the region. In addition to this, King Salman has maintained aggression in the policy implementation process in order to reduce the terrorism threats. However, still King Salman is facing difficulty to maintain peace and sustainability in because of the surrounding circumstances of unrest, terrorism, most importantly low oil prices.