America and Saudi Arabia
The relationship between America and Saudi Arabia has been characterized by strategic cooperation, particularly in the realms of energy, security, and geopolitics. This partnership has evolved over time, with the United States providing military support and economic aid to Saudi Arabia, while also benefiting from the kingdom's oil reserves. However, this alliance has also faced scrutiny due to human rights concerns and regional conflicts.
5 Key excerpts on "America and Saudi Arabia"
eBook - ePubSaudi Arabia Under Ibn Saud
Economic and Financial Foundations of the State
- J.E. Peterson(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- I.B. Tauris(Publisher)
...Remarkably, the partnership has endured ever since, despite periodic disagreements and deeply buried incompatibilities. The following pages chronicle the early attempts to create a state administration and financial structure and then the initial gestation of Saudi Arabia's prosperity. THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA Saudi Arabia shares the Arabian Peninsula with six other countries: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen. It occupies by far the largest proportion of the peninsula, although Yemen and Oman are relatively large countries as well. All seven states in their present form are twentieth-century creations, although some of the smaller “city-states” such as Kuwait and Bahrain in effect trace their origins back to the eighteenth century and Oman has been independent far longer. Before the beginning of the twentieth century, Arabia had a much different political complexion, reflecting its varied and wide-flung geography. What is now Saudi Arabia is composed of three principal geopolitical regions, flanked by northern and southern areas. The Najd occupies central Arabia and forms the heartland of the present kingdom. Its principal city is now Riyadh, also the country's largest urban area, but Ha ʾ il in the north and ʿ Unayzah and Buraydah in the center also have been prominent in history. The Eastern Province is noteworthy today as the source of Saudi Arabia's immense oil fields. The urban areas of Dhahran, al-Dammam, and al-Khubar are essentially recent creations, built to take advantage of the oil industry and the associated industrial and population boom that oil brought. Historically, the region's focal points were the two large oases of al-Ahsa ʾ (Hasa) and al-Qatif, as well as several small ports on the Gulf...
eBook - ePubHistoriography in Saudi Arabia
Globalization and the State in the Middle East
- Jörg Matthias Determann(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- I.B. Tauris(Publisher)
...Some scholars contended that the Wahhabi mission had not emerged against the background of an ahistorical ‘age of ignorance’, but in the context of a growth in religious learning in Najd between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Other researchers developed theories that conceived the Saudi state as a social and economic rather than religious project. A combination of factors related to the expansion of the Saudi state and globalization gave rise to this group of social and economic histories. The broad social and economic transformations since the discovery of oil provided fertile ground for studies going beyond political and military events and the actions of individuals. More importantly, the state’s support for higher education, particularly through programmes to send students to the United States, was a major factor in the formation of the first generation of Saudi social and economic historians and historical sociologists. Governmental agencies opposed some of the narratives produced by members of this generation. At the same time, however, globalization provided this generation with possibilities to avoid censorship by publishing abroad and online....
eBook - ePubSaudi Arabia
Power, Legitimacy and Survival
- Tim Niblock(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The Saudi monarchy appeared increasingly as a relic left over from a previous age, ready to be swept aside by the tide of history. The last section of this chapter looks at the power struggle which occurred within the Saudi political leadership when confronted by this deteriorating situation. By the end of the period, a transformation in the character of the state was under way. The policies and practices of the political leadership were undergoing substantial change. The historical background covered in this chapter is intended specifically to bring out the legacy which contemporary Saudi Arabia has inherited from the past. The aspects of the historical record presented are those which help to explain the structure and dynamics of the state as it exists today. The impact which the historical developments have had on the present will, where appropriate, be made specific. The Saudi emirates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their legacy The Saudi–Wahhabi alliance Of key importance among the historical, economic, environmental and social factors which have shaped the contemporary Saudi state has been the link between the Al Su‘ud and the salafi movement commonly known as Wahhabism. The link originated with the alliance which the religious leader, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, forged with Muhammad ibn Su‘ud, the ruler of the statelet of Diri’iyah in Najd, in 1744. The conception of the Saudi state being shaped by the intertwining of temporal power and religious activism has remained a constant in subsequent Saudi rule on the Arabian peninsula. This can be traced through all three historical articulations of the Saudi state: the first (1744–1818), second (1843–91) and third (1902–present). While the term ‘Wahhabism’ has not always been acceptable to the religious leaders of Saudi Arabia, it is difficult to find a different term to describe the particular variant of Salafism which is predominant within the Kingdom...
eBook - ePub- Britannica Educational Publishing, Laura Etheredge(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Britannica Educational Publishing(Publisher)
...In the south, no agreement was reached on the exact site of the frontiers with the Trucial States and with the interior of Yemen and Muscat and Oman. After Saudi Arabia declared its neutrality during World War II (1939–45), Britain and the United States subsidized Saudi Arabia, which declared war on Germany in 1945, and this thus enabled the kingdom to enter the United Nations as a founding member. Ibn Sa‘ ū d also joined the Arab League, but he did not play a leading part in it, since the religious and conservative element in Saudi Arabia opposed cooperation with other Arab states, even when Saudis shared common views, as in opposition to Zionism. In the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, Saudi Arabia contributed only one battalion. I NTERNAL A FFAIRS, 1932–53 Although oil had been discovered in Al-Hasa near the shores of the Persian Gulf before World War II, it was not exploited until after 1941. State revenues before the war were derived primarily from the pilgrimage, customs duties, and taxes—which decreased as a result of the world economic depression of the 1930s. After 1944 large numbers of foreign oil workers arrived in the country, and Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company) was established as a joint venture between a number of American oil companies and the Saudi government. The country was itself unable to supply the oil company with sufficient skilled workers, and oil production was largely managed and undertaken by foreigners. When in 1949 Aramco paid more taxes to the U.S. government than the yield to Saudi Arabia in royalties, the Saudi leadership obtained a new agreement in 1950 that required Aramco to pay an income tax of 50 percent of the net operating income to the Saudis. The sudden wealth from increased production was a mixed blessing. Cultural life flourished, primarily in the Hejaz, which was the centre for newspapers and radio, but the large influx of outsiders apparently increased xenophobia in a population already noted for its distrust of foreigners...
eBook - ePub- Joseph Kéchichian(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Regrettably, Washington and Riyadh failed to tame some of the most audible Christian and Muslim polemicists, with a few rejecting the other religion as “false,” “demonic,” or “evil.” What emerged was a long litany of misunderstandings, mistrust, and animosities that shaped the attitudes of many people in both communities of faith. Still, extraordinary efforts were made by both sides, and by American and Sa‘udi scholars in particular, even if the immense taboo was not eradicated between officials in both countries. The kingdom ushered in dramatic reforms at the legal and religious levels, empowered its nascent institutions with the wherewithal to oppose, even eradicate, extremism, though many deemed these to be insufficient. Whether Riyadh was ready to make additional concessions were impossible to know, although few in Washington should be under any illusions that Sa‘udi Arabia would jeopardize its religious legitimacy to satisfy temporary foreign policy interests. Women’s emancipation If ‘Abdallah bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz or his successors were not prepared to toy with their legitimizing institutions, concessions on women’s issues were of the doable variety, which stood as a promising area of cooperation for the United States, especially when such emancipation was deemed to be in the best interests of the kingdom, too. 30 To be sure, the country harbored a segregation of the sexes and women were still not allowed to drive, travel without permission, or even undergo a surgical operation without the consent of their mahrams [a husband or, in the case of singles, an unmarriable relative]. Yet, it would be an error not to notice the many changes underway in the country, ranging from acts of defiance by young ladies literally attacking the mutawa ‘in [religious police], to posing for official photographs with the ruler and his Heir Apparent...
