ABSTRACT
The history of the military relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States can be traced back to the beginning of 1945. In August of that year, the two countries signed the first official military agreement, and the United States established its first military base in the Saudi territory. Since then, the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia has been vital for respective security strategies of both countries. This chapter examines the following two questions: 1) what factors have a major impact on the outcome of base politics in Saudi Arabia; and 2) what are the peculiarities of base politics in Saudi Arabia and what kind of strategic implications can we find from them? In regard to these questions the chapter concludes that: the presence of large deposits of oil and Islam are crucial factors that need to be taken into account when considering the base politics in Saudi Arabia; in the case of Saudi Arabia, the host nation has a relatively large initiative in base politics; the country’s strategic position and the presence of external threats can be of relatively low importance in the Saudi elites’ strategic perception since, for them, the main sources of threat tend to be internal and not external; and the ambiguity concerning U.S. military bases, namely, whether they will be strategic assets or political burdens, cannot be preplanned in advance by policymakers.
