Follow us on social

33971295103_2c1d48686d_o

Time to rethink the US-Saudi security relationship

The old paradigm that has served as the foundation of the U.S.-Saudi relationship over the previous 75 years — security for Riyadh in exchange for reliable oil supplies for Washington — is no longer as applicable as it once was.

Analysis | Washington Politics

In a phone call last month with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, President Donald Trump delivered Riyadh an ultimatum: if the oil price war with Russia doesn’t stop immediately, the U.S. troops and Patriot anti-missile systems that have been deployed to the Kingdom would be preparing for a withdrawal order.

We know how the story ended. After days of high-stakes talks, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other oil producers in the OPEC-Plus group of nations agreed to a monthly production cut of just under 10 million barrels of day, roughly 10 percent of the world’s output. Trump’s pressure on Riyadh very likely had a role in accelerating negotiations towards an agreement. But it holds an even larger lesson for the Washington foreign policy establishment: the United States needs Saudi Arabia far less than Saudi Arabia needs the United States.

U.S.-Saudi relations could use a total, unadulterated recalibration. The status-quo, where U.S. troops are sent to protect the Kingdom despite Saudi Arabia spending more money on its military — $61.9 billion — than Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Kuwait combined — $61.2 billion — is not aligned with 21st century realities. The latest reports of a U.S. military redeployment from the Kingdom, assuming it proceeds, could serve as the starting point for a re-evaluation of bilateral ties.

The old paradigm that has served as the foundation of the U.S.-Saudi relationship over the previous 75 years — security for Riyadh in exchange for reliable oil supplies for Washington — is no longer as applicable as it once was. With the U.S. public increasingly opposed to seeing U.S. troops bogged down in the Middle East and Riyadh committing a litany of brazen foreign policy errors, the 1945 understanding is as relevant today as black-and-white television.

Washington no longer needs Saudi oil to power its domestic industry or fuel economic growth back home. While the U.S. cannot completely shield itself from the global energy market, it’s also true that the U.S. today relies far less on crude from the Persian Gulf than it did in the 1950s, 1990s, or early 2000s. A rise in domestic production has roughly correlated with a 48 percent decrease in U.S. imports of Saudi oil and a 50 percent cut in total imports from the Persian Gulf over the same period of time. The domestic shale boom has removed a key point of leverage from foreign nations that have used energy as a weapon in the past.

As the oil price crash in March and April demonstrated, Saudi Arabia is now a U.S. energy rival. To expand market share, Riyadh has sought to drive U.S. producers out of business. U.S. lawmakers from energy-producing states like Texas and North Dakota understand this, which is why they were fuming when Saudi Arabia and Russia dumped crude into the market. With the market vastly oversupplied, hundreds of U.S. shale companies could be forced into bankruptcy.

The battle for energy is hardly the only dispute between Washington and Riyadh.

Ever since bin Salman ascended the Saudi hierarchy, Riyadh’s foreign policy has been a raging dumpster fire. Saudi Arabia’s war in neighboring Yemen against the Houthis, which Saudi officials confidently predicted would last only a few weeks, has become the Kingdom’s worst foreign policy debacle since its foundation.

In the five years since the war began, over 100,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed, 80 percent of the country’s population requires humanitarian assistance to survive, and 2 million children are at risk of malnutrition. The bombing from the air and fighting on the ground has put half of Yemen’s hospitals and clinics out of operation, which means the country is in even worse shape as it prepares for a looming COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. weapons systems sold to the Saudis and their UAE partners have ended up in the hands of Islamic extremist groups, some of which are tied to Al-Qaeda. Despite having no U.S. national security interest at stake in Yemen’s civil war, Washington continues to protect Riyadh at the United Nations from war crimes charges arising from the conflict.

In this bilateral relationship, Saudi Arabia has an incentive to convince the United States that Riyadh and Washington’s national security interests are in perfect harmony. Riyadh has proven quite effective in this regard. When Iran allegedly attacked Saudi oil installations in September 2019 with cruise missiles, Washington heeded Saudi requests for protection by deploying U.S. servicemembers and anti-missile batteries to the Kingdom. Today, 3,000 U.S. troops, fighter squadrons, and air-defense systems are stationed in Saudi Arabia, performing a national defense mission that the Saudi military is more than capable of performing itself.

This doesn’t mean the U.S. needs to turn its back on Saudi Arabia completely. In a world where realism and great-power politics are the engines that drive international affairs, it would be a serious mistake to write off any country that may have value to Washington in the future. Washington and Riyadh do share a few common interests where collaboration is an entirely reasonable thing to pursue. Intelligence cooperation against terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State makes imminent sense for both nations — particularly for the Saudis, whose family dynasty has long been in the crosshairs of these groups. To the extent U.S. and Saudi officials can minimize their disagreements on the oil market’s supply and demand, they shouldn't hesitate to do so.

But if it’s unwise to overturn the relationship entirely, it would be even more unwise and dangerous for Washington to continue engaging with Saudi Arabia as if we still live in the 20th century. The world has changed — and U.S. foreign policy must change along with it.


President Donald Trump speaks with Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, during their meeting Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Analysis | Washington Politics
Iran
Top image credit: An Iranian man (not pictured) carries a portrait of the former commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and participates in a funeral for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, Iranian nuclear scientists, and civilians who are killed in Israeli attacks, in Tehran, Iran, on June 28, 2025, during the Iran-Israel ceasefire. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto VIA REUTERS)

First it was regime change, now they want to break Iran apart

Middle East

Washington’s foreign policy establishment has a dangerous tendency to dismantle nations it deems adversarial. Now, neoconservative think tanks like the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and their fellow travelers in the European Parliament are openly promoting the balkanization of Iran — a reckless strategy that would further destabilize the Middle East, trigger catastrophic humanitarian crises, and provoke fierce resistance from both Iranians and U.S. partners.

As Israel and Iran exchanged blows in mid-June, FDD’s Brenda Shaffer argued that Iran’s multi-ethnic makeup was a vulnerability to be exploited. Shaffer has been a vocal advocate for Azerbaijan in mainstream U.S. media, even as she has consistently failed to disclose her ties to Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR. For years, she has pushed for Iran’s fragmentation along ethnic lines, akin to the former Yugoslavia’s collapse. She has focused much of that effort on promoting the secession of Iranian Azerbaijan, where Azeris form Iran’s largest non-Persian group.

keep readingShow less
Ratcliffe Gabbard
Top image credit: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe join a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and his intelligence team in the Situation Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. June 21, 2025. The White House/Handout via REUTERS

Trump's use and misuse of Iran intel

Middle East

President Donald Trump has twice, within the space of a week, been at odds with U.S. intelligence agencies on issues involving Iran’s nuclear program. In each instance, Trump was pushing his preferred narrative, but the substantive differences in the two cases were in opposite directions.

Before the United States joined Israel’s attack on Iran, Trump dismissed earlier testimony by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, in which she presented the intelligence community’s judgment that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Questioned about this testimony, Trump said, “she’s wrong.”

keep readingShow less
Mohammad Bin Salman Trump Ayatollah Khomenei
Top photo credit: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (President of the Russian Federation/Wikimedia Commons); U.S. President Donald Trump (Gage Skidmore/Flickr) and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei (Wikimedia Commons)

Let's make a deal: Enrichment path that both Iran, US can agree on

Middle East

The recent conflict, a direct confrontation that pitted Iran against Israel and drew in U.S. B-2 bombers, has likely rendered the previous diplomatic playbook for Tehran's nuclear program obsolete.

The zero-sum debates concerning uranium enrichment that once defined that framework now represent an increasingly unworkable approach.

Although a regional nuclear consortium had been previously advanced as a theoretical alternative, the collapse of talks as a result of military action against Iran now positions it as the most compelling path forward for all parties.

Before the war, Iran was already suggesting a joint uranium enrichment facility with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Iranian soil. For Iran, this framework could achieve its primary goal: the preservation of a domestic nuclear program and, crucially, its demand to maintain some enrichment on its own territory. The added benefit is that it embeds Iran within a regional security architecture that provides a buffer against unilateral attack.

For Gulf actors, it offers unprecedented transparency and a degree of control over their rival-turned-friend’s nuclear activities, a far better outcome than a possible covert Iranian breakout. For a Trump administration focused on deals, it offers a tangible, multilateral framework that can be sold as a blueprint for regional stability.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.