Saudi Arabia a nuclear power?

[JasonPratt]

diplomatically the Saudi's can quite legitimately quote Israel's own nuclear program, and challenge why they shouldn't have one too.

Because Israel isn't planning to use its nuclear capabilities to expand at the expense of their neighbors.

[Nefaro]

diplomatically the Saudi's can quite legitimately quote Israel's own nuclear program, and challenge why they shouldn't have one too.

Because Israel isn't planning to use its nuclear capabilities to expand at the expense of their neighbors.

... Or threaten to use them on another country due to religious or bigoted reasons.

I'm sure we can all get past the obvious mental leap past PC-ville here and acknowledge that it's primarily due to them being a heavily Islamic nation.  I don't need to mention why that's looked on as a problem, I assume.

[Boggit]

diplomatically the Saudi's can quite legitimately quote Israel's own nuclear program, and challenge why they shouldn't have one too.

Because Israel isn't planning to use its nuclear capabilities to expand at the expense of their neighbors.

... Or threaten to use them on another country due to religious or bigoted reasons.

I'm sure we can all get past the obvious mental leap past PC-ville here and acknowledge that it's primarily due to them being a heavily Islamic nation.  I don't need to mention why that's looked on as a problem, I assume.

Well I agree they are an Islamic nation, but there is a HUGE gap between the royal family who are in power, and the fanatics who are not in the political élite. There is the big issue of wealth and ostentation have kept the interests of the extended Saudi Royal family separate from the interests of the wider wahabi population who don't get to share in the oil wealth. The royal family have come under increasing criticism since the early 80's when Saudi Arabian foreign fighters came back from fighting as Mujahideen in Afghanistan to a country which they viewed as being ruled by a decadent élite out of kilter with the puritan wahabi ethic. Don't fall under the impression that the Saudi royals have exactly the same interests as the wider population, and more specifically the more militant of them. They don't.

I don't think the royal family have much interest in lobbing nukes around the middle east because essentially because it isn't in their interest... If anything they want to maintain the status quo, as they benefit from it, and that requires stability in the country. They have invested heavily in the west and would not want their assets seized plus they enjoy a luxurious lifestyle especially when in the West, which their non-royal compatriots would not comprehend. Although individual members of the royal family might support extremists and their policies, I'd suggest that  most of the royals find themselves very well off, thank you, without jeopardising the waters of their future prosperity by picking fights that are likely to draw in countries, which will likely seize their investments or place them under embargo. If the Saudi royals went down the path of nuclear power, it is in their interest to keep it solely as a civil program for electricity for the benefit of the urban population - rather than raise military tensions, and risk societal stability - and by benefiting the populace try to win hearts and minds, as since the 80's they've been on progressively thinner ice in balancing their position in Saudi society.

On the other hand if the royal family were overthrown, then all checks and balances on the religious extremists go out of the window, and who knows what might happen in the chaos. That is the scary bit if the Saudi's have military nuclear weapons. Even a civil program is dangerous in this scenario, as it isn't a huge step to developing military capabilities.

As for Israel, who honestly knows whether their nuclear capabilities would be ever be used to expand at the expense of their neighbours, any more than any other nuclear state? It's a matter of pure speculation on future policy. In comparison to most Middle Eastern countries Israel is considerably more stable, but their government are not saints either. Do they expand at the expense of their neighbours? It is the elephant in the room - arguably they do this already without the need for nukes by settlement in the occupied territories in flagrant breach of international law. What will happen after the occupied territories get fully settled? Maybe nothing? They presently have a right wing government not shy of using bellicose language and they also possess nuclear weapons, which most other middle eastern countries don't have. I am sure they are a deterrent to conventional war, but I suspect that if IS continues to grow in power it will be unconventional war that Israel (and the Saudi royal faction too)will need to deal with as the real threat, especially if the obstacle of President al Assad's regime (distasteful as it is) gets overthrown and replaced with an enlarged IS.

(I'm not against Israel as a nation - in many respects it is a cultured, civilised and well run country - but it's unreasonable to portray everyone else in the Middle East as raving religious nutjobs as though it is the default status of all Arabs in the region. Sure the Arab nutjobs exist in quantity, but Israel isn't immune either from having their own religious nutjobs revelling in their own self-righteousness. Fortunately, the Israeli parliamentary system isn't so broken that the home grown extremists dominate.)

[Nefaro]

diplomatically the Saudi's can quite legitimately quote Israel's own nuclear program, and challenge why they shouldn't have one too.

Because Israel isn't planning to use its nuclear capabilities to expand at the expense of their neighbors.

... Or threaten to use them on another country due to religious or bigoted reasons.

I'm sure we can all get past the obvious mental leap past PC-ville here and acknowledge that it's primarily due to them being a heavily Islamic nation.  I don't need to mention why that's looked on as a problem, I assume.

Well I agree they are an Islamic nation, but there is a HUGE gap between the royal family who are in power, and the fanatics who are not in the political élite.

Quite correct.  But with the current state of Islamic uprisings and murderous fundamentalism, it's not just the ruling regimes and their most trusted lieutenants under the microscope.

[Boggit]

diplomatically the Saudi's can quite legitimately quote Israel's own nuclear program, and challenge why they shouldn't have one too.

Because Israel isn't planning to use its nuclear capabilities to expand at the expense of their neighbors.

... Or threaten to use them on another country due to religious or bigoted reasons.

I'm sure we can all get past the obvious mental leap past PC-ville here and acknowledge that it's primarily due to them being a heavily Islamic nation.  I don't need to mention why that's looked on as a problem, I assume.

Well I agree they are an Islamic nation, but there is a HUGE gap between the royal family who are in power, and the fanatics who are not in the political élite.

Quite correct.  But with the current state of Islamic uprisings and murderous fundamentalism, it's not just the ruling regimes and their most trusted lieutenants under the microscope.

That's the truth! We have never seen anything like IS before, and when you consider that the Taliban, Boko Haram, and a score of other 'good examples to the rest of the world' have stated allegiance to IS, it is probably IS that is a more important player to watch than the regimes.

[Nefaro]

That's the truth! We have never seen anything like IS before, and when you consider that the Taliban, Boko Haram, and a score of other 'good examples to the rest of the world' have stated allegiance to IS, it is probably IS that is a more important player to watch than the regimes.

Not just that but the widespread support such factions get from the common citizens of the nuke pursuing countries.  That's a large part of the consideration.

[JasonPratt]

Boggit: thus the subtlety of my reply. Israel expands to certain (religiously) defined limits, sometimes in an arguably unjust fashion, but they aren't going to use nukes to do so, because they intend to live there. If they use nukes it will be in a defensive strike (even if a pre-emptive defense so to speak).

However the Saudi royals behave, which I agree tends to support the status quo, some Saudi royals talk and act a very hard line of aggression against Israel and their other-Islamic neighbors, and those are who I worry about getting access to nuclear power: they could stage a popular and military coup by seizing and demonstrating use of it.

Go back 40 years and imagine the Saudis getting nuclear power. How likely would it be for Osama bin Ladin to get it? There are many more where he came from -- I mean with the connections he had -- and he wasn't even directly trying to overthrow the ruling branch of the family.

[Boggit]

Boggit: thus the subtlety of my reply. Israel expands to certain (religiously) defined limits, sometimes in an arguably unjust fashion, but they aren't going to use nukes to do so, because they intend to live there. If they use nukes it will be in a defensive strike (even if a pre-emptive defense so to speak).

However the Saudi royals behave, which I agree tends to support the status quo, some Saudi royals talk and act a very hard line of aggression against Israel and their other-Islamic neighbors, and those are who I worry about getting access to nuclear power: they could stage a popular and military coup by seizing and demonstrating use of it.

Go back 40 years and imagine the Saudis getting nuclear power. How likely would it be for Osama bin Ladin to get it? There are many more where he came from -- I mean with the connections he had -- and he wasn't even directly trying to overthrow the ruling branch of the family.

@Jason :)

We're not really that far away in our thinking. Much of what you say is echoed somewhat in my earlier post. I basically agreed with what you say about Israel, nukes and the settlement of occupied territory. The big problem isn't so much the majority of Saudi royals now, but what would happen if the regime were overthrown. The big unknown is who will fill the vacuum. Even if there wasn't a coup, they face a huge threat from IS who as you rightly point out are supported by a minority of the elite, and a greater number of the rank and file citizens.

IS are probably the most dangerous threat because of their regional (worldwide?) ambitions, and the fact that they are playing for the long game with insurgency and propaganda as key policies to undermine and overrun countries.

[JasonPratt]

This reminds me again that civilized nations look to be missing a key opportunity: IS pulls together into targetable masses, which can be declared war on and fought conventionally, a lot of seriously problematic people who would be tough as splinter cells to track and put down.

They want to play with the big boys, and act like the Barbary Pirates. The math for that isn't hard to work out. 

To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, those who volunteer for the role of being a rogue state had better be prepared to be content with their wages.

[Boggit]

This reminds me again that civilized nations look to be missing a key opportunity: IS pulls together into targetable masses, which can be declared war on and fought conventionally, a lot of seriously problematic people who would be tough as splinter cells to track and put down.

They want to play with the big boys, and act like the Barbary Pirates. The math for that isn't hard to work out. 

To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, those who volunteer for the role of being a rogue state had better be prepared to be content with their wages.

Well, that is true. I've been having a similar conversation with someone who advocates blasting the IS area with thermobaric weapons, (on the basis that nukes are politically unacceptable) but it won't do. IS tends to fight in a dispersed way, and if you hit them with area weapons like that you'll disproportionately kill innocent civilians for each IS member you kill. In turn the outrage that would follow would walk into the open arms of the IS propaganda machine. Far better to arm and train up the Kurds if Turkey won't put boots on the ground. Ultimately it is boots on the ground needed to break up the territorial hold. You then go after the residual financial sources with forensic accountants and people to remove those sources...

[JasonPratt]

Well, yes, I sure wouldn't want to broadly nuke the area (with or without actual nukes), but they're still grouping into more easily fightable groups (so to speak).

I think I said something upthread about how a focused high-visibility attack on one of their military bases might not only provide a poetic scene the people there could relate to, but minimize or near-eliminate civilian casualties, while maximizing enemy loss before they split up again. Or it might not even need to be one of the bases, just a nearby landmark where people don't go. Glass a small mountain, let that video go viral.

Boots on the ground are important, especially for helping direct firepower to minimize unwanted casualties, but unless we're taking and holding with a real intent to usefully govern and provide long-term stability -- which I can't see us doing -- then when the boots inevitably leave we'll be back to the same vacuum sucking in anyone who wants the land as a powerbase (and maybe oil resource base) for whatever nastiness they have in mind.