Back
About RSIS
Introduction
Building the Foundations
Welcome Message
Board of Governors
Staff Profiles
Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
Dean’s Office
Management
Distinguished Fellows
Faculty and Research
Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
Visiting Fellows
Adjunct Fellows
Administrative Staff
Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
RSIS Endowment Fund
Endowed Professorships
Career Opportunities
Getting to RSIS
Research
Research Centres
Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
Centre of Excellence for National Security
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
Research Programmes
National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
Social Cohesion Research Programme (SCRP)
Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
Other Research
Future Issues and Technology Cluster
Research@RSIS
Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
Graduate Education
Graduate Programmes Office
Exchange Partners and Programmes
How to Apply
Financial Assistance
Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
RSIS Alumni
Outreach
Global Networks
About Global Networks
RSIS Alumni
Executive Education
About Executive Education
SRP Executive Programme
Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
International Programmes
About International Programmes
Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS)
International Strategy Forum-Asia (ISF-Asia)
Publications
RSIS Publications
Annual Reviews
Books
Bulletins and Newsletters
RSIS Commentary Series
Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
Commemorative / Event Reports
Future Issues
IDSS Papers
Interreligious Relations
Monographs
NTS Insight
Policy Reports
Working Papers
External Publications
Authored Books
Journal Articles
Edited Books
Chapters in Edited Books
Policy Reports
Working Papers
Op-Eds
Glossary of Abbreviations
Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
RSIS Publications for the Year
External Publications for the Year
Media
Cohesive Societies
Sustainable Security
Other Resource Pages
News Releases
Speeches
Video/Audio Channel
External Podcasts
Events
Contact Us
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Think Tank and Graduate School Ponder The Improbable Since 1966
Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University
  • About RSIS
      IntroductionBuilding the FoundationsWelcome MessageBoard of GovernorsHonours and Awards for RSIS Staff and StudentsRSIS Endowment FundEndowed ProfessorshipsCareer OpportunitiesGetting to RSIS
      Staff ProfilesExecutive Deputy Chairman’s OfficeDean’s OfficeManagementDistinguished FellowsFaculty and ResearchAssociate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research AnalystsVisiting FellowsAdjunct FellowsAdministrative Staff
  • Research
      Research CentresCentre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)Centre of Excellence for National SecurityInstitute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      Research ProgrammesNational Security Studies Programme (NSSP)Social Cohesion Research Programme (SCRP)Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      Other ResearchFuture Issues and Technology ClusterResearch@RSISScience and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
      Graduate Programmes OfficeExchange Partners and ProgrammesHow to ApplyFinancial AssistanceMeet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other eventsRSIS Alumni
  • Outreach
      Global NetworksAbout Global NetworksRSIS Alumni
      Executive EducationAbout Executive EducationSRP Executive ProgrammeTerrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
      International ProgrammesAbout International ProgrammesAsia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS)International Strategy Forum-Asia (ISF-Asia)
  • Publications
      RSIS PublicationsAnnual ReviewsBooksBulletins and NewslettersRSIS Commentary SeriesCounter Terrorist Trends and AnalysesCommemorative / Event ReportsFuture IssuesIDSS PapersInterreligious RelationsMonographsNTS InsightPolicy ReportsWorking Papers
      External PublicationsAuthored BooksJournal ArticlesEdited BooksChapters in Edited BooksPolicy ReportsWorking PapersOp-Eds
      Glossary of AbbreviationsPolicy-relevant Articles Given RSIS AwardRSIS Publications for the YearExternal Publications for the Year
  • Media
      Cohesive SocietiesSustainable SecurityOther Resource PagesNews ReleasesSpeechesVideo/Audio ChannelExternal Podcasts
  • Events
  • Contact Us
    • Connect with Us

      rsis.ntu
      rsis_ntu
      rsisntu
      rsisvideocast
      school/rsis-ntu
      rsis.sg
      rsissg
      RSIS
      RSS
      Subscribe to RSIS Publications
      Subscribe to RSIS Events

      Getting to RSIS

      Nanyang Technological University
      Block S4, Level B3,
      50 Nanyang Avenue,
      Singapore 639798

      Click here for direction to RSIS

      Get in Touch

    Connect
    Search
    • RSIS
    • Publication
    • RSIS Publications
    • The Case of Jamal Khashoggi: America’s Obsolete Alliance with Saudi Arabia
    • Annual Reviews
    • Books
    • Bulletins and Newsletters
    • RSIS Commentary Series
    • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
    • Commemorative / Event Reports
    • Future Issues
    • IDSS Papers
    • Interreligious Relations
    • Monographs
    • NTS Insight
    • Policy Reports
    • Working Papers

    CO18179 | The Case of Jamal Khashoggi: America’s Obsolete Alliance with Saudi Arabia
    Evan Resnick

    31 October 2018

    download pdf

    Synopsis

    The United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia has been rocked by Turkish officials’ allegation that the conservative kingdom orchestrated the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Historically, US administrations have overlooked far more egregious human rights violations by unsavoury allies of convenience if the geopolitical stakes warranted. It is increasingly difficult to make that case with respect to Saudi Arabia.

    Commentary

    THE UNITED States’ perennially controversial relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been rocked over the past few weeks by the explosive allegation that the Saudi authorities orchestrated the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. According to Turkish government sources, on 2 October 2018, Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a hit squad that Riyadh had dispatched prior to his scheduled meeting at the facility.

    Although this news has unleashed an international media frenzy and sparked a bipartisan outcry in the US Congress, the Trump administration’s reaction has been conspicuously low-key. Most notably, President Donald Trump has refused to suspend tens of billions of dollars’ worth of planned arms sales to Saudi Arabia. According to the president, not only would such a move be economically “foolish”, but even more importantly, it would also jeopardise America’s geopolitical interests in the Middle East, where “Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours”. Trump’s reluctance to interfere with the flow of arms to Riyadh is particularly concerning in light of credible reports that since its 2015 invasion of Yemen, the US-armed Saudi military has engaged in a ghastly range of horrific attacks against Yemeni civilians.

    Trump’s Not-So-Idiosyncratic Position

    Several critics have attributed Trump’s position to idiosyncratic factors, such as the president’s peculiar affinity for dictators, his enmity towards the media, or the Trump Organisation’s rumoured indebtedness to the Saudis. While these possibilities cannot be ruled out, it nevertheless bears noting that all US presidential administrations since the end of World War II have downplayed and ignored Saudi Arabia’s consistently wretched human rights record.

    In doing so, they were able to ensure sufficient domestic support to enlist and retain the oil-rich kingdom as an ally of convenience against a succession of shared adversaries. These have included the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Gamel Abdel Nasser’s Egypt during the 1960’s, revolutionary Iran during the 1980’s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1990’s, Al Qaeda after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and most recently, both the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Iran again.

    More broadly, during times of extreme danger to US national security, American presidents have exhibited extraordinary cynicism in whitewashing some of modern history’s most barbarous massacres by their autocratic alliance partners. To take just one especially infamous example, at the height of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt quashed appeals by the Polish government-in-exile in London to investigate the mass slaughter of over 20,000 Polish officers at the Katyn Forest in April 1940 by America’s Soviet ally.

    Low Stakes in Middle East

    By contrast, the current geopolitical stakes for the US in the Middle East are low. First, Saudi Arabia’s envious position as the world’s most important “swing producer” of oil has deteriorated over the last several years owing to the increased diversification of global oil production. This deterioration is most dramatically underscored by the US’ recent displacement of the Kingdom as the world’s leading oil producer.

    Second, the jihadi terrorist threat that has emanated from the Middle East (and which Saudi Arabia did much to engender), has receded dramatically owing to the annihilation of Al Qaeda and ISIS at the hands of the US military and its allies. Third, although brokering on-again, off-again peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians has been a high US priority since the early 1990’s, neither Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories nor Palestinian terrorism against Israelis constitute even a serious threat to the security of the US.

    Even the most compelling geopolitical rationale for maintaining the alliance with the Saudis, namely, the need to contain Iran, is dubious. Over the course of its nearly two years in office, the Trump administration has relentlessly demonised Iran for its interventionism in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, as well as Tehran’s proliferation of ballistic missiles and undiminished support for proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

    These hostile activities belie the reality that Iran remains a weak, underdeveloped state that can be readily counterbalanced by its many surrounding enemies. These include all of the Sunni Arab states, as well as the Middle East’s predominant military power, Israel, which possesses the region’s only nuclear arsenal. To wit, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Iran’s US$14 billion military budget in 2017 (as measured in constant 2016 US dollars), was dwarfed by the combined defence spending of its two foremost regional enemies of Saudi Arabia and Israel, which amounted to $85 billion.

    Wake Up Call for US Grand Strategy

    The Khashoggi scandal should serve as a wakeup call, not only for decades of US obsequiousness towards its unsavoury Saudi ally of convenience, but also and more importantly, for America’s drifting grand strategy. Since 9/11, successive administrations in Washington DC have focused their attention and resources overarchingly on the Middle East.

    By comparison, they have been habitually distracted from events in the Asia Pacific, which is the only part of the world that hosts a viable peer competitor capable of threatening the survival of the US, namely a rising and expansionist China. Even the Obama administration, which ostentatiously embarked on a “rebalance to Asia,” nevertheless found itself surging tens of thousands of troops into the unnecessary and still ongoing war in Afghanistan and redeploying thousands of troops to Iraq to combat ISIS.

    It would behoove the Trump administration to consider the Khashoggi killing an opportunity to finish the job that Trump’s predecessor failed to complete, by prudently reorienting US strategy from the increasingly peripheral Middle East to the increasingly integral Asia Pacific. The recent repackaging of America’s strategic interests in Asia under an Indo-Pacific vision requires substantive policy attention by Washington DC. One step President Trump can offer as redress is to initiate the attachment of onerous new conditions to any future US arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

    About the Author

    Evan Resnick is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the United States Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of the book Allies of Convenience: A Theory of Bargaining in US Foreign Policy, which is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

    Categories: RSIS Commentary Series / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
    comments powered by Disqus

    Synopsis

    The United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia has been rocked by Turkish officials’ allegation that the conservative kingdom orchestrated the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Historically, US administrations have overlooked far more egregious human rights violations by unsavoury allies of convenience if the geopolitical stakes warranted. It is increasingly difficult to make that case with respect to Saudi Arabia.

    Commentary

    THE UNITED States’ perennially controversial relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been rocked over the past few weeks by the explosive allegation that the Saudi authorities orchestrated the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. According to Turkish government sources, on 2 October 2018, Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a hit squad that Riyadh had dispatched prior to his scheduled meeting at the facility.

    Although this news has unleashed an international media frenzy and sparked a bipartisan outcry in the US Congress, the Trump administration’s reaction has been conspicuously low-key. Most notably, President Donald Trump has refused to suspend tens of billions of dollars’ worth of planned arms sales to Saudi Arabia. According to the president, not only would such a move be economically “foolish”, but even more importantly, it would also jeopardise America’s geopolitical interests in the Middle East, where “Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours”. Trump’s reluctance to interfere with the flow of arms to Riyadh is particularly concerning in light of credible reports that since its 2015 invasion of Yemen, the US-armed Saudi military has engaged in a ghastly range of horrific attacks against Yemeni civilians.

    Trump’s Not-So-Idiosyncratic Position

    Several critics have attributed Trump’s position to idiosyncratic factors, such as the president’s peculiar affinity for dictators, his enmity towards the media, or the Trump Organisation’s rumoured indebtedness to the Saudis. While these possibilities cannot be ruled out, it nevertheless bears noting that all US presidential administrations since the end of World War II have downplayed and ignored Saudi Arabia’s consistently wretched human rights record.

    In doing so, they were able to ensure sufficient domestic support to enlist and retain the oil-rich kingdom as an ally of convenience against a succession of shared adversaries. These have included the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Gamel Abdel Nasser’s Egypt during the 1960’s, revolutionary Iran during the 1980’s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1990’s, Al Qaeda after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and most recently, both the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Iran again.

    More broadly, during times of extreme danger to US national security, American presidents have exhibited extraordinary cynicism in whitewashing some of modern history’s most barbarous massacres by their autocratic alliance partners. To take just one especially infamous example, at the height of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt quashed appeals by the Polish government-in-exile in London to investigate the mass slaughter of over 20,000 Polish officers at the Katyn Forest in April 1940 by America’s Soviet ally.

    Low Stakes in Middle East

    By contrast, the current geopolitical stakes for the US in the Middle East are low. First, Saudi Arabia’s envious position as the world’s most important “swing producer” of oil has deteriorated over the last several years owing to the increased diversification of global oil production. This deterioration is most dramatically underscored by the US’ recent displacement of the Kingdom as the world’s leading oil producer.

    Second, the jihadi terrorist threat that has emanated from the Middle East (and which Saudi Arabia did much to engender), has receded dramatically owing to the annihilation of Al Qaeda and ISIS at the hands of the US military and its allies. Third, although brokering on-again, off-again peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians has been a high US priority since the early 1990’s, neither Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories nor Palestinian terrorism against Israelis constitute even a serious threat to the security of the US.

    Even the most compelling geopolitical rationale for maintaining the alliance with the Saudis, namely, the need to contain Iran, is dubious. Over the course of its nearly two years in office, the Trump administration has relentlessly demonised Iran for its interventionism in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, as well as Tehran’s proliferation of ballistic missiles and undiminished support for proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

    These hostile activities belie the reality that Iran remains a weak, underdeveloped state that can be readily counterbalanced by its many surrounding enemies. These include all of the Sunni Arab states, as well as the Middle East’s predominant military power, Israel, which possesses the region’s only nuclear arsenal. To wit, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Iran’s US$14 billion military budget in 2017 (as measured in constant 2016 US dollars), was dwarfed by the combined defence spending of its two foremost regional enemies of Saudi Arabia and Israel, which amounted to $85 billion.

    Wake Up Call for US Grand Strategy

    The Khashoggi scandal should serve as a wakeup call, not only for decades of US obsequiousness towards its unsavoury Saudi ally of convenience, but also and more importantly, for America’s drifting grand strategy. Since 9/11, successive administrations in Washington DC have focused their attention and resources overarchingly on the Middle East.

    By comparison, they have been habitually distracted from events in the Asia Pacific, which is the only part of the world that hosts a viable peer competitor capable of threatening the survival of the US, namely a rising and expansionist China. Even the Obama administration, which ostentatiously embarked on a “rebalance to Asia,” nevertheless found itself surging tens of thousands of troops into the unnecessary and still ongoing war in Afghanistan and redeploying thousands of troops to Iraq to combat ISIS.

    It would behoove the Trump administration to consider the Khashoggi killing an opportunity to finish the job that Trump’s predecessor failed to complete, by prudently reorienting US strategy from the increasingly peripheral Middle East to the increasingly integral Asia Pacific. The recent repackaging of America’s strategic interests in Asia under an Indo-Pacific vision requires substantive policy attention by Washington DC. One step President Trump can offer as redress is to initiate the attachment of onerous new conditions to any future US arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

    About the Author

    Evan Resnick is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the United States Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of the book Allies of Convenience: A Theory of Bargaining in US Foreign Policy, which is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

    Categories: RSIS Commentary Series / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security

    Popular Links

    About RSISResearch ProgrammesGraduate EducationPublicationsEventsAdmissionsCareersVideo/Audio ChannelRSIS Intranet

    Connect with Us

    rsis.ntu
    rsis_ntu
    rsisntu
    rsisvideocast
    school/rsis-ntu
    rsis.sg
    rsissg
    RSIS
    RSS
    Subscribe to RSIS Publications
    Subscribe to RSIS Events

    Getting to RSIS

    Nanyang Technological University
    Block S4, Level B3,
    50 Nanyang Avenue,
    Singapore 639798

    Click here for direction to RSIS

    Get in Touch

      Copyright © S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. All rights reserved.
      Privacy Statement / Terms of Use
      Help us improve

        Rate your experience with this website
        123456
        Not satisfiedVery satisfied
        What did you like?
        0/255 characters
        What can be improved?
        0/255 characters
        Your email
        Please enter a valid email.
        Thank you for your feedback.
        This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. By continuing, you are agreeing to the use of cookies on your device as described in our privacy policy. Learn more
        OK
        Latest Book
        more info