No security guarantees for Saudi Arabia

The U.S. should tell Israel that, when it comes to normalizing relations with its despotic neighbors, it is on its own.

The Biden administration is apparently attempting to broker a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel that would include a formal U.S. security guarantee for the Saudis. This would be a monumental geopolitical mistake, and trap, for the U.S.

There have been hints of such a deal brewing for some time. Discussions seem to be turning at least semi-serious. News articles outlining the broad contours of a potential deal read like leaked trial balloons, with anonymous administration officials quoted sketching concepts without offering commitments about them.

The biggest indication that this is a serious effort, however, was the column the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, wrote for the Wall Street Journal. The title was: “Korea is a Model for Middle East Peace”. In it, Cohen cites the nuclear umbrella the United States provides to South Korea as “a potential blueprint” for protecting Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf despots against the threat of a nuclear weapon developed by Shiite Iran. 

So, the Israeli foreign minister is openly calling for the United States to provide formal security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, including the use of our nuclear weapons.

Now, I admire the brave, democratic state of Israel. But this isn’t the suggestion of an ally that has our best interests in mind. 

In the first place, the Korean analogy is misleadingly underdeveloped. There are serious questions in the parts of East Asia supposedly underneath the U.S. nuclear umbrella about the reliability of the U.S. commitment. In South Korea, the U.S. has nearly 30,000 troops stationed within the country supposedly serving, in part, as a tripwire to lend some credence to America’s willingness to use its nuclear arsenal to protect the country. The U.S. has roughly 50,000 troops stationed in Japan, in part in service to the same supposition.

The idea is that the United States would be more willing to launch a nuke in response to an attack on South Korea or Japan if American troops were at risk than if they were not. That’s undoubtedly true, but less of a reassurance than commonly claimed.

Would the United States really escalate to a nuclear response to a conventional attack, even one that was threatening the survivability of, say, a democratic South Korea? Even if serious American casualties were likely or had already occurred? How about a limited conventional attack on, say, the islands whose writ is disputed between China and Japan?

The tripwire might secure an American nuclear response to a nuclear attack on South Korea or Japan. But that’s not the military threat in the region that most needs deterred. And there are, or should be, serious questions about the extent to which America’s nuclear umbrella serves as a deterrent to the much more likely conventional military incursions in the region.

The potential of a nuclear response is the ultimate deterrent to even conventional military incursions. The uncertainty about the circumstances under which the United States might be willing to unleash one has led to serious discussions in both South Korea and Japan about whether to develop nuclear weapons of their own. A homegrown capability would provide greater deterrence against every kind of military threat than reliance on the American umbrella.

So, how does Cohen propose that the Korean “blueprint” of a nuclear umbrella be constructed in the Middle East? Will there be American troops stationed as comparable tripwires? If so, how many and where? If not, what other measures are proposed to give the Sunni despots confidence in an American nuclear umbrella against an Iranian nuke?

President Joe Biden has frequently said that the geopolitical dividing line today is between democracy and authoritarianism. I think that’s generally true. So, why is his administration toying with the idea of providing security guarantees to some of the world’s most brutal autocrats?

Saudi Arabia is not an ally. The U.S. has no interest, or should have no interest, in propping up the House of Saud. Our security is not advanced by making the Saudi fights our own. In fact, exactly the opposite.

The Saudis want to be free actors internationally, playing the United States off against China, Russia, and some ill-defined alliance of developing countries. Part of the bruited deal is for the United States to assist the Saudis in constructing a supposedly peaceful civilian nuclear power capability. To ensure that it remains peaceful and civilian, the U.S. wants part of the agreement to preclude the development of a domestic uranium enrichment capability in Saudi Arabia, which the Saudis want. To pressure the U.S. to relent, the Saudis are entertaining nuclear reactor offers from China, which isn’t as scrupulous about precluding a domestic uranium enrichment capability.

It is obviously in the security interests of Israel to normalize relations with its Arab neighbors, and particularly, symbolically more than militarily, with Saudi Arabia.

However, it is in the security interests of the United States to be less involved in the snake pit of Middle East geopolitics. And to distance ourselves from anything other than a strictly transactional economic relationship with the Saudis, and in particular to extricate ourselves from involvement in the geopolitical regional competition between the Sunnis and Shia. Sunni despots aren’t our forever friends. Shiite despots need not be our forever enemies.

The United States should continue to support Israel, a brave, democratic capitalist enclave. But, with respect to normalizing relations with its despotic neighbors, we should tell Israel that it is on its own.

Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.