Does Saudi Arabia Still Matter? Differing Perspectives on the Kingdom and Its Oil

Finally, Saudi Arabia has a trump card that Russia does not: spare production capacity. Morse and Richard rightly acknowledge that the kingdom's extra reserves, to be used only as a last resort during a crisis in the oil market, make "policymakers elsewhere beholden to Riyadh for energy security" and form "the centerpiece of the U.S.-Saudi relationship." Russia, on the other hand, produces and exports at maximum capacity and is likely to continue to do so -- a fact that has begun to generate some anxiety domestically. To make matters worse, a recent Russian government energy report indicates that if current oil-extraction levels continue and new technologies do not bring additional reserves into production, Russia can expect to have depleted its current reserves by 2040. This is a sobering conclusion for an economy that remains heavily dependent on energy revenues and subsidies.

ON GUARD IN THE GULF

U.S. strategic priorities supply a second reason why Saudi Arabia will remain important to the United States. For half a century, the United States has made Persian Gulf oil a primary security interest, and this emphasis is unlikely to dissipate in this decade. The conventional view of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf is that American strategy and military posture are based primarily on ensuring an uninterrupted flow of oil at reasonable prices. But, as U.S. government documents declassified over the last several years show, the strategy has also focused on preventing hostile forces from seizing and establishing control of Persian Gulf petroleum. From 1949 to the present, American planners have worried that a hostile state may gain too much wealth and power by controlling the dominant share of the world's oil supply -- and thus become more threatening to the United States. U.S. policy toward the region has thus sought the "denial" of oil to enemies while assuring its flow to the West.

Indeed, in 1949, the fear of a Soviet seizure of oil resources in the Persian Gulf led U.S. policymakers to plan the destruction of regional oil facilities. In coordination with the British government and U.S. and British oil companies, but without the knowledge of local Arab governments, President Harry Truman approved a detailed plan -- described in a National Security Council directive known as NSC 26/2 and later supplemented by a series of additional NSC orders -- to store explosives near Persian Gulf oil fields. As a last resort in the event of an imminent Soviet invasion, oil installations and refineries would be blown up and the reserves plugged to keep the oil out of Moscow's hands.

The fear that the Soviet Union could control all that oil was so great that the Truman administration even considered deploying radiological weapons to destroy the oil fields before the Soviets could access them. That option was rejected in 1950, and the CIA study that led to this decision reveals the dual logic of U.S. interests: denying the use of Persian Gulf oil to the enemy while at the same time preserving the region's oil for future use by the West. The CIA's conclusion, as detailed in NSC 26/3, dated June 29, 1950, noted,

Denial of the wells by radiological means can be accomplished to prevent an enemy from utilizing the oil fields, but it could not prevent him from forcing "expendable" Arabs to enter contaminated areas to open well heads and deplete the reservoirs. Therefore, aside from other effects on the Arab population, it is not considered that radiological means are practicable as a conservation measure.

If the Red Army ever did invade the Persian Gulf, the report continued, the United States needed to ensure the "preservation of the resources for our own use after our reoccupation."

In the 1950s, this calculation led to a strategy of using more conventional means to prevent the Soviets from seizing Persian Gulf oil. Explosives were moved to the region and stored near oil fields. Although the State Department apparently expressed reservations that the plan seemed to signal that the United States was not prepared to defend local governments, the fear of Soviet control overrode these concerns. In 1957, in response to increased instability in the wake of the Suez crisis, the Eisenhower administration reinforced and expanded the logic of this strategy. With many friends of the West threatened by the rise of pan-Arabism, championed by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the United States grew concerned that unfriendly governments would emerge in the region. This fear led Eisenhower to expand the denial policy to include not only threatening external powers, but also hostile regional regimes.

Today, Iraq and, to some extent, Iran have replaced the Soviet Union as the hostile powers in U.S. thinking (though in this case they already control some of the regional oil reserves). It is clear that one of the principal American reasons for going to war against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was the belief that an ambitious and ruthless Saddam Hussein would be empowered and emboldened if left in control of so much of the world's oil wealth. Certainly, the even greater concern that he might ultimately be in a position to seize control of Saudi Arabia's oil fields was also a strong driving force in American policy, regardless of the U.S. political commitment to the Saudi regime. Given the continued assumption in Washington that Iraq under Saddam and an Iran that the State Department calls "the most active state sponsor of terrorism" threaten American interests, it is unlikely that Washington will allow either regime to expand its oil wealth and, thereby, its power.

STRATEGIC COMPETITORS