ABSTRACT
The arms sales crisis of 1985–1986 divide the US and Saudi Arabia to the point where it threatens to make any cohesive Western policy towards Saudi Arabia and the Gulf impossible. The fundamental reason that Western arms sales to Saudi Arabia are not a threat to Israel does not lie in the details of the arms Saudi Arabia is requesting, or their technology, but rather in the fact that Saudi Arabia will remain a relatively weak military power that must concentrate on deterrence and defense. The failure to reach a peace settlement is making Saudi Arabia's ties to the US an increasing source of domestic problems, makes the Saudi government vulnerable to radical political attacks, and weakens the Saudi government's political and religious legitimacy as well as that of the other moderate Arab regimes that are its natural allies. At the same time, it is forcing Saudi Arabia to placate its more "hard line neighbors".
