Full text of DOI:10.1111/1468-2346.00211

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001:
a pragmatic quest for relative autonomy
*
GERD NONNEMAN
Given the historical pedigree and continuing importance of the relationship
between Saudi Arabia and Europe, it seems peculiar that relatively little has been
written about it, beyond snapshots of certain periods or certain aspects. This
article reviews the century-long relationship since 1902, when the construction
of the third Saudi state began. An exercise of this kind can be fruitful only if
grounded in an understanding of the trends in Saudi foreign policy more
generally. Here too, while there has been excellent work on, say, Saudi foreign
1
2
policy since the 1970s, or on the very early period, very few attempts have
3
been made to tie the whole century’s patterns together. Some brief general
º
statements on the subject either tended to take policy statements at face value—
e.g. on the Islamic or anti-communist nature of the kingdom’s policy—or
started from a position of ideological critique of the regime’s position as a
dependency of the West. My second aim, then, is to draw attention to some key
long-term patterns of Saudi policy; I attempt to show that they link even the
very earliest years with the present day. These patterns, moreover, are reflected
in current issues in Saudi–European relations, and have implications for the
future. Finally, the article highlights lessons from the Saudi case for our under-
standing of the foreign policy of small and/or developing states.
*
I am grateful to the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, and in particular Roberto Aliboni, for making
possible the earlier work underlying this study; to Richard Schofield and the staff of the Public Records Office
and the British Library for easing my trawl through the documents of the Foreign Office and India Office
collections; and to Christopher Clapham for incisive comments that much strengthened the final article.
1
e.g. William Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s: foreign policy, security and oil (Washington: Brookings
Institution, 1981).
2
For an insightful study of the early days of Saudi foreign policy, see J. Goldberg, The foreign policy of Saudi
Arabia: the formative years, 1902–1918 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). See also G.
Troeller, The birth of Saudi Arabia (London: Cass, 1976), which focuses in particular on the Saudi–British
relationship up to the Saudi conquest of the Hejaz.
3
Some partial exceptions are Gregory Gause, ‘The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia’, in Raymond
Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, eds, The foreign policy of Middle Eastern states (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, forthcoming 2001), and the chapter on foreign policy in his Oil monarchies: domestic and security
challenges in the Arab Gulf states (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994); Nadav Safran’s
Saudi Arabia: the ceaseless quest for security (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985); and Ghassan
Salama’s As-siyasa al-kharijiya as-sa‘udiya mundhu ‘aam 1945 [Saudi foreign policy since 1945] (Beirut:
Ma‘had al-inmaa’ al-‘arabi, 1980).
International Affairs 77,  () ‒
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Gerd Nonneman
The Saudi relationship with Europe has been intertwined with the very
building of the Saudi state. The latter fits neither the picture of the helpless
‘dependent’ state nor that held up by hagiographic writing about the seemingly
unique autonomous re-emergence of Al-Saud power under Abdul-Aziz bin
4
Abdul-Rahman Al-Saud (‘Ibn Saud’). The case of the third Saudi state
reinforces, rather, the message from Anscombe’s study of the dynamics of the
5
Arabian sheikhdoms’ consolidation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
given a shifting context of competing external powers, astute local actors proved
able to carve out a considerable measure of autonomy, precisely by playing on
this competition, both in the search for juridical statehood and afterwards.
The Saudi–European relationship, indeed, provides one illustration of the
extent to which ‘small’ actors in the international system can acquire such rela-
tive autonomy. Saudi Arabia’s foreign relations exemplify this throughout the
kingdom’s existence, following a pattern set by Abdul-Aziz from the start of his
state-building project in 1902. Given a pragmatic awareness of limitations and
opportunities, it proved possible simultaneously to obtain great power protec-
tion (and sources of technology, arms and other imports) and to balance such
6
dependence by keeping open options and channels towards alternative sources.
For Europe, the nature of Saudi foreign policy will continue to hold out
opportunities, while European (as compared to US) attitudes to the politics of
the region have themselves helped to safeguard such opportunities.
Foreign policy analysis and the case of Saudi Arabia
The analysis of any country’s foreign policy is necessarily rooted in a number of
assumptions. Much realist thinking has been limited by considering only the
‘power’ impulse and by taking states as monolithic actors rationally calculating
costs and benefits. Other schools have tried to improve on this approach by
delving into the inner workings of these states, focusing on decision-making
and/or the elites and personalities making policy. Both sets of approaches have
been criticized by a third set, founded on broadly speaking structuralist and
mainly Marxian-derived thinking, which sees states’ interaction and foreign
policy as determined largely by ‘structures’ beyond the state level, with some
states being dominant, some dominated or ‘dependent’. In these latter
approaches, what transpires within states is of relatively little importance, and
7
‘dependent’ actors are seen as having little significant autonomy.
4
e.g. George Rentz, ‘The Saudi monarchy’, in Willard Beling, ed., King Faisal and the modernization of
Saudi Arabia (London: Croom Helm, 1980), pp. 15–33. The label ‘Ibn Saud’ is how Abdul-Aziz was
usually known in the West; as his name indicates, he was in fact not the ‘son of Saud’, but ‘son of Abdul-
Rahman, of the Saud family’.
Frederick Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
These dimensions are underplayed or absent in the main Arab-language study, Salama’s As-siyasa al-
5
6
kharijiya as-sa‘udiya; and in the otherwise excellent analyses by Gause in ‘The foreign policy of Saudi
Arabia’ and the foreign policy chapter in his Oil monarchies, although Gause does recognize the degree of
autonomy Saudi policy has displayed.
7
Some versions of dependency thinking see developing states’ policy as constrained, rather than simply
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
The approach underlying this article prefers, initially, a ‘pre-theoretical’ line
of enquiry, seeking to interpret the evidence found in patterns of states’ foreign
policy behaviour over time, while staying alert to the possible influence of the
8
range of variables and structures previous theory has suggested. On that basis, it
is plausible to argue:
that the search for ‘power’ is indeed an important impetus for states and
regimes, as is that for ‘security’, which is related but distinct, and in many
cases the object of the former;
•
that there is, however, no single ‘national interest’ but a range of ‘national
interests’;
•
that states are not monoliths but incorporate various groups and individuals,
with concomitant interests that may or may not be clothed as ‘national’;
•
that between interests and policy intervenes a decision-making process
•
which depends, inter alia, on the nature of the state, the administrative
9
machinery involved, the ‘bureaucratic politics’ within it, and the person-
10
alities and perceptions of those involved;
that foreign policy may be domestically as well as externally oriented
•
(indeed, the search for ‘power’ and ‘security’ may well in the first place be
11
domestic ); and
that states and decision-makers do have to face objective external challen-
ges, constraints and opportunities, whether in their immediate environment
or in the pattern of global political and economic relations.
•
The present case-study shows that the assumption that ‘small’ or ‘developing’
12
states must lack autonomy does not fit the evidence. Nor is the oft-mentioned
determined, from without. It has also been suggested that there may be coincidence of interests between
elites in periphery and core, while there may be conflict between the interests of elites and populations
in the periphery. There is an element of such ‘coincidence’ in the Saudi case, and a potential conflict also
with nationalist and Islamist aspirations of some of the population, necessitating a careful balance in
policy so as to maintain legitimacy. But this conflict should not be exaggerated (such aspirations are by
no means supreme, and there is no significant ‘comprador’ exploitation); nor does partial ‘coincidence’ at
a very general level explain specific variations in policy towards different outside actors.
8
As do, for instance, K. Holsti, International politics: a framework for analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall, 1995); and Christopher Hill, ‘Theories of foreign policy making for the developing countries’, in
Christopher Clapham, ed., Foreign policy making in developing states (Westmead: Saxon House, 1977), pp.
1–17. This approach is foreshadowed in James Rosenau’s ‘pre-theory’ framework: ‘Pre-theories and
theories and foreign policy’, in R. Barry Farrell, ed., Approaches to comparative and international politics
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1966).
Graham Allison, Essence of decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).
The ‘psychological-perceptual’ school includes, among others, M. Brecher, Crisis decision-making: Israel
9
10
1967 and 1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
See Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World security predicament (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995); and Joe
11
Hagan, ‘Domestic political explanations in the analysis of foreign policy’, in Laura Neack et al., eds, Foreign
policy analysis: continuity and change in its second generation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995), pp. 117–44.
Considerable quantitative and case-study research has been done in this area since the 1980s: for an over-
12
view see Jeanne Hey, ‘Foreign policy in dependent states’, in Neack et al., eds, Foreign policy analysis, pp.
201–13. The empirical record shows ‘there is no unidimensional relationship that expresses itself constantly
over time. Instead, the association between [economic dependence and foreign policy behaviour] is
complex and subject to influences at the individual, domestic and international levels of analysis’ (p. 212).
633

Gerd Nonneman
choice between ‘pro-core’ and ‘anti-core’, or ‘dependent’ and ‘counter-dependent’
13
policies an adequate summary of the options facing such states. The extent to
which foreign policy determinants in ‘developing’ states differ from those in
other states varies widely from case to case—quite apart from the difficulty in
drawing sharp boundaries between the categories in the first place. Third World
foreign policy studies have often overplayed some factors deemed to differen-
tiate the two groups at the expense of others. Thus an over-emphasis on the
role of a leader’s personality can obscure the domestic and external environ-
mental determinants without which the foreign policy pattern cannot be
properly interpreted; or, at the other extreme, an excessive focus on a country’s
‘structural’ position obscures variations in foreign policy that may result from
14
particular domestic configurations and policy choices.
The case of Saudi foreign policy illustrates that, especially for developing
states, it is appropriate to start an interpretation from the domestic environment
and the survival imperative of regime and (eventually) state; to view this in the
context of the regional environment and transnational ideological factors; to
appreciate the overall constraining and enabling effects of the international
environment; and, finally, to take into account decision-making structures and
decision-makers’ perceptions, since particular policy choices are indeed capable
of making the sort of difference that cannot be explained by structural factors
alone.
I do not intend in this article to duplicate excellent existing analyses of the
15
shifting nature of the decision-making process in Saudi Arabia; instead I focus
on the patterns in policy output, leaving the above underlying approach implicit.
A brief summary, though, would highlight:
the clear dominance of the royal family and, within it, of the senior princes,
whose opinions may differ;
•
the fluctuating importance of the king—with strong figures like Abdul-Aziz
and Faisal stamping their authority on policy, and policy-making becoming
more diffuse under Khaled and Fahd;
•
the very gradual professionalization of the policy-making bureaucracy; and
the consensus-seeking principle, both within the royal family and between
it and other important constituencies, including the religious establishment.
•
•
13
As in Hill, ‘Theories of foreign policy making’, p. 8.
See Bahgat Korany, ‘Foreign policy in the Third World: an introduction’, in International Political Science
14
Review 5: 1, 1984, pp. 7–20. Other examples of work that escapes this criticism include the rest of that
issue of International Political Science Review; Hill, ‘Theories of foreign policy making’; Bahgat Korany and
Ali Dessouki, eds, The foreign policies of Arab states, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991); Clapham,
ed., Foreign policy making; and Hinnebusch and Ehteshami, eds, The foreign policies of Middle Eastern states.
15
e.g. Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s; Gause, ‘The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia’.
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
16
The Saudi foreign policy ‘role’ (like that of many other developing states)
must be seen as defined through the lens of Al-Saud perceptions of the security
of their regime, and of the opportunities and challenges presented by both their
domestic and their external environments. Holsti has observed that regimes’
role conceptions, often in part built on domestic political culture, can over time
‘become a more pervasive part of the political culture of a nation [and thus
become] more likely to set limits on perceived or politically feasible policy
17
alternatives’. Yet it is misleading to think of a single role: foreign policy roles
are plural, depending on the issue and the arena in question. They are also
changeable; as Hill has pointed out, ‘The “belief system” of the practitioner is a
deep-rooted legacy of experience and political culture, but it is also an organic
18
set of attitudes which is capable, within limits, of self-transformation.’ All of
this is pertinent to Saudi foreign policy and the Saudi state’s relations with
Europe. In this relationship as in others, Saudi foreign policy has been deter-
mined by the needs of the regime at home, the changing availability of resources,
and the international strategic and economic framework within which the
country always took a subordinate but not powerless role. It was also influenced
and circumscribed by the regional ideological and political context (with the
themes of Islam and Arabism looming especially large), both because this links
into the domestic security imperative, and because it has been a genuine
19
element in the various role conceptions of the Al-Saud leadership.
Relative autonomy from such constraints can permit pragmatic adaptation in
both role conceptions and role performance. I suggest that the room for man-
oeuvre which adept local leaders can turn into such relative autonomy at the
domestic, regional and international levels emerges from the combination of
particular domestic circumstances (the availability of material and political
resources) with external ones (including limitations on, and competition
between, great powers; and the global scattering of great power interests, as
opposed to local actors’ regional concentration). In turn, this relative autonomy
for the state at all three levels has allowed the Arab Gulf states to pursue the
survival imperative and other interests through the long-term foreign policy
patterns of managed multi-dependence and pragmatism.
16
A term much used but variously defined in the literature. In essence, it is meant to be a state’s
characteristic patterns of behaviour—whether seen as the result of the state’s position in a system of
balance of power (James Rosenau, Turbulence in world politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1990), or, as rightly observed by Holsti, as also driven by policy-makers’ own perceptions and
definitions, and thus as much domestically as externally generated (K. J. Holsti, ‘National role
conceptions in the study of foreign policy’, in Stephen Walker, ed., Role theory and foreign policy analysis,
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987, pp. 5–43). For a good review see Lisbeth Aggestam, ‘Role
conceptions and the politics of identity in foreign policy’, ARENA Working Papers 99/8, available on
<http://www.arena.uio.no/publications/wp99_8.htm>.
17
Holsti, ‘National role conceptions’, pp. 38–9.
Christopher Hill, ‘The historical background: past and present in British foreign policy’, in Michael
18
Smith et al., eds, British foreign policy: tradition, change and transformation (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988),
pp. 25–49 at p. 30.
19
For a European case-study of the simultaneous existence of multiple roles, see Aggestam, ‘Role
conceptions’.
635

Gerd Nonneman
Patterns in Saudi–European relations
Throughout the twentieth century, the key themes in Saudi foreign policy
towards, and relations with, Europe can be summed up as follows:
geopolitical balancing;
the acquisition of economic resources—initially subsidies and loans, sub-
sequently an increased share in the wealth derived from oil production, and
finally the safeguarding of markets for oil and (lately) petrochemicals;
•
•
the survival and flourishing of polity and regime, pursued via both of the
first two routes;
•
ideology—both religious (Islam) and political (the Palestinian cause)—which
has increasingly been a feature since 1948, but has never dominated.
•
From the European side, relations must be seen in the wider context of
European interest in the Gulf. This has been driven by:
strategic calculations with regard to shipping lanes;
competition among the great powers of Europe, later shifting to contain-
ment of the Soviet Union, as well as rivalry between European actors and
the United States;
•
•
increasingly, access to oil;
since the 1970s, access to the markets of the Gulf and of Saudi Arabia in
particular.
•
•
Each of these four themes is, of course, interrelated with the others.
From both sides, therefore, policy towards the other has been driven
essentially by pragmatic considerations of political and economic advantage.
This is not to say that there have not been issues where deep conviction
(whether religious or political), matters of pride or questions of intercultural
communication have come very much to the fore. Examples would include the
decision by King Faisal in 1973 to impose an oil boycott in response to Western
support for Israel; on a much smaller scale, the upset over the Death of a Princess
20
episode in 1980, which demonstrated a mutual lack of comprehension; or the
debate in the late 1990s over policy towards Iraq. Yet such issues usually become
especially important when they link in with the key considerations listed above
(for instance, when they are seen to impact on the legitimacy of the Saudi
regime, or on the security of mutual economic interests). On their own, and
away from those linkages, they tend not to reorientate policy very significantly
or for very long.
20
A British TV dramatization of the events resulting in the execution of a young Saudi princess and her
lover; the screening brought vehement Saudi protest. See R. Lacey, The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of
Saud (New York: Avon Books, 1981), p. 458.
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
The management of these relations has, for the Al-Saud, been spectacularly
successful. Of course, there have been difficult dilemmas to resolve (or at least
contain) in Saudi foreign policy, and some of these continue to have destabi-
lizing potential. Yet such difficulties have been largely inherent in Saudi Arabia’s
geographical position, in the pressures and expectations associated with being a
central member of the Muslim and Arab world, and in its exposed, vulnerable
wealth. The measure of success has been the vast strides made from humble
beginnings in 1902 (at the turn of the century the Al-Saud were under the
protection of the sheikh of Kuwait), and the way in which those inherent
foreign policy limitations have been managed.
Much of this success must be credited to the person of Abdul-Aziz, who,
starting with the reconquest of Riyadh from the rival Rasheed dynasty in 1902,
welded Najd (centre), al-Hasa (east), Shammar (north), Asir (south-west) and
the Hejaz (west) together in what became, in 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. The welding process was not merely a feat of territorial conquest, but at
21
least as much one of constructing a viable polity on political, ideological,
traditional/tribal, and personal foundations. This growing domestic strength is
part of the explanation for the success in managing relations with the outside
world. At the same time, however, it was also in part the result of this foreign
policy success. On the one hand, Abdul-Aziz needed to handle his external
relations carefully in order to secure the success of this new state-building
exercise (it was the Al-Saud’s third, following earlier periods of Saudi expansion
in 1745–1818 and 1824–91). On the other hand, part of the reason why he was
able increasingly to extract the necessary assistance and/or tolerance from the
external powers he was dealing with was that those powers recognized that he,
and the fledgling Saudi state, were indeed growing into a local power to be
reckoned with. In other words, domestic success at state-building increased his
bargaining power with actors such as Great Britain, while the successful
management of relations with those powers at the same time helped the state-
building exercise succeed and thereby helped secure the rule of the Al-Saud. It
is only on the basis of this already more secure foundation that the arrival of the
oil age would bring additional internal resources and more extensive external
interest, both of which would again be harnessed by King Abdul-Aziz and his
successors to the project of consolidating the state and the rule of the Al-Saud.
Saudi–European relations up to the First World War
Until the Second World War, the history of Saudi relations with the great powers
was that of relations with Europe and, until 1918, with the Ottoman empire:
21
Abdul-Aziz renewed the alliance with the descendants of the eighteenth-century religious reformer
Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab, which had allowed the original Saudi expansion to begin: the Al-Saud,
recognized as temporal rulers, would defend the religious message of the preacher and the ulama
(religious scholars) who came after him. See Christine Moss Helms, The cohesion of Saudi Arabia (London:
Croom Helm, 1981), pp. 76–126.
637

Gerd Nonneman
the United States did not enter the region in any significant way until the Second
World War and afterwards. The European powers that mattered were Great
Britain—already dominant in the Gulf—and its competitors France, Russia and
Germany. Abdul-Aziz also had to deal with the Ottomans, who not only
claimed suzerainty over al-Hasa, Najd and the Hejaz, but also supported the Al-
Saud’s rivals, the Al-Rasheed, in Shammar. The first and second Saudi states,
indeed, had been brought down in part as a result of Ottoman–Egyptian inter-
vention, as well as that of local challengers. Even so, relations with Europe were
rightly seen as crucial by the young Saudi ruler of Najd, who, we shall see, from
the very beginning made every effort to obtain an alliance with Britain and
thereby to counter the Ottoman grip—all the while paying obeisance to the
nominal suzerainty of the sultan and making explicit use of British fears of
competition from Russia and other powers. In this pragmatic appreciation of
the realities of regional and international politics, Abdul-Aziz presented a
22
striking contrast with the policies of the first and second Saudi states.
It appears clear that Abdul-Aziz was convinced almost from the start of the
hegemony of the British empire, and hence the need to establish a close relation-
ship. He also knew what might bring this about, and what sacrifices he might have
to make in order to get it. Already in 1902, shortly after conquering Riyadh, his
father, no doubt at his behest, dispatched a letter to the British political resident
in the Gulf, referring to Russian interest and asking that the British government
23
‘consider [him] as one of their protégés’ (the letter remained unanswered).
When the Russian consul toured the Gulf in 1903, offering benefits and a special
relationship, Abdul-Aziz immediately made British representatives aware of the
24
Russian offer. Numerous requests for an agreement with Britain followed, in
which the Saudi ruler strongly played the card of the Ottoman threat to both his
own and British interests. Through letters and emissaries, as well as a number of
personal requests, in all at least 14 overtures were made to the British between
25
1902 and 1913. Through his friend Captain Shakespear, the British political
agent in Kuwait, Abdul-Aziz again tried to obtain an alliance in 1914, warning of
26
the pressure he was under to sign an agreement with the Ottoman Porte.
22
See Goldberg, The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, pp. 29, 184. Without a doubt, Abdul-Aziz’s experience at
the court of Sheikh Mubarak of Kuwait, who had been dealing with Great Britain in order to assure his
own autonomy from the Ottomans and obtained a Treaty of Protection in 1899, was a significant
contributory factor in shaping the young Saudi prince’s perceptions. See Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf,
pp. 160, 172.
23
Foreign Office (FO) document FO 406/16, Kemball to Government of India, 23 May 1902, and
Abdulrahman to Kemball 14 May 1902.
The meeting with the consul took place during the joint Franco-Russian visit in March 1903. See B.
24
Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf 1894–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 222.
See India Office Records [henceforth IOR], Political Agency Kuwait records [henceforth PAK], R/15/
25
5/24–25 (files 10/1–2); also see Capt. Shakespear’s report showing how Abdul-Aziz, in his pursuit of
British protection, made a point of showing him correspondence with other powers: IOR, Private and
Secret Department Subject Files [henceforth L/P&S/], 10/385. For a review of the evidence based on
Ottoman archives, confirming this picture, see Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf, pp. 149–66. Cf. Goldberg,
The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, pp. 49–90.
26
IOR, L/P&S/10/387, Shakespear to Political Resident, 4 Jan. 1915. He had already told Shakespear in
1911 that he would welcome British protection: IOR(PAK) R/15/5/25 (file 10/2).
638

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
Until the outbreak of the First World War, the British response to such over-
tures was tempered by a desire not to upset relations with Istanbul. The British
27
failure to offer an agreement along the lines Abdul-Aziz would have wanted
eventually drove him to sign a secret treaty with the Ottomans in May 1914,
28
accepting the title of Wali (governor) of Najd. However, the war brought a
marked change in the situation from the British viewpoint, as the Al-Saud
became a potential ally against Germany’s Ottoman allies. Even so, it was to the
Hashimite Sherif Hussein of Mecca, rather than the Al-Saud, that Britain turned
for assistance against the Turkish garrisons in the Hejaz and Syria. While there
were British voices arguing the case that it was the latter who would be the real
powerhouse in Arabia (among them Captain Shakespear and Harry St J. B.
Philby), the majority view among the British foreign policy establishment was
that the long-established rule of the Hashemite family of Mecca, and their
religious legitimacy as protectors of the holy places and descendants of the
Prophet Muhammad’s family, made them the best ally against the Ottoman
29
sultan who was, after all, also nominally the caliph of all Muslims.
With the death of Shakespear in 1915, in battle alongside the Al-Saud against
30
the latter’s Turkish-allied foes, the Al-Rasheed, Britain was sucked in further;
but it was two conscious policies by the Saudi leader that complete the explan-
ation for his eventual success in becoming ‘a British protégé at last, assured of a
31
reliable source of arms and money for the first time’. The first was the calcu-
lated gamble that, by 1913, neither the Ottomans nor Britain would any longer
act to stop him from taking al-Hasa on the Gulf coast, and that, by becoming
the de facto power in that region, he could force Britain to deal with him as a
political actor on the Gulf, rather than just in the interior where Britain’s
interests were minimal. The conquest of al-Hasa in May 1913 accomplished this
goal. The second was his refusal even after the outbreak of war in 1914 to com-
mit himself unambiguously to the British, and anti-Ottoman, cause, unless a
32
formal guarantee were forthcoming in the shape of a written treaty with Britain.
27
See e.g. FO 371/156 (37869), Morley to Viceroy, 10 Nov. 1906; FO 371/2124 (22042), Mallet to Grey,
12 May 1914; and FO 371/2124 (22677), 15 May 1914.
The treaty never surfaced in the Saudi records, and Abdul-Aziz even kept it secret from his own ulama.
28
A copy was found in the Basra archives, however, after the eviction of the Ottomans by British forces:
IOR, L/P&S/10/385, ‘Translation of Treaty between Ibn Saud and the Turks, 15 May 1914’. See also
FO 371/2124 (E34347), Enver to Ibn Saud; FO 371/2124, Grey to Mallet, 11 July 1914. See also the
arguments presented by J. Goldberg, ‘The 1914 Saudi–Ottoman treaty—myth or reality?’, in Journal of
Contemporary History 19, 1984, pp. 289–314; and Goldberg, The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, pp. 106–11.
29
See Philby’s report on his Najd mission 1917–18, which includes a précis of British–Saudi relations until
then: IOR, L/P&S/10/390 (Baghdad: Government Printing Press, 1918). There was, until the shift of
responsibility for the Gulf to the Colonial Office in London in 1920, also a difference between the
government of India, which was responsible for relations with the Gulf states and where voices more
sympathetic to Abdul-Aziz had prominence, and the Foreign Office in London, which was far more
concerned with the ‘broader picture’. See Goldberg, The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, p. 47.
H. V. F. Winstone, Captain Shakespear: a portrait (London: Cape, 1967), pp. 108–110, 224.
D. Holden and R. Johns, The House of Saud (London: Pan Books, 1982), p. 50.
30
31
32
See Capt. Shakespear’s letters to his superiors: IOR, L/P&S/10/385, Shakespear to Hirtzel, 26 June
1914, quoting Abdul-Aziz as saying that ‘unless he could obtain some form of assurance he would be
compelled to make his own arrangements’; and IOR, L/P&S/10/387, Shakespear to Political Resident,
639

Gerd Nonneman
33
By the end of the year, under the Darin Treaty of 26 December 1915, Britain
had officially recognized Abdul-Aziz as the independent ruler of Najd and its
dependencies under British protection. In June 1916 a £20,000 loan and a ship-
ment of arms were provided, followed from January 1917 by a stipend of
£5,000 a month. Between the end of the war and March 1924 (when British
subsidies were suspended), the Saudi ruler received some £60,000 a year from
34
Britain. By far the largest slice of these resources went into the consolidation
of the new Saudi polity, through military means and acts of patronage and gener-
osity towards both Abdul-Aziz’s supporters and many of his vanquished foes.
The inter-war years and the Second World War
Turning point
The defeat of the Ottomans and the subsequent dismemberment of the empire
left Saudi rule in Arabia stronger than before. Before long, the rival rule of the
Al-Rasheed in Shammar (no longer assisted by their Ottoman patrons) was
extinguished. The First World War and its aftermath was a turning point also
for British–Saudi relations. It bears repeating here that Britain had by now
succeeded in seeing off its European challengers in the Gulf, although in Persia
competition with Russia (and subsequently the USSR) remained. This
dominance was unchallenged along the Arab Gulf littoral (bound to Britain by a
series of protective and exclusive treaties), and would also become evident to
the north, when the two new states of Iraq and Trans-Jordan were carved out as
monarchies under British tutelage (under the Sherif’s sons Faisal and Abdallah
respectively). Much of Saudi–European relations, therefore, now consisted of
Saudi–British relations.
Nevertheless, as we shall see, the Saudi ruler always kept his options and other
channels of communication open—a policy facilitated by a recognition on the
part of Germany and the Soviet Union, among others, that he was the power to
be reckoned with in a strategically ever more important part of the world. It was
a policy that would in essence be maintained also when Britain was replaced by
the United States after the Second World War as the dominant superpower in
the region: although Saudi–US relations would become very close, Saudi policy-
4 Jan. 1915. The Saudi ruler did not in fact play a significant role in the war effort against the Turkish. As
Goldberg observes: ‘It is highly questionable whether the British would have been ready to pay in the
form of a Treaty for the mere neutrality of a central Arabian entity. But with the Saudi state controlling a
significant part of the coast, Ibn Saud did not have to commit himself to a military role in Mesopotamia
in order to secure the Treaty’ (The foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, p. 135). See also Troeller, The birth of
Saudi Arabia, pp. 83–91.
33
Draft and final signed versions (Sir Percy Cox and Abdul-Aziz) in IOR, L/P&S/10/387.
A £50,000 lump sum was paid to soften the blow of ending subsidies. See Philby’s report on his Najd
34
mission, IOR, L/P&S/10/390, for details on arms and cash transferred to Abdul-Aziz up to 1918; and
IOR(PAK) R/15/5/28 (file 10/4); Political Residency Bushire records [henceforth IOR(PRB)] R/15/
1/560 (file 61/6) for 1921–4 (including letter from Knox to Abdul Aziz, 14 June 1923, setting out the
arrangement). Also H. Philby, Saudi Arabia (Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1968), p. 274; Troeller, The birth of
Saudi Arabia, p. 93.
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
makers always made sure to maintain alternative channels. In other words, the
geopolitics of the region and the imperative of consolidating and maintaining
Al-Saud rule prior to 1945 demanded a close relationship with Great Britain,
with alternative relationships (including with the United States) being kept
open. After 1945, the same factors demanded a close relationship with the United
States, with alternative relationships (now mainly with western Europe and,
increasingly, Japan) nevertheless being cultivated.
Saudi consolidation and foreign relations
The upward trajectory of the Saudi ruler would be complicated by two main
factors, one political and one economic. Politically, internal forces rubbed up
against external constraints. The very success of the Saudi state-building exer-
cise, with the defeat of the Rasheed dynasty in the north, had brought Saudi
control right up to the ill-defined boundaries of the new British-protected
Hashimite kingdoms of Iraq and Trans-Jordan, and the kingdom was still
bounded by the original Hashimite dominions in the west. Much of the expan-
sion had been made possible by the total commitment of the Ikhwan forces,
who were driven as much by religious motivation as by loyalty to Abdul-
35
Aziz. They saw no obstacle in nominal boundaries. Yet Britain made clear
that any further expansion into the territories of its protectorates—whether the
36
two new kingdoms or Kuwait—would not be tolerated. Abdul-Aziz reined
in his Ikhwan troops, much against their determined wishes (he would
37
eventually be forced to impose his will by defeating them in battle ). In the
Uqayr conference of 1922–3, presided over by the British high commissioner in
Iraq, Sir Percy Cox, the boundaries of the new Saudi domains with Iraq and
Kuwait were defined for the first time. Saudi expansion northward was halted,
in return for a slice of territory which the sheikh of Kuwait had considered his,
38
and for a strengthened alliance with the imperial power of Britain. This
outcome would also allow the Al-Saud to feel strong enough to take over the
Hejaz a few years later, in December 1925—by which time Hashimite rule
there had lost both its internal strength and its use for Britain. After the sherif
Hussein claimed he was taking over the now vacant title of caliph, Abdul-Aziz’s
troops routed the Hashimite forces, and the sherif himself fled the Hejaz, never
to return. Following the conquest, the notables of the Hejaz in January 1926
35
The Ikhwan (‘Brethren’) were Abdul-Aziz’s ‘shock troops’. See Moss Helms, The cohesion of Saudi Arabia,
pp. 127–50, and John S. Habib, Ibn Sa’ud’s warriors of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1978).
Britain was instrumental, for instance, in ending the Saudi–Kuwaiti hostilities in 1920 which entered
36
Kuwaiti mythology as the defining moment of ‘the battle of Jahra’. See H. R. P. Dickson, Kuwait and her
neighbours (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956), pp. 253–55.
The decisive battles took place in 1929, and the Ikhwan’s leader, Faysal al-Duwish, surrendered to British
37
forces in Kuwait on 10 Jan. 1930. See IOR(PAK) R/15/5/42 (file 10/2); Philby, Saudi Arabia, pp. 308–
13; Moss Helms, The cohesion of Saudi Arabia, pp. 225–74; and Habib, Ibn Sa’ud’s warriors, pp. 105–55.
The Uqayr protocol was signed on 2 Dec. 1922 and ratified by the sheikh of Kuwait in Feb. 1923: IOR,
38
L/P&S/10/937 and IOR(PAK) R/15/5/100. See also Dickson, Kuwait and her neighbours, pp. 272–6 and
Troeller, The birth of Saudi Arabia, pp. 189–211.
641

Gerd Nonneman
declared Abdul-Aziz king of Hejaz, and it was now clear that the Anglo-Saudi
Treaty of 1915 had been overtaken by events. On 20 May 1927 it was supplanted
by the Treaty of Jeddah, whereby Britain recognized the absolute independence
39
of the Saudi ruler as King of Hejaz and King of Najd and its Dependencies —
the ‘dual kingdom’ that would be renamed ‘Saudi Arabia’ in 1932.
The other complicating factor was financial. With the increasing size of the
Saudi state came increasing demands on the ruler’s purse, exacerbated by the
war with Yemen in the early 1930s. Combined with the suspension of British
subsidies in 1924 and the effect of the economic collapse in the region and the
world in that period, this resulted in a financial crisis. According to Philby,
40
Abdul-Aziz’s debts by 1931 amounted to some £300,000–400,000. Attempts
to find relief also brought renewed contacts with the Soviet Union, who in
1932 offered a debt write-off and a new £1 million loan. Although in the end
this was never realized, it did lend extra weight to a renewed demand for British
aid. When Abdul-Aziz later that same year proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, Moscow offered immediate recognition (as it had done in 1927)—another
41
spur to Britain to take note. The main source of relief, however, was to be oil.
Although on the surface it seemed as if the Saudi state was now in a similar
position vis-à-vis Britain as the other Gulf protectorates, there were in fact signi-
ficant differences. First, Al-Saud rule had greater internal strength and
legitimacy than many of the littoral principalities. Second, and in part under-
lying the first, the kingdom had never been truly colonized. Third, this de facto
independence was ably maintained by playing off different external actors
against one another. And fourth—an example of this ‘game’—Abdul-Aziz was
the only ruler to sign an oil concession with non-British interests.
Britain did pursue an oil concession, but not with the determination necessary
to compete with alternative offers (in part because, having extracted the Uqayr
concession, it felt that extra pressure might be ill-advised, and in part because
the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which had been exploring in Persia and Iraq,
had discovered ample reserves in any case). Abdul-Aziz instead gave the conces-
sion to Major Frank Holmes, an adventurous entrepreneur from New Zealand.
Although he did not prove successful, the American oil firms subsequently
found him easier to take over from than Anglo-Persian (or its daughter
42
company, the Iraq Petroleum Company—IPC) would have been. British and
39
See Troeller, The birth of Saudi Arabia, pp. 216–31, 236; and Philby, Saudi Arabia, pp. 285–91, 306.
H. Philby, Arabian jubilee (London: Robert Hale, 1952), p. 175.
These contacts also undermine the claim that Saudi foreign policy has displayed a consistent anti-
40
41
communist line driven by conviction that communism is anathema to Islam (e.g. A. Al-Sowayyegh,
‘Saudi oil policy during King Faisal’s era’, in Beling, ed., King Faisal and the modernization of Saudi Arabia,
pp. 202–29 at 203–4). The end of Soviet diplomatic representation in Riyadh in 1938 was initiated by
Stalin, not the Al-Saud, and resulted essentially from Moscow’s disappointment with the failure to extract a
long-term trade and friendship agreement. See Philby, Arabian jubilee, pp. 171–2; Lacey, The Kingdom,
pp. 240–1; and James Piscatori, ‘Islamic values and national interest: the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia’,
in Adeed Dawisha, ed., Islam in foreign policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 33–53
at pp. 37–8.
42
See documents on the Eastern & General Syndicate and oil concessions in IOR(PRB) R/15/1/667-669
(1933–45).
642

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
French interests were still supposed to be protected by the 1929 Red Line agree-
ment among the major oil companies, according to which none would take a
concession without also offering a share in it to the others. However, in 1933
Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) obtained a 60-year oil concession in al-
Hasa, having offered Saudi Arabia an immediate loan of £30,000 with another
£20,000 deferred, plus a monthly rental of £5,000. Two further loans of
£50,000 were held out, for transfer after the discovery of oil. Abdul-Aziz had,
when opening the bidding, initially asked for a £100,000 down payment, and
43
Britain’s IPC had been unable or unwilling to offer any more than £10,000.
After the Second World War, the Red Line agreement became void when
Caltex (joint venture of SOCAL and Texaco), Exxon and Mobil effectively
44
bought off the British and French IPC shareholders. It is not fanciful to see, in
this episode, the conscious balancing strategy of the Saudi ruler at work. Indeed,
as Holmes himself observed at the time, ‘If the oil industry of his country is to
be developed by Americans who have no political axe to grind he risks less of
his country’s independence. On the other hand he does not want to be without
45
British influence entirely.’
The Second World War was, like the First, a watershed in regional politics.
By this time oil had been discovered in most of the states surrounding the Gulf,
including Saudi Arabia. The significance of oil as an energy source in the war
effort became abundantly clear; Britain emerged from the war economically
exhausted; and the United States obtained a physical presence in the Middle
East, along with increasingly important interests. The British position as Saudi
Arabia’s pre-eminent partner hence came under increasing challenge.
It is worth noting, however, that in the lead-up to the war, Abdul-Aziz had
also taken care to open lines of communications to other actors around Europe.
In the late 1930s he concluded an arms agreement with the Italian leader Musso-
lini, and in 1937 Italy had taken over the construction of the airfield at Jeddah,
46
left uncompleted by Britain. In January 1939 diplomatic relations were estab-
lished with Germany. Subsequently, the Saudi leader had a number of warm
conversations with Dr Fritz Grobba, the German envoy, in which he appears to
have said that he ‘hated the English’, and in July 1939 a deal was concluded with
Germany for the supply of 4,000 rifles and ammunition, and the establishment
43
FO/406/76, ‘Memorandum respecting petroleum in Arabia’, 11 Aug. 1933. The text of the concession
agreement of 29 May 1933 between Abdul-Aziz and SOCAL is in FO/406/76, and in IOR(PRB) R/
15/1/654. See H. St J B. Philby, Arabian oil ventures (Washington: Middle East Institute, 1964), pp. 73–
134. Also S. Longrigg, Oil in the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 108.
Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, pp. 111, 150–2.
Quoted in Thomas Ward, Negotiations for oil concessions in Bahrain, El Hasa (Saudi Arabia) (New York:
44
45
Ardlee, 1965), p. 65. For a review of the development of US oil interests in the region before 1940, see
Aaron Miller, Search for security: Saudi Arabian oil and American foreign policy (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1980), pp. 3–31.
46
For more on Saudi–Italian relations see Pier Giovanni Donini, ‘I rapporti fra Italia e Arabia Saudita’, in
Roberto Aliboni and Daniela Pioppi, eds, Arabia Saudita Cent’anni: cooperazione, sicurezza, identità
(Rome: Franco Angeli for Istituto Affari Internazionali, 2000), pp. 45–52.
643

Gerd Nonneman
47
of an arms factory near Riyadh. Along with the Treaty of Friendship and
Trade signed with Japan that year, this was again vintage Abdul-Aziz, keeping
every option open. For all that, the outbreak of the war and the Saudi leader’s
lack of funds meant that the German deal was never enacted; indeed, the
importance of the Saudi link for Britain in these new circumstances was such that
48
from 1940 the kingdom received a British subsidy of £1 million per year.
Yet from this time onward the United States was competing directly with
Britain for Saudi favours. Both US oil companies and the US government
increasingly proved able to outspend Britain. As Holden and Johns aptly put it:
‘Britain was rowing against the tide of her own exhaustion and America’s
49
expanding power.’ A symbol of this new US interest and access was the famous
meeting between President Roosevelt and the Saudi king aboard the USS
Quincy in February 1945—an event of which the British were informed only at
the very last moment. The ‘buying out’ of the Red Line agreement by US oil
firms, referred to above, illustrated and consolidated this trend (and formed the
beginning of Aramco—the Arabian American Oil Company). Yet again, Abdul-
Aziz was anything but a passive player in bringing this about. The US State
Department Division of Near Eastern Affairs was pushing hard for closer Ameri-
can relations with Saudi Arabia, in part because of ‘an almost hysterical view of
50
British designs’. This view in turn was fostered by reports from Colonel Eddy,
at that time the minister plenipotentiary to the kingdom:
Eddy’s telegrams and . . . reports indicated that the king was anxious to decrease his
dependence on Great Britain and enter into a closer relationship with the Americans.
Although Washington obviously overestimated Ibn Saud’s dissatisfaction with London,
51
there is little doubt that the king sought to encourage American aid.
It is likely that the ‘intelligence’ on ‘British designs’ was to a considerable extent
fed to Eddy by the king himself. Abdul-Aziz’s technique of tailoring the
message to the audience, in other words, was once again employed to good
effect. It is worth noting, also, that it is increasingly possible to speak of ‘Saudi’
(or at least ‘Al-Saud’) foreign policy, rather than simply that of the king: since
the establishment of a ministry of foreign affairs in 1930, Prince Faisal bin
Abdul-Aziz, who would later succeed his brother Saud as the third king, had
been foreign minister, laying the ground for continuity after Abdul-Aziz’s death
in 1953.
47
L. Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East (London: Routledge, 1966), p. 52; D. Cameron Watt,
‘The foreign policy of Ibn Saud 1930–39’, in Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 50: 2, 1963, pp.
152–60.
48
Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 69; Lacey, The Kingdom, p. 257; Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, p. 126.
Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, p. 130.
Miller, Search for security, pp. xvi, 135.
Ibid., p. 145.
49
50
51
644

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
The postwar era: 1945–1973
The Middle East ‘oil era’ really took off only after the end of the Second World
War—both because that is when development in Arabia began in earnest and
because of the fast-changing energy base of military and economic activity world-
wide. In Europe, moreover, postwar reconstruction led to an energy crisis,
which increased dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Saudi Arabia itself gradually
became more dependent on its oil revenues and on the markets and technology,
as well as on the arms, of the West. Yet the relationship that evolved should
properly be characterized as one of asymmetrical interdependence, rather than
dependence tout court.
The increased US role would remain a feature of Saudi Arabia’s economic
and foreign policy. Yet, as before, the Saudi leadership made sure that other
options were kept open. This proved especially important in the context of
increased US support for Israel after 1967. The US–Israeli alliance caused diffi-
culties in three ways: first, there has been the genuine conviction that Israel was
transgressing against Arab and Muslim rights, and that the United States was con-
doning this; second, domestic and regional opinion made it difficult and poten-
tially dangerous to be seen as too close to the United States and not sufficiently
committed to the Palestinian cause; and third, the pro-Israeli lobby in the United
States succeeded in imposing a number of limitations on arms exports to Saudi
Arabia. All of this is significant for Saudi–European relations, as it provided an
opening for Europe to ‘come back in’.
However, Europe had its own difficulties with Saudi Arabia. A low point in
relations came with the Suez crisis of 1956, in which France and Britain colluded
with Israel to take back the newly nationalized Suez Canal and to bring down
the nationalist leadership of Gamal Abdul-Nasser in Egypt. Saudi Arabia broke
off diplomatic relations with France and Britain, and joined in the first Arab oil
embargo to be attempted, when King Saud bin Abdul-Aziz ordered US-owned
Aramco to halt exports to the two countries. Though the embargo is now often
written off as unsuccessful, it is worth noting that it did lead to petrol rationing
in both Britain and France. In the context of the ‘Arab Cold War’ between
traditional pro-Western regimes and the younger radical nationalist republics,
an additional problem with France was the Algerian question, which the Saudi
leadership could not ignore. With Britain, a long-running dispute centred on
the oasis of Buraimi, today shared by the United Arab Emirates and Oman, but
52
once claimed as a Saudi dependency. With Britain acting as the protector of
both Abu Dhabi and Oman, and Saudi ‘possession’ of Buraimi already some
time in the past, London was not prepared to countenance the Saudi claim. In
fact, Britain’s continued determination to protect its official or de facto protec-
torates in the Gulf—and with them the possibility of oil concessions there—led
it, according to one scholar, to act very much against Saudi territorial ambitions,
52
For a summary account, see J. Wilkinson, ‘Britain’s role in boundary drawing in Arabia’, in R. Schofield,
ed., The territorial foundations of the Gulf states (London: UCL Press, 1994), pp. 94–108 at pp. 100–4.
645

Gerd Nonneman
using force where legal arguments failed. Wilkinson, cutting across the usual
(non-Saudi) accounts, presents a compelling case that
British force had to be used to impose on Saudi Arabia the boundary with the Aden
Protectorate, … with the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman … , and Abu Dhabi [and to]
refute the Saudi claims to islands which Britain considered belonged to Bahrain and
Kuwait … For most of the history of defining territories in Arabia, Britain has been the
sole arbiter of boundaries … It was not until 1949 that Saudi Arabia obtained proper
53
advice on its sovereignty rights from lawyers hired by Aramco,
and challenged British claims. Because Britain would not necessarily have been
able to count on international law in maintaining its sphere of influence, argues
Wilkinson, ‘it decided in 1955 to resolve the situation by unilaterally declaring a
54
frontier that … drove the Saudis back across the new lines’, having already, in
1952, removed the Saudi occupation of Buraimi—itself the outcome of a
55
breakdown in negotiations over the extent of Saudi territory.
Relations with France were restored only in 1962, upon Algerian indepen-
dence. Britain had to wait until 1963: at that time, Saudi Arabia was embroiled
in a struggle with the new republican regime in Yemen, which had overthrown
the monarchical system of the Imam. Saudi Arabia supported the royalist forces.
Britain, for its part, delayed recognition of the new government, as it was con-
cerned about the impact this revolution might have on its own hold over Aden
56
and southern Yemen. British intelligence gave information to the Saudi side,
and airlifted a quantity of arms to Saudi Arabia to assist in the attempt to contain
the North Yemeni revolution.
Intelligence cooperation would soon also be established with France, and of
course the United States. Alongside this, from the 1960s competition for the
supply of modern arms really began. The United States and Britain, in particu-
lar, competed to supply Saudi Arabia with the beginnings of an air force; this,
especially for Britain, clearly fitted in with concern over the war in Yemen,
where Egyptian forces had weighed in on the side of the republicans. I will
return to the development of the arms trade and security collaboration below.
The renewed development of Saudi–Western relations was again interrup-
ted, this time by the Arab–Israeli war of 1967. Saudi Arabia, now under King
57
58
Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz, reluctantly took part in the subsequent oil embargo.
53
J. Wilkinson, Arabia’s frontiers: the story of Britain’s boundary drawing in the desert (London: I. B. Tauris,
1991), pp. ix–x.
Ibid., p. x.
54
55
Britain could have avoided years of dispute, argues Wilkinson, if it had accepted the pragmatic minimum
statement by the Saudi king of his territory in 1935: it was only after failure to get what he saw as a fair
deal that he put forward the much larger 1949 claim. Ibid., pp. xxvi.
See C. Gandy, ‘A mission to Yemen: August 1962–Jan. 1963’, in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25:
2, Nov. 1998, pp. 247–74.
In 1964 he succeeded Saud, who was deposed by the senior princes, essentially for incompetence. For a
good insight into the episode, see Lacey, The Kingdom, pp. 318–57.
See Malcolm Peck, ‘The Saudi–American relationship under King Faisal’, in Beling, ed., King Faisal,
pp. 230–47.
56
57
58
646

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
In part this was a recognition of the political need (domestic as well as regional)
to be seen to be doing something to counter the Israeli conquest of Islam’s third
holiest city. Yet Faisal undoubtedly felt deeply about Jerusalem himself; and he
came to believe that, with the passing of imperialism, communism and Zionism
were in an unholy alliance against the world of Islam. For the purpose of my
argument, though, it is important to note that his worldview ‘was a perception,
not a blueprint for policy action … Faisal often viewed a single problem or
59
country differently, … dependent on the context.’ In any case, it would be
France and Britain which benefited most from the perception that the United
States had become Israel’s main protector: between 1967 and 1970, the only
60
arms transactions concluded were French and British. After 1970, the US role
expanded again—only to come up against new difficulties in 1973.
The oil weapon and its effect on Saudi–European relations
In the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, Faisal was again initially reluctant to impose an oil
embargo against those blamed for supporting Israel. This was not only because
oil revenue would be lost, and because he valued the relationships the kingdom
had built up with the United States and European powers, but also because he
was aware of the damage it could do the oil market and the economies of the
West—both already quite important for Saudi Arabia’s own longer-term well-
being. Amid the growing tension during the months leading up to the war,
both Faisal and his oil minister, Sheikh Yamani, began to give urgent warnings
to the United States that they might be forced by domestic and regional pressures
to use the oil weapon if US policies towards Israel were not adjusted—warnings
61
which went unheeded. Indeed, it was less Faisal’s ideological convictions than
‘the intransigence of the adversary and the need to maintain the legitimacy base’
that were particularly important in explaining the decisions taken—not least
because, ‘having assumed a leadership role in the Arab system [after 1967], Saudi
62
Arabia could no longer practice fence-sitting.’
When the war erupted, Saudi Arabia was instrumental in making possible the
OPEC decision on 17 October to reduce oil supplies to the United States and
other supporters of Israel by 5 per cent each month. The following day, just as
the US government was asking it to increase production to make up for reduced
world output, Riyadh announced a 10 per cent cut in production. When
informed that, in addition to the massive US airlift, President Nixon had asked
Congress for $2.2 billion in emergency security assistance to Israel, King Faisal
decided on 20 October to cut supplies to the United States altogether. All other
59
David Long, ‘King Faisal’s world view’, in Beling, ed., King Faisal, pp. 173–83.
Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 203.
For an excellent study of Saudi (and Egyptian) decision-making at this time, see Bahgat Korany, ‘The
60
61
glory that was? The pan-Arab, pan-Islamic alliance decisions, October 1973’, International Political Science
Review 5: 1, 1984, pp. 47–74. For a well-researched journalistic account, see Lacey, The Kingdom, pp.
397–419.
62
Korany, ‘The glory that was?’, p. 54.
647

Gerd Nonneman
Arab producers quickly followed suit, except Libya and Iraq; the Netherlands’
supplies were also cut. On 4 November Arab oil ministers agreed to increase the
production cut to 25 per cent. In all, Saudi Arabia’s own production was cut by
63
31.5 per cent from pre-crisis levels.
In reflection of the perceived stance of different European governments vis-
à-vis Israel, France, Spain and the UK were placed on a ‘most favoured’ list,
which exempted them from the worst effects of the boycott; Portugal and the
Netherlands remained on an opposite list. But, given the importance of the
Rotterdam spot market for oil supplies throughout Europe, even consumers
not directly targeted still felt the effects. Saudi Arabia agreed therefore to sell an
64
additional 200,000 barrels a day to the UK.
It was clearly not coincidental that as early as 11 November the European
Community came out with a joint declaration on Palestine, in which the rights
of the Palestinians were recognized. A week later, the additional 5 per cent per
month cut in supplies was lifted for the EC countries, except the Netherlands
and Denmark. On 14 December joint pressure from Arab ministers on an EC
meeting in Copenhagen to do more brought another EC statement two days
later, strengthening the previous one. By this time the differential treatment
which European countries were receiving was leading to some considerable
friction among them. On 18 March 1974 the embargo was lifted, except,
temporarily, on the Netherlands and Denmark.
The first consequence of this use of Arab oil muscle—which largely meant
Saudi oil muscle—was a real change in the way Europe henceforth dealt with
the Arab–Israeli issue, as well as a general greater awareness of, and sensitivity
to, Arab grievances and views. A second dramatic consequence of the use of the
oil weapon was, of course, the oil price explosion and the quadrupling of the
Gulf states’ oil revenues. In absolute terms, the increase in Saudi Arabia’s
revenues—and therefore in its potential growth as a market for arms, goods and
services supplied by Europe or its competitors—was by far the greatest. From
this 1974 watershed, European commercial interests in Saudi Arabia expanded
dramatically, as did the value of Saudi oil exports to Europe; at the same time,
politics—especially Arab and Muslim politics—took a much more prominent
place in European–Saudi relations. The 1973 EC policy statements also marked
a shift towards a greater significance of the collective EC/EU aspect in the
relationship henceforth, both from the vantage point of European policy-
makers and that of the Saudi leadership. There was never a likelihood of the
collective supplanting the individual, however.
63
Al-Sowayyegh, ‘Saudi oil policy’, p. 211.
Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, pp. 343–5.
64
648

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
Saudi–European relations since the oil boom: a continued balancing act
In terms of oil exploitation and industrial development, as well as in terms of
military security, the United States continued to occupy the pre-eminent position
for the Saudi kingdom and the royal family. Even as Saudi Arabia gradually took
over what became known as Saudi Aramco, US involvement remained crucial;
the US also remained the de facto guarantor of Saudi security—albeit, until the
1990 Gulf crisis, mainly ‘over the horizon’.
But Saudi Arabia was ‘never an eager participant in the superpower struggle
65
for influence in the Middle East’. There was little sympathy for the Soviet
Union, but the Saudi leadership—like most others in the region—did not buy
into the American view that the USSR was the main threat. If anything, the
end of Faisal’s reign with his assassination in 1975 strengthened this pragmatic
view. Anti-Soviet feeling had to do with the atheist character of that system,
and with the support Moscow had been giving to a number of revolutionary
movements and regimes around the world, and especially within the region,
that were critical of Al-Saud rule and/or policies. But the closeness with the
United States was based on historical experience, practical benefit and a rational
calculation on both sides that both benefited equally. By the same token,
practical considerations of a different kind, together with friction over US support
for Israel, led the Saudi leadership always to maintain constructive dealings with
other industrialized powers—especially western Europe and Japan.
Politically, Saudi Arabia sought from western Europe a more balanced stance
on the Arab–Israeli dispute than could be expected from the United States, and
possibly a degree of pressure or at least persuasion on Washington over this
issue. From 1974, that is in fact what Europe provided—albeit with limited
effect.
Arms trade
Military limitations on US arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, induced by the pro-
66
Israeli lobby, led Riyadh to look elsewhere. France, West Germany, Britain
and Italy, in particular, made determined efforts to capture their own slices of
the market. From the 1980s French and British arms contracts began to overtake
67
US deals. France was first into the breach, followed by Britain. The most strik-
ing European contract was the al-Yamamah deal, signed in July 1985. Concluded
after five years of Saudi attempts to buy F-15 fighter-bombers were defeated by
effective opposition from the US pro-Israeli lobby, this became, at an estimated
65
Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, p. 71.
For details on the instances over several years of Saudi requests for arms being blocked as a result of
66
pressure from Israel and/or the Jewish lobby, see Anthony Cordesman, Saudi Arabia: guarding the desert
kingdom (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), pp. 155–8 and The Gulf and the West (Boulder, CO: Westview,
1988), pp. 283–95, 361, 419.
67
B. Korany, ‘Defending the faith amid change: the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia’, in Korany and
Dessouki, eds, The foreign policies of Arab states, 2nd edn, pp. 310–53 at p. 337.
649

Gerd Nonneman
£20 billion ($30 billion), the largest single defence contract in British history,
and shifted the entire structure of the Saudi air force from dependence on the
68
United States to dependence on Britain. The deal became known also for its
‘offset’ component of return investment, and the oil component of Saudi pay-
ment. In January 1993 ‘al-Yamamah II’ was signed, bringing the scheme’s total
value to some £35 billion and conferring on it the status of the world’s largest
69
ever oil-for-arms deal. By 2000 it had led to the establishment of seven joint
70
companies, and it is estimated to have supported some 30,000 jobs in Britain.
Of a total of over $73 billion worth of arms supplies to Saudi Arabia over the
period 1979–94, the share of the United States can be estimated at $26–27 billion,
the UK’s at $21–22 billion, France’s at $12–13 billion, and other European sup-
pliers’ at $3–4 billion. Thus European suppliers together easily outstripped the
United States. However, this overall picture hides major fluctuations. France was
the kingdom’s largest arms supplier in the period 1984–8 ($7.5 billion); the UK
came first in 1989–91 (an estimated $8 billion), and again in 1992–4 ($9.4 billion).
Western Europe, therefore (and in particular Britain), remains a very important
source for Saudi defence imports, even if the first decade of the twenty-first
century may well see a reassertion of the United States’s pre-eminent position.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, Washington has been able to set aside previous objec-
tions from Congress, becoming once again a much more formidable competitor.
Indeed, of the $22.3 billion in new orders (as opposed to deliveries) which
Saudi Arabia placed in 1991–4, the United States captured $15.6 billion and
Europe only $6.6 billion. Nevertheless, in 1995–9 equilibrium was restored, with
71
new orders worth some $17 billion from each. Additionally, British and French
security experts continue to be used on both the domestic and external security
fronts. However prominent the United States may be, the Saudi leadership still
values the benefits of ‘multi-dependence’ in maintaining its relative autonomy.
In terms of revenues for European exporters, defence deals are often worth at
least as much as non-defence exports. About half of the UK’s $2.3 billion sales
to Saudi Arabia in 1994, for instance, were defence-related. In the same year,
France’s military exports to the kingdom of over $4 billion compare with non-
defence exports of $1.4 billion. German exports have been relatively less strongly
72
defence-related.
68
See Cordesman, Saudi Arabia, pp. 155–8; The Gulf and the West, p. 291.
This formalized the memorandum of understanding which had been signed in 1988. See also Nawaf
69
Obaid, The oil kingdom at 100 (Washington DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000), pp.
105–6. For equipment details of the Al-Yamamah deal up to 1996, see Cordesman, Saudi Arabia, pp.
155–8. Saudi financial difficulties in 1999, by which time the bulk of the deliveries had gone through, led
to a postponement of the final tranches.
70
R. Hollis, ‘Europe and Gulf security: a competitive business’, in D. Long and C. Koch, eds, Gulf security
in the twenty-first century (Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 1997), pp. 75–
89 at pp. 81–3.
71
All figures and estimates based on Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures
and Arms Transfers, issues for 1985–95 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1985–96); and
Richard Grimmet, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, various issues (Washington DC:
Congressional Research Service, 1987–2000).
72
Hollis, ‘Europe and Gulf security’, p. 83.
650

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
Non-defence trade and investment
Saudi exports to the EU in the 1990s ran at $8–12 billion annually; imports fluctu-
ated between $8 billion and $10 billion. The United States and Japan have
remained the country’s main trade partners in both directions. Yet the EC/EU
as a whole accounted for between 22 and 23 per cent of Saudi exports in 1987–94,
except for a dip in 1990, and declined thereafter to 17 per cent by 1999. In 1999
the kingdom’s main export partners (mainly for oil and petroleum products)
were the United States (17 per cent) and Japan (16 per cent); the first European
destination, France, ranked fifth with $1.8 billion (4 per cent), and the
Netherlands, Italy and the UK occupied seventh to ninth places (over the
decade 1985–95, both the Dutch and French shares of Saudi exports fluctuated
around 5 per cent, and Italy’s around 4 per cent).
This is in sharp contrast with the imports picture. The EC/EU was the source
of 35–40 per cent of Saudi visible (non-defence) imports between 1981 and
1987, and for between 33 and 36 per cent in 1987–2000 (mainly machinery and
transport equipment, and other manufactured products). Even though the United
States (19 per cent) and Japan (9 per cent) again come first, the UK (8 per cent)
and Germany (7 per cent) follow closely, with Italy and France in fifth and sixth
places with 4 per cent each (1999). (Over the 1985–95 period, Britain’s share
fluctuated between 7 and 11 per cent, Germany’s around 8 per cent, France’s
between 4 and 5 per cent, Italy’s between 5 and 7 per cent, and Switzerland’s
73
between 3 and 6 per cent.)
Viewed from the European side, exports of the EU-15 to Saudi Arabia
averaged some ecu 8–10 billion per year in 1980–96, rising to ecu 12–13 billion
in 1997–8 before falling back to ecu 10.5 billion in 1999. This masks a relative
drop from a 4 per cent share in 1980 (fourth) to 2 per cent in 1990 (eighth) and
1 per cent in 1999 (twenty-first). Imports from the kingdom fell in absolute
terms from ecu 26.3 billion (10 per cent) in 1980 to ecu 8.5 billion (2 per cent)
in 1990, and ecu 8.5 billion again (1 per cent) in 1999. From second place in
1980, therefore, Saudi Arabia slipped to twenty-second among the EU’s import
partners by 1999. These figures hide large variations: for instance, the country
was the EU’s second largest source (14.5 per cent) of petroleum in 1998 (after
Norway); and the EU was the kingdom’s second-largest supplier (10 per cent)
74
in the aerospace sector in 1997 (slipping to third place in 1998). The reasons
for the slide include lower oil prices after the mid-1980s, and a trend of increas-
ing European energy reliance on Norwegian and North African supplies, while
Saudi Arabia has refocused on, and by the turn of the century had succeeded in,
73
Data from IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook 1993 and 2000; and Ministry of Planning, Saudi Arabia
(for 2000). For a more extensive look at commercial developments between Saudi Arabia and the EU,
and especially also at investment and joint ventures, see Abd al-Rahman Al-Ali, ‘I rapporti commerciali
fra Arabia saudita e Unione Europea’, in Aliboni and Pioppi, eds, Arabia Saudita Cent’anni, pp. 193–202.
74
Data from Eurostat, External and Intra-European Union Trade: Statistical Yearbook, Data 1958–1998 (Brussels:
European Commission, 1999); for 1999, from European Commission, DG Trade, ‘Saudi Arabia’ (26
June 2000), <http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/pdf/saudi.pdf>.
651

Gerd Nonneman
once again becoming the largest oil supplier to the United States, as well as pur-
75
suing Asian markets. The figures, indicating a negative European trade balance
with Saudi Arabia in visible trade from the mid-1990s, also hide the fact that the
overall balance, including services (of which Saudi Arabia is a very large net
76
importer), remains heavily in favour of the EU.
Beyond trade, there has also been a modest level of European investment in
the kingdom in the form of joint ventures (always with a Saudi majority stake).
As of 1998, there were a total of 140 such companies, with a total investment of
$1.2 billion. This compares with US investment of $7.6 billion in 87 ventures.
The main EU investors are the UK (31, total $305 million), Italy (13, total $260
77
million), Finland (4, total $208 million), and Germany (30, total $121 million).
The oil-induced development boom in Saudi Arabia also led to a sizeable Euro-
pean presence within Saudi Arabia. In 1980—at the height of the boom—there
were some 40,000 Americans in the kingdom, but over 65,000 west Europeans
78
(including 25,000 British, 15,000 French, 13,000 Italians and 10,000 Germans).
In Europe as elsewhere, the signs of an opening up of the Saudi investment
regime in 2000 under Crown Prince Abdullah’s de facto reign—for the first
time holding out the possibility of majority foreign shareholding—has raised
expectations. Before summing up this and other current issues in Saudi–
European relations, we need first briefly to consider the implications of the two
wars that have scarred the Gulf region since 1980.
The Gulf wars
79
This is not the place to recapitulate the story of the Kuwait crisis, but it is
worth noting both the European participation and the continued role which
European actors have played since the defeat of Iraq. It is also worth noting that
this active European presence in the Gulf—in part to bolster the security of
Saudi Arabia—did not begin with the crisis of 1990–1. Since 1987 US naval
forces had formed the bulk of the protective shield extended to shipping in the
Gulf, safeguarding it from Iranian attacks (and in effect helping Iraq). But
European forces also played a role. By the summer of 1988 the EC members
had 25 warships in the Gulf (compared to the United States’ 32). This had come
down from the previous winter’s 48 (UK: 18; France: 14; Italy: 8; Belgium: 4;
80
Netherlands: 4). The reason for this involvement, of course, was concern for
the safety of oil supplies from the Gulf to the rest of the world—not least to
Europe itself, which remained dependent on Gulf oil for 25–30 per cent of its
requirements.
75
See also Obaid, The oil kingdom at 100, p. 106.
IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook 1999.
Al-Ali, ‘I rapporti commerciali’, p. 200.
Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 223.
76
77
78
79
See Lawrence Freedman and Ephraim Karsh, The Gulf conflict 1990–1991 (London: Faber, 1993); R.
Dannreuther, The Gulf conflict: a political and strategic analysis, Adelphi Paper no. 264 (London: Brassey’s, 1992).
See N. El-Sayed El-Shazly, The Gulf tanker war (London: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 239, 256.
80
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
This foreign protection changed in both its composition and its target with
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The EC swiftly declared its
solidarity with the UN and United States in their demands for Iraqi withdrawal.
The UK, Italy and France immediately froze Iraqi assets. This was also one
occasion where the Western European Union (WEU) adopted a slightly higher
profile than usual, agreeing on 21 August to step up and coordinate European
naval operations in the Gulf. King Fahd had accepted the help of US forces on
7 August, and had also formally requested forces from Britain. Britain announced
on 8 August that several aircraft would be sent, in addition to strengthening its
naval presence. On 14 September, Britain decided to send the 7th Armoured
Brigade to take part in the operation to defend Saudi Arabia, as well as addi-
tional Tornado squadrons. The next day France (whose ambassador’s residence
in Kuwait had been assaulted) also committed ground troops. In Operation
Desert Storm, following Operation Desert Shield, the United States was
obviously the dominant partner, but the British Royal Air Force participated
extensively in the air war (taking relatively heavy losses), while both British and
81
French troops were engaged in the short land war that followed.
Since the ceasefire, there has remained a level of security cooperation on the
part of Britain and France, including the stationing of some personnel, although
most of the latter is related to arms supply contracts. In addition, Saudi Arabia
has continued to pay one-third ($300 million annually) of the cost of main-
taining the southern no-fly zone in Iraq, which is enforced by the US and
Britain. Britain maintains some 200 personnel and 6 Tornado GR-1A aircraft in
place as part of this ‘Southern Watch’, while France, at least until 1998, had some
130 personnel, 6 Mirage 2000C and 3 C135 transport aircraft in Saudi Arabia as
82
part of the same operation. Saudi Arabia did not conclude explicit defence
agreements with the United States, the UK and France as the other Arab Gulf
states did in the wake of the Gulf crisis, but there is a very extensive under-
standing and cooperation in defence terms with the United States in particular
(which maintains an estimated 5,000 troops in the kingdom). As we have already
seen, though, that has not meant an exclusive reliance on US weapons im-
ports—rather the contrary. It is worth noting, also, that Saudi Arabia was
among those refusing permission for its territory to be used in the Desert Fox
attacks on Iraq in December 1998.
Current issues
The key issues colouring Saudi–European relations in 2001 can be summed up
under the categories of oil; trade and investment; security; Middle East politics;
relations between the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); and
81
For an overview of the role of the WEU states, see N. Gnesotto and J. Roper, Western Europe and the
Gulf (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, Western European Union, 1992).
The Military Balance, 1999–2000.
82
653

Gerd Nonneman
cultural understanding. Here, the aim can be no more than to outline them; in
essence, they remain driven or constrained by the themes listed earlier. Indeed,
economics, security and regional/cultural themes retain the centrality in the
relationship which they have had for a century. The issues summarized below
demonstrate yet again the balance between the need to cultivate European (and
other Western) connections, and the need and ability to achieve a measure of
autonomy, not least by balancing multiple ‘core’ actors.
Oil
The reliable supply of oil at stable, predictable prices is equally important for
both sides. For the EU, the effects on the global economy and world oil prices
are as important as the (relative declining) direct oil imports from the kingdom.
Similarly, for Riyadh those supplies per se are perhaps less important than the
impact the EU market and EU policies can have on the state of the oil market.
The dramatic fall in oil prices in the course of 1998 was of serious concern to
Saudi Arabia, but it was of similar significance to international oil companies, as
it affected long-term investment and development prospects in the sector. This
is a reflection of the growing interdependence of producers and consumers
which will be an increasing trend as production struggles to keep pace with
world demand in the next two decades; and Saudi Arabia, with 25 per cent of
the world’s proven reserves, will retain the central role in this production
83
picture. With prices rebounding in 1999 in the wake of renewed OPEC
determination to control production levels (driven in no small measure by
84
Saudi determination to restore prices), occasional instances of scaremongering
began to be seen again in Europe; in one English newspaper, for instance, an
article on the future of the oil market was illustrated with a cartoon of King
85
Fahd holding the nozzle of a petrol pump as a gun to the head of the world.
While this is evidence of 1970s-style xenophobic stereotyping, it is also plainly
untenable: Saudi decision-makers are perfectly aware that, while they need oil
prices higher than the disastrously low levels of 1998, it would be against their
own interests to cause oil shocks of the type seen in the 1970s and 1980s. In the
short term it would upset the political understanding they have with the West,
which could have security implications; in the medium term it would, through
affecting the health of the world economy, also affect the value of, and return
on, Saudi investments abroad; and in the longer term it would risk severely
damaging the market for their oil. Saudi oil policy has long demonstrated an
understanding of these fundamental features of Saudi interdependence with the
rest of the world. Yet the insistence in 1999–2001 on sticking to a production
83
See The geopolitics of energy into the 21st century (Washington DC: Strategic Energy Initiative, Center for
Strategic and International Security, 2000). Executive summary on <http://www.csis.org/sei/
geopoliticsexecsum.pdf>.
Obaid, The oil kingdom at 100, pp. 60–3.
W. Rees-Mogg, ‘Troubled waters for oil’, The Times, 30 Aug. 1999.
84
85
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
policy aimed at keeping prices within the OPEC band of $22–28 a barrel
demonstrated that the Saudi leadership will not simply buckle under Western
demands for higher production, if they feel that would endanger longer-term
86
price stability.
There is, however, a genuine difference between the two sides over the desir-
ability of reducing dependence on oil. On the European side, this stems from an
economic/security motive and concern for the environment—in particular,
global warming. A prospect of secure oil supplies at predictable prices to a large
extent deals with the first concern. Yet the environmental one remains. Since one
of the greatest contributing factors to the growth of carbon dioxide output in
the industrialized world is transport, which is largely powered by oil, a series of
policies have been and continue to be introduced to reduce consumption in this
area. Especially in Europe, a variety of taxes are prominent tools in this strategy.
At the same time, of course, many a government has found such taxes a habit-
forming source of revenue—an accusation the Gulf producers have been quick
to make. During the first half of the 1990s an additional element of Saudi–
European (and indeed Gulf–European) friction was the proposal for the so-
called ‘carbon tax’, as part of the Energy Charter signed in December 1991,
intended to make CO -generating fuel more expensive. Pertinently, the Gulf
2
producers pointed out that European subsidies on coal worked against this
ostensible aim. Unrelenting pressure was exerted by Saudi Arabia and other
87
Gulf producers to have the proposal dropped. There were two main strands to
the case put forward: the tax was said to be unfair and a threat to the economic
security of the Gulf producers; and it was argued that it would damage the
economic well-being of European consumers without having any beneficial
effect on the environment. The second part of the argument was seen in Europe
as flimsy and little more than self-serving, yet it would appear that the political
implications of the first part carried the day: the proposal seems to have been
shelved since 1995. Nevertheless, the underlying tension between European
economic and environmental instincts to limit consumption, and the producers’
need to maintain it, remains.
Trade and investment
For European manufacturers and service providers, Saudi Arabia remains a
coveted market, while European markets are of obvious importance to Saudi
Arabia not only as regards oil but also in the petrochemicals sector. On both
86
Especially given the (correct) assessment that the price spike of 2000 was the result of refining and supply
bottlenecks within the US market, not of a shortage of crude.
Economist Intelligence Unit, Saudi Arabia country profile 1999–2000 (London: EIU, 1999), p. 44. For a
87
more extensive discussion see G. Nonneman, ‘The Gulf: background assessment’, in G. Nonneman, ed.,
The Middle East and Europe: the search for stability and integration (London: Federal Trust, 1993), pp. 55–62
at pp. 60–61. Forceful recent expressions of these Saudi views were heard in presentations by Prince
Faisal bin Turki Al-Saud and Dr Mohammed Al-Sabban, advisers to the Saudi Minister of Petroleum, at
the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), London, 12 Feb. 2001.
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Gerd Nonneman
sides, however, this ambition for access to the other’s market has been cut across
by a desire to protect their own—or at least, certain sensitive sectors of it. This
88
topic has been treated in some detail elsewhere. Suffice it to say here that
Saudi Arabia has been the main driving force behind negotiations to establish a
free trade area between the GCC and the EU, in large part because of its deter-
mination to obtain what it views as fair access for its petrochemical industry to
European markets. The 1988 agreement to form such an area has not yet led to
actual implementation. This has in effect been put off to 2005 at the earliest: the
date agreed by the GCC states in November 1999 for the establishment of a
89
customs union of their own. Saudi reluctance to open and liberalize the
economy is gradually being diminished in the context of relatively shrinking
state resources and slowly rising privatization, as well as the country’s ambition
90
to become a member of the WTO. The still overwhelming role of the state
and state subsidies in the economy, however, especially given its socio-political
importance, will nevertheless limit the speed of progress in this respect. By the
same token, there remains an ambivalence on the European side too. The petro-
chemical producers’ lobby in particular has been active in trying to maintain a
degree of protection for its sector. It is probably fair to say, in fact, that there
remains a division within Europe: it seems clear that there is a European
Commission ‘logic’ operating in favour of a free trade agreement, while at the
same time certain sectors of industry and, on occasion, individual politicians,
91
have stepped on the brakes.
Keen interest in Europe and elsewhere remains focused on what the fledgling
signs of economic liberalization will mean for the prospects of greater access to
Saudi Arabia’s investment scene—not least in services and utilities, such as the
mooted partial privatization of the Saudi Telecommunications Company. At
the time of writing, very significant hurdles remain in the form of lack of trans-
92
parency and Saudi reluctance genuinely to devolve control. For European
(and other) energy firms, the central question is to what extent Abdullah’s
leadership will open the upstream oil sector in the kingdom to foreign invest-
ment. This question has by no means been settled within the Saudi policy elite
(oil minister Ali al-Na’imi and the top individuals at Aramco are thought to be
93
opposed). Apart from access to proprietory technology, one of the reasons for
bringing in international firms would be to shore up security, and so US com-
panies would be the most obvious candidates if or when this opposition fails;
88
e.g. chapters 16, 17 and 18 in Aliboni and Pioppi, eds, Arabia Saudita Cent’anni.
See John Duke Anthony, ‘GCC tariffs en route to a common market and a customs union’, GulfWire,
89
2000 <http://www.arabialink.com/GulfWire/News&Articles/GCCTariffMainText.htm>.
See ‘Investing in the future of Saudi Arabia’, interview with Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki Al-Saud,
90
in Shell in the Middle East, no. 12, Jan. 2001, pp. 4–7; also EIU, Saudi Arabia country profile 1999–2000, p. 44.
For good analyses from a Saudi point of view, see Salih al-Mani, ‘UE e CCG: una prospettiva Saudita’,
91
in Aliboni and Pioppi, eds, Arabia Saudita Cent’anni, pp. 218–28; and Al-Ali, ‘I rapporti commerciali’.
Middle East Monitor: The Gulf 11: 2, Feb. 2001, p. 3.
Obaid, The oil kingdom at 100, pp. 53–60.
92
93
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Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
European companies appear keen to compete, however, and past Saudi foreign
94
policy patterns would seem to offer them some hope of success.
Security
Security of predictably priced oil supplies is crucial for Europe, while enduringly
healthy oil markets and a vibrant world economy are integral to the economic
and political security of Saudi Arabia. Yet for the kingdom there is an additional
security aspect to consider. The country remains a vulnerable part of a region
where threats are the rule rather than the exception. It has traditionally dealt
with this in four ways:
a generally cautious policy, retaining bridges to all;
the so-called riyal-politik, defusing potential jealousies and obtaining good
relations through the dispensing of aid;
•
•
arms purchases; and
cultivating foreign protectors.
•
•
In many ways, this approach is no different from the policies followed by King
Abdul-Aziz. The Gulf War of 1990–91 showed that the first two elements were
insufficient when it came to the crunch. Further arms build-up might be useful;
but it was the fourth strand, namely foreign protection, that proved crucial.
95
Since then, this protection has been significantly expanded and deepened. In
part, arms purchases can be seen as an insurance policy, making it more likely
that the supplier countries will come to the rescue when needed. While Saudi
Arabia’s key guarantor of security remains the United States, and while this will
also mean that the United States will continue to obtain a significant slice of Saudi
arms contracts, it seems likely nevertheless that the traditional Saudi strategy of
not putting all the eggs in one basket will continue to bring dividends for Euro-
pean arms manufacturers.
Yet no amount of weaponry and foreign agreements can definitively safe-
guard Saudi Arabia without more general progress on the issue of Gulf security—
involving discussions over domestic as well as regional arrangements—and, more
widely still, improvements in the political climate in the Middle East as a whole.
Regional politics
In such issues and debates there is inevitably a role for Europe. Indeed, Saudi
Arabia has (together with other Arab states) long pressed for a more active Euro-
pean role in the Arab–Israeli peace process—counter to the wishes of its main
94
Prospects for involvement in the Gas Initiative, to develop the country’s gas fields for domestic supply,
already seem more promising in early 2001, as are possibilities for investment in the downstream sector.
Prince Faisal bin Turki, keynote speech, RIIA, 12 Feb. 2001; also ‘Investing in the future of Saudi Arabia’.
See Cordesman, Saudi Arabia.
95
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Gerd Nonneman
protector, the United States. In the absence of an acceptable settlement, close
association with Israel’s guarantor poses a legitimacy problem for the Saudi
leadership. Disaffection with the PLO after the latter’s stance against Desert
Storm has not changed the underlying dilemma. The issue of Palestine, then,
can be expected to feature prominently in Saudi–European discussions, even if
Riyadh is unlikely to deviate from its essentially moderate stance, or to allow
the crucial economic and security relationship with the United States and Europe
to be disturbed. In the kingdom’s immediate environment, the questions posed
by Iraq and Iran loom large. Saudi Arabia, while concerned about the Iraqi
threat and cautious about Iran, is in some respects nevertheless closer to
European than to American views on these questions. Regarding the US ‘dual
containment’ policy towards Iran and Iraq—now at last being gradually decom-
missioned—Saudi Arabia in the latter part of the 1990s increasingly joined
Europe in opposing at least the Iran part of the US boycott; it refused to let its
territory be used for Desert Fox in 1998 and, unless thrown off course by the
Baghdad regime, is likely to continue looking for ways of making the sanctions
96
regime more palatable to Saudi, Arab and Muslim opinion.
The EU and the GCC
A very significant part of Saudi Arabia’s relations with Europe in these and other
fields will continue to unfold in the context of wider GCC–EU relations—as
has already become clear above. This relationship has been examined elsewhere
97
in some depth, so it will suffice here merely to highlight it. In this dialogue,
Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly the ‘heavyweight’ on the GCC side. In some ways,
indeed, GCC policy towards Europe can be seen as an extension of Saudi policy
(e.g. on petrochemicals), although this is certainly moderated by other voices—
perhaps especially those of Kuwait and Oman. Saudi Arabia, like the other GCC
states, smarted from being excluded from the EU’s ‘Barcelona Process’, which
aimed to link the EU with the states of the southern and eastern Mediterranean.
This included all Arab states except Libya and those of the peninsula, and was
98
seen by some Arab commentators as an attempt to divide the Arabs. The EU
96
On differences in EU and US policies on the Gulf, see Hollis, ‘Europe and the Gulf’; Phebe Marr, ‘US
policy of sanctions’, in Sven Behrendt and Christian-Peter Hanelt, eds, Bound to cooperate: Europe and the
Middle East (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 2000), pp. 263–86; and Gerd Nonneman,
‘Constants and variations in British–Gulf relations’, in Joe Kechichian, ed., Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf
states (New York: Palgrave, forthcoming 2001).
97
See al-Mani, ‘UE e CCG’; Al-Ali, ‘I rapporti commerciali’; Bichara Khader, ‘UE e CCG: una
prospettiva Europea’, in Aliboni and Pioppi, eds, Arabia Saudita Cent’anni, pp. 193–202; Nonneman, ed.,
The Middle East and Europe; and Bichara Khader, L’Europe et les pays arabes du Golfe: des partenaires distants
(Paris: Publisud, 1994). A very pertinent document is the European Commission’s Communication from the
Commission to the Council: improving relations between the European Union and the countries of the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC), 22 Nov. 1995 (COM(95)541 final).
98
Saleh al-Mani, ‘Barcelona’s first pillar: an appropriate concept for security relations?’, in Sven Behrendt
and Christian-Peter Hanelt, eds, Security in the Middle East (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1999), pp. 65–8.
658

Saudi–European relations 1902–2001
has taken note of this unease and a set of modest initiatives was launched to
99
expand ‘decentralized cooperation’ between the two regions.
Culture
The issue of mutual understanding and cultural communication is not merely
the ‘soft’ side of international relations; nor is it so in Saudi–European relations.
Yet it has generally, on both sides, been treated as merely that, and as a
consequence has remained underdeveloped. Its importance lies not only in
communication for its own sake, but equally in the relevance of such under-
standing and communication for the future success of the ‘hard’ aspects of the
relationship: oil, commerce and politics. Many in the Gulf, and especially in
Saudi Arabia, believe that their society is often misrepresented in the West; this
belief is not without foundation, and is expressed forcefully at all levels of
society. By the same token, the European Commission has been concerned to
find ways of expanding understanding of Europe, its institutions and society,
100
among the younger generation of the Gulf, in part to underpin future relations.
Yet a more problematic aspect of the question confronts Saudi society, and the
regime in particular. As a result of the international politico-economic and tech-
nological pressures/opportunities referred to above, there exists an ineluctable
imperative to adapt to a globalizing world. How this can be reconciled with the
perceived need to protect ‘Saudi’ culture remains a question fraught with tension.
Questions of the application of Shari’a law, especially if it concerns Europeans
in the kingdom, will remain sensitive. Yet it is important to distinguish in this
respect between, on the one hand, the views of the state-builders, Westernized
intelligentsia and the new bourgeoisie that has extensive links to, and interests
in, the global economy, and, on the other, those of the less cosmopolitan
majority of the population, for whom such linkages are indirect at best. The
royal family continually needs to play the role of buffer and balancer, between
traditionalist and globalizing sentiment, and between the pressures to open up
and the need to maintain ‘local’ tradition—both supplying different building
blocks for legitimacy and security. In this, it is, again, continuing the century-
old pattern established by Abdul-Aziz. The regime’s Islamic credentials have
been buttressed also by the support of Islamic institutions across the world,
including in western Europe, where Islam has acquired a major presence. In this
99
Following a 1995 EU–GCC agreement, three strands of such cooperative projects were tentatively
started up: in business, in technology and in university cooperation. The latter moved ahead most
swiftly—with keen interest from King Saud and King AbdulAziz Universities especially—until becoming
stranded on intra-EU bureaucratic and communications problems. See G. Nonneman, ‘A future for Gulf
studies in Europe?’, paper presented to the Conference on Gulf Studies, Exeter University, July 1999;
available from Centre for Arab Gulf Studies, Exeter University, or from the author. The project was
finally, and embarrassingly, abandoned by the European Commission in 2000.
100
One means to do this would have been the mooted expansion of ‘European studies’ in the curriculum
of Gulf universities—but this fell victim to the overall collapse of the university cooperation project
referred to in note 99.
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Gerd Nonneman
area, Saudi and European policy-makers have been careful to appear sensitive to
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each other’s concerns.
Conclusion: the relative autonomy of small and/or developing states
In the course of a century the third Saudi state passed through very different sets
of circumstances, changing from an ill-defined and unrecognized domain to a
fully fledged member state of the UN, witnessing drastic changes in the external
power context and moving from the impoverished pre-oil age to that of oil
riches. It is striking, then, that the key themes in its foreign policy behaviour
have displayed such consistency, both in its relations with Europe and more
generally. These themes include the predominance of pragmatic calculation of
economic and political interest, centring on regime consolidation/survival, and
evidence of a significant degree of actively pursued autonomy vis-à-vis the
powers of the ‘core’ in the international system. Given the origins of the pattern
in 1902, oil and oil wealth cannot be taken as a sufficient explanation for such
autonomy (nor, of course, at least in foreign policy, does the argument stand up
that oil has brought a net increase in Saudi dependency).
Looking beyond the Saudi case to that of small or developing states more
generally, the factors creating the space within which such autonomy may be
acquired would seem to be, in variable combination, the following:
a weakening of the dominant external power (as under the late Ottoman
empire);
•
competition among the external powers for influence in/access to the
country or region in question;
•
the likelihood that for external powers the country concerned is only one
•
among many foci of interest competing for resources and attention, whereas
the ‘small’ state’s policy concerns will be less global and more concentrated,
thus partly compensating for the power differential;
the possession by the state in question of a valued resource, whether in
terms of strategic position, oil, wealth or otherwise; or
•
by contrast, the relative insignificance of the state in question, which may
mean that it does not command the level of external powers’ attention and
resources needed to constrain its autonomy.
•
To take advantage of this constellation of factors requires the sort of
pragmatism displayed by Saudi Arabia in playing off outside powers against each
other and avoiding ‘mono-dependence’. Yet this in turn will at times require a
degree of autonomy from domestic and regional ideological pressures or constraints.
The potential for such autonomy is likely to be greater, it is suggested, the
101
The space is lacking here to explore this issue further; see G. Nonneman et al., eds, Muslim communities
in the new Europe (London: Ithaca Press, 1997).
660