Assessment of Saudi Arabia's Security Situation

Paper Summary:

Saudi Arabian national security has largely been protected by both its religious/political and economic global status. However, as matters presently stand, both religion and the economy are acting as a severe security threat to the Kingdom and the status of the Al Saud family within it. This paper shows that the political governance of Al Saud and prior security measures undertaken by them have inflamed religious opposition and given rise to the accusation that the government has failed to protect the holy lands, while the failure to diversify economically, together with unsustainable expenditure, functions as a significant economic security threat. This paper shows, therefore, that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faces two security threats, political-religious and economic in nature.

From the Paper:

"In addition to the religious political terrorist threat which Saudi Arabia confronts and which has changed the nature of its prior security concerns, Saudi Arabia also faces an economic threat. That threat is its dependence on oil. This, initially may sound paradoxical because the kingdom's oil wealth has acted to enhance its security, whether through upgrading the living standards of the populace, thereby attaining support for the regime, or by motivating foreign powers to come to the aid of the kingdom when it is threatened, such as in 1991. However, the fact is that the overdependence upon oil is a security threat because, as Al-Jazzar correctly argues, it means that our economy is both weak and easy to topple, or destroy."

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