Following recognition in 1931, the United States and Saudi Arabia established full diplomatic relations, with exchange of credentials and the first U.S. ambassadorial posting to Jeddah, in 1940. Saudi Arabia's unique role in the Arab and Islamic worlds, its holding of the world's second largest reserves of oil, and its strategic location all play a role in the long-standing bilateral relationship between the Kingdom and the United States. The United States and Saudi Arabia have a common interest in preserving the stability, security, and prosperity of the Gulf region and consult closely on a wide range of regional and global issues.
Saudi Arabia plays an important role in working toward a peaceful and prosperous future for the region and is a strong partner in security and counterterrorism efforts and in military, diplomatic, and financial cooperation. Its forces work closely with U.S. military and law enforcement bodies to safeguard both countries' national security interests. The United States and Saudi Arabia also enjoy robust cultural and educational ties with some 37,000 Saudi students studying in U.S. colleges and universities and scores of educational and cultural exchange visitors each year.
The United States also provides promising youth and emerging Saudi leaders the opportunity to experience the United States and its institutions through the International Visitor Leadership Program and various other exchange programs. The kingdom spends 8% of its GDP on the military , which places it as the world's third biggest military spender behind the United States and China, and the world's largest arms importer from 2015 to 2019, receiving half of all the US arms exports to the Middle East. According to the BICC, Saudi Arabia is the 28th most militarized country in the world and possesses the second-best military equipment qualitatively in the region, after Israel. By the late 2010s, there have been continual calls for halting of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, mainly due to alleged war crimes in Yemen and especially following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. Second, the United States and its partners should provide additional security assistance to Saudi Arabia to defend itself—including airports, oil and gas facilities, and other critical infrastructure targets—against these attacks and to counter Iranian actions in Yemen. In November 2021, for example, the United States authorized the sale of 280 AIM-120C-7/C-8 variant air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia, in addition to spare parts, support, and training.
Repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly intensified. Among those harassed, arbitrarily detained, prosecuted and/or jailed were government critics, women's rights activists, human rights defenders, relatives of activists, journalists, members of the Shi'a minority and online critics of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtually all known Saudi Arabian human rights defenders inside the country were detained or imprisoned at the end of the year.
Grossly unfair trials continued before the Specialized Criminal Court and other courts. Courts resorted extensively to the death penalty and people were executed for a wide range of crimes. Migrant workers were even more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation because of the pandemic, and thousands were arbitrarily detained in dire conditions, leading to an unknown number of deaths. The king combines legislative, executive, and judicial functions and royal decrees form the basis of the country's legislation. The king is also the prime minister, and presides over the Council of Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia. The family's vast numbers allow it to control most of the kingdom's important posts and to have an involvement and presence at all levels of government.
The number of princes is estimated to be at least 7,000, with most power and influence being wielded by the 200 or so male descendants of Ibn Saud. The key ministries are generally reserved for the royal family, as are the 13 regional governorships. Iran and the Houthis have demonstrated a persistent ability to threaten Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Gulf.
With the use of relatively cheap stand-off weapons such as UAVs, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, Houthi forces can impose political and financial costs on Saudi Arabia. The Quds Force and Lebanese Hezbollah have played a critical role in improving Houthi capabilities. This irregular warfare campaign is occurring in a broader context in which Iran is increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium, supporting a growing number of non-state partners in the region, and developing longer-range and more accurate missiles. Without a more effective campaign to publicly highlight and counter these attacks and help Saudi Arabia defend itself, however, Iran and the Houthis will continue to destabilize the region. Some 30 women served in the last parliament, and a female deputy speaker was appointed in October 2020.
Women secured about 1 percent of the seats in the 2015 municipal council elections. Shiites reportedly hold a small number of Majlis al-Shura seats and many municipal council seats in Shiite-majority areas. According to The Guardian, as of 2013 there were more than half a million foreign-born domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. Most have backgrounds in poverty and come from Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. To go to work in Saudi Arabia, they must often pay large sums to recruitment agencies in their home countries. The agencies then handle the necessary legal paperwork.As the Saudi population grows and oil export revenues stagnate, pressure for "Saudization" has grown, and the Saudi government hopes to decrease the number of foreign nationals in the country.
Saudi Arabia expelled 800,000 Yemenis in 1990 and 1991 and has built a Saudi–Yemen barrier against an influx of illegal immigrants and against the smuggling of drugs and weapons. In November 2013, Saudi Arabia expelled thousands of illegal Ethiopian residents from the Kingdom. Various Human Rights entities have criticized Saudi Arabia's handling of the issue.
Over 500,000 undocumented migrant workers — mostly from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Yemen — have been detained and deported since 2013. An investigation led by The Sunday Telegraph, exposed the condition of African migrants who were detained in Saudi Arabia allegedly for containing COVID-19 in the kingdom. Many of the migrants died due to heatstroke or by attempting suicide, after being severely beaten and tortured. The vast wealth generated by oil revenues was beginning to have an even greater impact on Saudi society.
It led to rapid technological modernization, urbanization, mass public education, and the creation of new media. This and the presence of increasingly large numbers of foreign workers greatly affected traditional Saudi norms and values. Although there was a dramatic change in the social and economic life of the country, political power continued to be monopolized by the royal family leading to discontent among many Saudis who began to look for wider participation in government. However, there is a growing awareness that the future of the country depends on providing women with the necessary opportunities and tools to reach their full potential. Almost a third of Saudi students abroad are women and there are currently more Saudi women attending university in the kingdom than men.
More recently, a woman was appointed to head a major bank and another was elected to lead the Saudi stock exchange. A recent royal decree related to the male guardianship system will make it easier for women to obtain government services. The fact that women do not drive is the subject of intense debate among the Saudi public, the media and the Shura Council. However, it is unfair to dismiss all the advances that women have made until that issue is resolved. Meanwhile, the conflict continues to take a heavy toll on Yemeni civilians, making Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The UN estimates that 131,000 of the estimated 233,000 deaths in Yemen since 2015 are the result of indirect causes like food insecurity and lack of access health services. Nearly twenty-five million Yemenis remain in need of assistance, five million are at risk of famine, and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people. All sides of the conflict are reported to have violated human rights and international humanitarian law. The state's oil revenues make up the vast majority of its financial resources, but these are tightly controlled by the royal family, which uses the same income to support itself. In 2018 and 2019, the state oil company, Saudi Aramco, provided more income and expenditure information in preparation for an initial public offering.
How many states are there in Saudi Arabia However, amid ongoing questions about its relationship with the government, the company opted that December to list shares only on a domestic stock exchange, which entailed less transparency than would be required on a major international exchange. In July, the United Kingdom imposed human rights sanctions on Saudi officials, including the deputy intelligence chief, in connection with Jamal Khashoggi's killing. A landmark courtruling in 2019 forced the UK government to pause sales until it could show that it had properly evaluated the risk that weapons sold to Saudi Arabia could be used in laws of war violations. As the leader of the coalition that began military operations against Houthi forces in Yemen on March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia has committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law.
As of June, at least 7,825 civilians had been killed in the conflict, including 2,138 children, and 12,416 wounded since 2015, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights , although the actual civilian casualty count is likely much higher. The Armed Conflict and Event Data Projectestimates that 112,000 people have died from the hostilities, including 12,000 civilians. First, the United States and other partners should more aggressively highlight the Houthi and Iranian military campaign against Saudi Arabia.
Not only has there been a rise in the number of attacks against Saudi Arabia over the past year, but Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue to provide the Houthis with increasingly sophisticated weapons systems. The Houthis now have a growing assortment of cruise and ballistic missiles, UAVs, and other stand-off weapons capable of striking targets throughout the Gulf—and beyond. Yet there has been little systematic media coverage or sustained public condemnation. In August 2021, for example, the Houthis fired a missile at a civilian airport in Abha, wounding eight civilians. The government has taken some steps to combat corruption and recover misappropriated assets, but its opaque methods have raised serious concerns about politicization and lack of due process.
The crown prince heads an anticorruption committee, which in 2017 ordered the detention of more than 300 people, many of whom were coerced into turning over billions of dollars in assets to the state. Bin Salman's campaign has targeted potential rivals within the royal family, leading observers to suggest these crackdowns are meant to consolidate his political and economic control. Major crackdowns and arrests continued in 2020, with 298 government employees being arrested for corruption in March. Another 59 were arrested in October, and over $160 million worth of assets were seized. Health care in Saudi Arabia is a national health care system in which the government provides free health care services through a number of government agencies. Saudi Arabia has been ranked among the 26 best countries in providing high quality healthcare.
The Saudi Ministry of Health is the major government agency entrusted with the provision of preventive, curative, and rehabilitative health care for the Kingdom's population. The Ministry's origins can be traced to 1925, when a number of regional health departments were established, with the first in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The various healthcare institutions were merged to become a ministerial body in 1950. Abdullah bin Faisal Al Saud was the first health minister and served in the position for three years, with his main role to set up the newly formed Ministry. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, in 2010–14 Saudi Arabia became the world's second-largest arms importer, receiving four times more major arms than in 2005–2009. Major imports in 2010–14 included 45 combat aircraft from the UK, 38 combat helicopters from the US, four tanker aircraft from Spain, and over 600 armoured vehicles from Canada.
Saudi Arabia has a long list of outstanding orders for arms, including 27 more combat aircraft from the UK, 154 combat aircraft from the US, and a large number of armoured vehicles from Canada. France authorized $18 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in 2015 alone. The $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia is believed to be the largest arms sale in Canadian history.
In 2016, the European Parliament decided to temporarily impose an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, as a result of the Yemen civilian population's suffering from the conflict with Saudi Arabia. In 2017, Saudi Arabia signed a 110 billion dollar arms deal with the United States. In its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2010, Transparency International gave Saudi Arabia a score of 4.7 (on a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is "highly corrupt" and 10 is "highly clean").
A number of prominent Saudi Arabian princes, government ministers, and businesspeople, including Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, were arrested in Saudi Arabia in November 2017. There is no doubt that the Saudi king wields great political power, but Saudi kings have never ruled in a political vacuum; they have always been keen on consensus-building. Initially, this was among relatively few notables but today, the political decision-making process includes a large swath of Saudi society. There is a cabinet composed of experienced bureaucrats and a consultative Shura Council that has expanded from its original 60 members to 150 members today, including 30 women.
It also represents all regions of the country and has several members from the Shia minority. It has become a robust deliberative body that debates issues that were once only discussed in private gatherings. In addition, Saudi Arabia has held several nationwide elections for municipal councils.
Last year, women not only voted but also ran for seats, with about twenty of them winning contests. Fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen continues to harm civilians, drive displacement in the region, and restrict humanitarian access. The Saudi-led coalition responded to the increase of attacks with airstrikes targeting Sana'a, Yemen's capital.
The offensive has been the deadliest clash since 2018, killing hundreds of fighters and complicating peace processes. Allegations of torture by police and prison officials are common, and access to prisoners by independent human rights and legal organizations is extremely limited. In March 2019, international media published leaked prison medical records indicating that a number of political prisoners suffered from cuts, bruises, burns, and malnutrition. Detained women's rights activists were reportedly given electric shocks, whipped, beaten, sexually abused, and threatened with rape.
The family of Loujain al-Hathloul stated she had been offered freedom on the condition that she recant her torture allegations, but she refused. In addition to economic ties, a longstanding security relationship continues to be important in U.S.-Saudi relations. A U.S. military training mission established at Dhahran in 1953 provides training and support in the use of weapons and other security-related services to the Saudi armed forces.
The United States has sold Saudi Arabia military aircraft (F-15s, AWACS, and UH-60 Blackhawks), air defense weaponry , armored vehicles (M1A2 Abrams tanks and M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles), and other equipment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has had a long-term role in military and civilian construction activities in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia's first two development plans, covering the 1970s, emphasized infrastructure. The results were impressive--the total length of paved highways tripled, power generation increased by a multiple of 28, and the capacity of the seaports grew tenfold. Spending on infrastructure declined, but it rose markedly on education, health, and social services. In 1975, King Faisal was assassinated by a nephew, who was executed after an extensive investigation concluded that he acted alone.
Faisal was succeeded by his half-brother Khalid as King and Prime Minister; their half-brother Prince Fahd was named Crown Prince and First Deputy Prime Minister. King Khalid empowered Crown Prince Fahd to oversee many aspects of the government's international and domestic affairs. Economic development continued rapidly under King Khalid, and the kingdom assumed a more influential role in regional politics and international economic and financial matters. Obesity is a problem among middle and upper-class Saudis who have domestic servants to do traditional work but, until 2018, were forbidden to drive and so are limited in their ability to leave their home.
The religious police, known as the mutawa, imposed many restrictions on women in public in Saudi Arabia. The restrictions include forcing women to sit in separate specially designated family sections in restaurants, to wear an abaya and to cover their hair. However, in 2016, the Saudi cabinet has drastically reduced the power of the religious police and barred it "from pursuing, questioning, asking for identification, arresting and detaining anyone suspected of a crime". The Saudi government, which mandates Muslim and non-Muslim observance of Sharia law under the absolute rule of the House of Saud, have been accused of and denounced by various international organizations and governments for violating human rights within the country. The totalitarian regime ruling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is consistently ranked among the "worstest" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.
According to Amnesty International, security forces continued to torture and ill- treat detainees to extract confessions to be used as evidence against them at trial. Saudi Arabia abstained from the United Nations vote adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, saying it contradicted sharia law. Mass execution such as those carried out in 2016 and in 2019 have been condemned by international rights groups. Saudi Arabia and the United States are strategic allies, and since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the US has sold $110 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia.
In the first decade of the 21st century the Saudi Arabia paid approximately $100 million to American firms to lobby the U.S. government. On 20 May 2017, President Donald Trump and King Salman signed a series of letters of intent for Saudi Arabia to purchase arms from the United States totalling US$110 billion immediately and $350 billion over 10 years. In December 2021, the US Senate voted against a proposal to stop a $650 million sales of advanced medium range air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia to discourage it from its military intervention in Yemen. Khalid's reign saw economic and social development progress at an extremely rapid rate, transforming the infrastructure and educational system of the country; in foreign policy, close ties with the US were developed. In 1979, two events occurred which greatly concerned the government, and had a long-term influence on Saudi foreign and domestic policy.
