Page 268 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

‘Araby the Blest’ 265

Engineers a new military academy and headquarters for the National Guard are
being built at Riyad; naval bases are being constructed and equipped at Jiddah
and Jubail, military and air bases at Tabuq, in the north-western corner of the
country, and at Khamis Mushait, in the south-west, near Najran; while in the
north-east, at al-Batin near the border with Kuwait, an entire military town is
planned, on what would appear to be the model of an ikhwan hijra. The
estimated cost of these establishments runs into thousands of millions of
dollars. A United States military mission some 150 strong is advising the Saudi
armed forces, its cost ($4,600,000 in 1977) being met, virtually in toto, by the
Saudi government. In addition, the Bendix Corporation is engaged in organiz­
ing logistics support for the Saudi army; the Vinnel Corporation is training the
National Guard; the AVCO corporation is supplying vessels and a training
depot for the Saudi coastguard; the Lockheed Corporation is operating the
air-defence network; the Raytheon Corporation is providing Hawk missile
systems.
An air of unreality bordering upon lunacy hangs over the whole of this
martial extravaganza. The Saudi defence budget for 1977—8 was $7>53° million
(26,690 million riyals), a sum out of all proportion to the size of the country’s

population and the strength of its armed forces, which number some 61,500
men (or 103,000, if the para-military National Guard and the Frontier Force
are included). The budget for the previous year was of the same order of
magnitude - $6,343 million. (By way of comparison, Britain’s defence expen­
diture was £4,548 million, or $9,974 million, in 1975-6, and £6,330 million, or
$10,880 million, in 1977-8.) Moreover, the Saudis cannot operate most of the
advanced weapons and highly complex defence equipment and installations
they are acquiring, let alone maintain them properly. It will be years - perhaps
well beyond the foreseeable future - before they are sufficiently skilled to do so,
and in the meantime the Americans and others will have to supply the skills
required. Yet the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian
Affairs, Alfred L. Atherton Jr, blandly informed the Committee on Inter­
national Relations of the House of Representatives in February 1976 that he
considered the Saudis’ arms orders to be ‘reasonable and rational, albeit
limited and relatively small, and well within their capability to absorb and
employ effectively’.
It does not require oracular gifts to discern the dangers inherent in the policy
which the United States is now pursuing towards Saudi Arabia. If the United
States government entertains the cynical belief that it can sop up a goodly part
of Saudi Arabia’s surplus oil revenues by encouraging the Saudis to a wanton
and prodigal expenditure upon arms, it may find itself in the situation of the
biter bit. For the Saudi ruling house and its immediate circle are no strangers to

chicanery and sharp practice, and it would be highly impolitic to count greatly
upon their forbearance and good faith. While the Saudi government may be
willing to spend several milliards of dollars upon armaments, it is not going to