Two of the United States\u2019 closest Arab allies are asking the Biden administration to formalize their military relationship with a wide-ranging agreement as Washington becomes uneasy about China\u2019s growing role in the Middle East. <\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the US\u2019 closest military partners in the Arab world, have called for more security support from Washington of late, and both have indicated that in an increasingly multipolar world, their options aren\u2019t limited to the US. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey (the Americans) don\u2019t want to see Saudi Arabia shifting their armament from America to another place,\u201d Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) told Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier in an interview last month. <\/p>\n
Anwar Gargash, the UAE president\u2019s diplomatic adviser, last month described the US\u2019 involvement in the Middle East as \u201ca positive thing,\u201d but stressed the importance of cementing that involvement so \u201cthat there are no vacuums\u201d \u2013 which, he warned, would only \u201cgive opportunities for other players to move into.\u201d <\/p>\n
It is important to move from an \u201cinformal\u201d security arrangement \u201cto something that\u2019s formal,\u201d he said at a conference in New York, calling for a new, \u201cironclad\u201d security arrangement with the US. <\/p>\n
The demand for a formal arrangement that would offer Gulf states a security umbrella and bind the US to protecting them in the face of military attacks has become an essential component in ties with the US. <\/p>\n
Gulf states have over the past few years faced attacks they have blamed on Iran and its proxies, and have found the US\u2019 response to them inadequate. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnly a substantive security commitment by the United States would be perceived by regional adversaries as a deterrent to their ambitions to topple the U.S.-led regional order of which Saudi Arabia is the anchor,\u201d Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst, wrote in an article for the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank at Stanford University, in July. \u201cIf the United States wants to fully leverage with Saudi Arabia its own capacity to project military power into the region, then it needs to reintroduce deterrence by making such power projection tangible and reliable.\u201d <\/p>\n
A security pact is at the heart of Saudi Arabia\u2019s talks with Washington over potential normalization of ties with Israel \u2013 which, if achieved, would mark a significant foreign policy win for President Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 US presidential elections. <\/p>\n
Last month, MBS for the first time publicly acknowledged the normalization talks, saying his country was moving \u201ccloser\u201d each day to reaching a deal with Israel. <\/p>\n
Experts say the Gulf states may be disappointed as the US is unlikely to extend a blanket security agreement that could get it further bogged down in the Middle East\u2019s conflicts and require a cumbersome legislative approval process in a Congress where Saudi Arabia remains unpopular due to its human rights record. <\/p>\n
Discussions over the potential agreement have not been made public, but experts have put forward a number of ideas, from treaties that recognize Gulf security as part of US national interest, to declaring the Gulf nations Major Non-NATO Allies, to a formal security commitment from the US such as those signed with Japan and South Korea. <\/p>\n
The US entered defense treaties with Tokyo and Seoul in the 1950s, pledging to defend the two nations in case of armed attack. Both nations have a sizable US military presence and also enjoy Major Non-NATO Ally status. <\/p>\n
The Major Non-NATO Ally status is a US designation that provides partners with defense trade and security cooperation benefits. While it is seen as symbol of close partnership with some military and economic privileges, it doesn\u2019t entail any security commitments from the US. <\/p>\n
Among the Gulf states, Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy\u2019s Fifth Fleet, was the first to be declared a MNNA in 2002. Qatar, which is home to the US Central Command, was added to the list last year. <\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are likely asking for a comprehensive treaty, similar to that signed with Japan and South Korea, said Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore and author of \u201cNew Military Strategies in the Gulf: The Mirage of Autonomy in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.\u201d <\/p>\n
They may also be asking that Washington ease access to arms sales and potentially increase the US military presence in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, he added, potentially to match the presence in Qatar or Bahrain. <\/p>\n
It is however unclear if the US would commit to a treaty that would require it to come to the Gulf states\u2019 defense in case of attack. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis can only be conferred through a Senate-ratified treaty,\u201d said David Des Roches, a professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies and former Pentagon official who worked on the Middle East. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Saudis and others have seen how a non-treaty arrangement can be undone,\u201d he said, referring to the Gulf perception that the US is disengaging from the region. \u201c(They) are unlikely to be satisfied with anything short of a binding treaty commitment.\u201d <\/p>\n
Some experts say that any agreement with the US will necessarily impact Gulf states\u2019 autonomy over their own defense affairs, as the Biden administration is likely to ask for guarantees that its Arab allies reduce engagement with rivals like China and Russia, both of whom have bolstered ties with the Gulf states of late. <\/p>\n
The UAE in 2021 suspended a multi-billion-dollar deal to buy US-made F-35 fighter jets amid Abu Dhabi\u2019s growing frustration with Washington\u2019s attempts to limit Chinese technology sales to the Gulf state. At the time, the sale was seen as a cornerstone of the UAE\u2019s decision to normalize ties with Israel a year prior. <\/p>\n
Asked if the UAE is still interested in procuring F-35 jets from the US, Gargash last month said it is, but stressed that there are \u201csovereign requirements\u201d that need to be settled with the US. <\/p>\n
Des Roches said that with a new security pact, the US is likely to ask the Gulf states to \u201ccurtail the fielding of any Chinese technology which has the potential to compromise US weaponry in service with Gulf countries.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Gulf states, he said, \u201care likely to regard such restrictions as an infringement on their sovereignty.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nevertheless, said Samaan, the demand for a new security arrangement with the US shows that Washington remains the Gulf states\u2019 first port of call when it comes to security matters, despite the threats about finding alternatives. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re back to business as usual,\u201d he said, where Gulf states are turning to Washington and asking for bigger security packages \u2013 even if recent public rhetoric has shown some disconnect between what those states will publicly say and what they really want. <\/p>\n\n
Two of the United States\u2019 closest Arab allies are asking the Biden administration to formalize their military relationship with a wide-ranging agreement as Washington becomes uneasy about China\u2019s growing role in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the US\u2019 closest military partners in the Arab world, have called for <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}