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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
Prior to the outbreak of World War II, Saudi Arabia was on
good terms with the Axis powers, concluding an arms agreement
with Nazi Germany on the eve of the war. Abd al Aziz maintained
formal neutrality during most of the war, gradually leaning
toward the Allied side. In early 1945, he abandoned his neutral
posture and made a nominal declaration of war against Germany.
The outbreak of the war and attendant shipping dangers had
brought Saudi Arabian oil sales to a halt. As Allied needs for
oil rose, the safeguarding of the Saudi oil reserves began to be
regarded as of great strategic importance. In 1943 President
Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the defense of Saudi Arabia
was of vital interest to the United States, thus making the
kingdom eligible for Lend-Lease assistance. By the end of World
War II, British power and influence in Arab affairs had begun to
wane, and during the late 1940s and early 1950s the United States
emerged as the dominant Western power on the Arabian Peninsula.
Abd al Aziz was instrumental in forming the League of Arab
States (Arab League) in 1945, and in 1948 he sent a token
battalion of noncombatant troops to participate in the first
Arab-Israeli war. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, after leading the
coup that deposed King Faruk in 1952, had become a spokesman for
republicanism among the Arabs, vying for power and influence with
the Arab monarchs. Nasser's broadcasts against the royal regimes
and his calls for nationalist revolutions grew more inflammatory
after Egypt's war over the Suez Canal with Israel, France, and
Britain in 1956. Saud ibn Abd al Aziz Al Saud, who became king
after Abd al Aziz's death in 1953, was associated with a clumsy
plot to assassinate Nasser. This embarrassing episode, plus
Saud's extravagance and lack of leadership qualities, compelled
him to turn over executive power to his brother, Faisal, in 1958
(see The Reigns of Saud and Faisal, 1953-75
, ch. 1). Faisal, who
would become king six years later, dedicated himself to the
development of a modern military force to protect the monarchy.
Egyptian intervention in the civil war of neighboring Yemen
in 1962 provided ample proof of the need for reliable Saudi armed
forces. An army coup against Imam Muhammad al Badr in Yemen
triggered a civil war that was not resolved until 1967. The
insurgents were supported by Nasser, who committed a large
expeditionary force of Egyptian troops to the conflict. Imam Badr
fled north, rallying loyal tribes and seeking support from Saudi
Arabia. Within a short time, the royalist supporters of Imam Badr
were engaged in combat against the insurgents, who established
the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY--South Yemen).
Saudi troops were deployed to the border, and the royalist
guerrillas were given supplies and safe havens.
In November 1963, Egyptian aircraft overflew Saudi territory,
dropping bombs on border villages. At the request of Saudi
Arabia, the United States dispatched a squadron of F-100 jet
fighters to the kingdom. Faced with this show of force and unity,
the Egyptians backed off. Nevertheless, the presence of Egyptian
military on the peninsula convinced Faisal of the need to upgrade
the Saudi armed forces still further with United States and
British assistance.
During the June 1967 War against Israel, Faisal sent a Saudi
brigade to Jordan to bolster King Hussein's war effort. The
brigade was still in Jordan at the time of the October 1973 War
launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel. When war broke out,
Faisal dispatched another brigade to Syria to lend support to the
Syrian army. Neither of the Saudi brigades was involved in
combat.
Data as of December 1992
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