Saudi Arabia - Utopia, Dystopia or just another Mafia? Part 2

There are very few countries in the world that can exercise unchecked power and continuously get away with it like Saudi Arabia. To understand how this power has accumulated into the hands of one man, we must understand the unique combination of clever decisions and lucky geopolitical events that lead us to this point.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is ruled by the Al Saud family. This family originated around an oasis pretty much in the middle of Saudi Arabia in what’s called the Najd region, just outside modern day Riyadh. Just like in any large territory, there were regional disputes and a classic power struggle over who would be the rulers of land. As for who would claim the “All-Arabia” title by controlling the Najd region, the Saud family didn’t have much success. Similar to the Mayo Senior Football team, they were so-close-but-yet-so-far on a few too many occasions.

For the Saud family, I’ll pick up the story with Ibn Saud, from the founder of modern day Saudi Arabia.

Ibn was a young lad in the Saud family when, after a failed attempt at claiming the All-Arabia title, his family were ran out of the Najd region, fleeing to the neighbouring country Kuwait. Spending years in exile, the prospects for the Saud family were looking just like Mayo’s chances of All-Ireland football glory - bleak.

In 1901, he succeeded his aul lad after he passed, as leader of the Saud family. He promptly declared himself as “Sultan of Najd” – King of Najd. There was indeed one glaring issue here, Najd was ruled by a different family and Ibn Saud himself wasn’t even in the same country, never mind the same region.

Not to worry, Ibn Saud rounded up 20 of his finest lads, and set off on the road to Croker Najd. In the middle of the night, they proceeded to sneak into the city of Riyadh by hopping the city wall, found their way to the governor of the city and proceeded to do a job on him. With some luck and a savage set of cojones on him, Ibn Saud was now the king of the city. From here, he could use the city as a base to project power over the rest of the Najd region, but this temporary hold on the center of the region was on shaky legs. After plenty of nervous poos and double-takes at the mirage on the desert horizon, Ibn Saud anxiously awaited for his regional enemies to come crashing down on him at any moment to ruin his dream of securing the All-Arabia title.

Finally, another bit of luck came his way, when WWI kicked off. Taking stock of who was siding with who, he decided to side with the British for access to weapons and money. With the way WWI panned out, he chose right. Assisted by his new best friend, the British, he now finally locked down the All-Arabia title by clearing out the remaining strong families across the region and being recognized as the ruler of Arabia by the British.

Ibn Saud didn’t waste any time getting down to business. He married about 20 wives, all from each of the various families he defeated on his warpath across the region and lacking birth control, fathered over 100 children. This laid the groundwork for one of the most powerful family trees in the world, and the one that dominates Saudi Arabia to this day.

At this stage oil had been discovered in the neighbourhood; in Bahrain, Iran and Iraq. Suspicions were that Saudi Arabia had some of the black gold under their land, but Ibn Saud was even more suspicious of foreign companies coming into his own backyard and profiting off what was his. Without the local expertise and skillset to explore and extract the wealth beneath his feet, Ibn Saud had to choose between the British or the Americans.

Although Ibn Saud owed the British for all the money and weapons provided to forge his kingdom, he must have been listening to “Come Out Ye Black & Tans” by The Wolfe Tones on repeat on Spotify, because he did not trust the colonial tendencies the British. The Americans got the nod to go ahead and drill baby drill.

Like early 2000s Ireland, the boom-time was on. Saudi Arabia began a period of exponential growth, setting up their own company “Aramco” to take back control from the Americans and exploit their own new found wealth for themselves.

Now of course, before I go any further. There is no real comparison to early 2000s Ireland; limos for communions, weekend shopping trips to New York, helicopters to the Galway races or even Bank of Ireland ads blatantly encouraging students to lie in order to get loans. But either way, I’m sure the Saudis had a bit of craic.

With this new found wealth, Saudi began to attract the eyes of others in the neighbourhood through jealously and spite. It would only be speculation to say what could have happened to Saudi Arabia who was amassing such immense wealth in a tough neighbourhood. There’s an argument to suggest their days could have been numbered if wasn’t for another stroke of luck, quite similar to before, WWII kicked off in 1939.

The thirst for oil skyrocketed to new heights. The Saudi’s stayed neutral during the war, but this issue of non-alignment would soon come to light as the geopolitical importance for securing ample supplies of oil came increasingly relevant.

For the American’s, they realized oil was the strategic key to energy and hence the key to life. Without oil to keep their tanks rolling and jets flying, their Western-valued power projection would diminish. The US President, Roosevelt wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep at the thought of this. Tossing and turning during the night, he knew he had to secure the supply chain.

In February 1945, just a few months before the end of WWII, Roosevelt personally travelled out to meet Ibn Saud in what would be one of the most significant geopolitical meetings in history.

Roosevelt was in bad shape, he was wheelchair bound at this stage and was within a few weeks of dying. Ibn Saud wasn’t in the best of shape either, he was banged up from all his years of hopping walls, swinging scimitars and pumping out over 100 kids.

Relationships between two individuals are often overlooked in geopolitics as people tend to take a high level view of proceedings. The direction of history has often had a sudden change of course due to a falling out or falling in of two individuals. Personal relationships shape how everyday life and business is done at the smallest of levels, all the way up to the top of global geopolitics.

Roosevelt and Ibn Saud were of similar age, both leaders of huge countries and both half-fucked in terms of their health. These similarities resulted in the two men seeing eye-to-eye and respecting each other.

The deal was made – the US would have guaranteed access to the Saudi oil and the safety of Saudi Arabia would be guaranteed by the US.

This was quite possibly the most significant geopolitical deal in history. This gave the American’s unrivalled access to the steroids they needed to continue pumping up their military guns and project Western influence around the globe. Living in a tough neighbourhood, Saudi Arabia now had a big strong brother to rely on. To further solidify the bromance between Saud and Roosevelt, only a few days later Saudi Arabia declared war on Germany to show its commitment to the relationship with the US.

Ibn Saud once again got lucky with timing - Germany lost the war a few months later and so Saudi got a seat at the big dick table at the United Nations. Saudi Arabia was now officially a major player in the world of geopolitics.

Saudi Arabia were the world’s drug dealer, dealing the black stuff, while the world’s nations were their customers, and most importantly the Americans were their muscle.

Speaking of black stuff, it’s not just the quantity of oil that Saudi Arabia holds that makes them major players on the geopolitical stage, it is the quality of their oil and their ability to produce it at a little cost that sets them apart.

First, think of it like this; O’Donoghue’s of Merrion Row has Guinness, Amsterdam has marijuana, Saudi has oil. Not all oil is of the same quality just like a pint of Guinness in some places could be an abomination, or pure satisfaction.

With oil; sulfur content and weight are the main factors in grading oil. Low sulfur, light oil is the good stuff and that is exactly what Saudi has, and plenty of it too. There are small amounts of better quality oil in other countries, but the sheer scale of extremely high quality oil that Saudi holds gives them the advantage. To top off this high quantity / high quality duo, Saudi’s oil is also the cheapest in the world to produce. Some countries have plenty of decent quality oil, but it’s in hard and expensive places to reach and extract such as the bottom of the ocean.

The following tables puts it into perspective of why Saudi is the oil baron of the world:

Ibn Saud died in 1953. In the 50 years he was head of the Saud family, he transformed his country. This success story would never have been possible without the vast resources on his land and the geopolitical relationship with the Americans.

Like a poisoned chalice however, the resources used to advance Saudi’s geopolitical position are finite. And so, Saudi’s geopolitical position is finite. And like any shotgun marriage, the honeymoon period with the Americans has worn off and cracks are beginning to show.

To understand the complexities and scale of the trouble on the horizon for Saudi Arabia and the measures they are taking to avoid it, subscribe for Part 3.