Saudi Arabia is a great power – Saudi News

Completing my postgraduate studies in political science in the most prestigious European universities, and being currently the regional director of one of the oldest scientific research centers specializing in international studies and relations in the capital of Europe “Belgium”, enabled me to stand on the views of some of the most famous specialists in international relations, political science, and political decision-makers. On the occasion of the title of the article, I attended and listened to their opinions and discussions about the balance of power and international classifications of powers in the Middle East and the world. It is calculated for the student abroad that he acquires in my opinion what is more important than the academic degree, which is the queen of academic abstraction, which is based on facts and figures, not on the saying of the Arabic:You see people walking after us

And if we nodded to the people and stop!

I witnessed such academic abstraction … when the discussions and opinions of these academic and political elites were based on these facts and figures … in their discussions about Saudi Arabia’s leadership of powers in the region geopolitically, economically and militarily through the abstract academic review of the classifications of regional powers, but rather within the future classifications of the emerging powers in the world It occupies advanced positions within these classifications, and that in the future it will be among the countries that will be taken into account when restructuring the permanent seats in the Security Council, not to mention that Saudi Arabia today is a member of the G20 and leads its meetings.

I remember that these opinions and discussions stood on a dilemma, which is … how, in logic, can Saudi Arabia be classified today as a geopolitically “middle power”, while it is a “super power” in the energy field ?!

I added another realistic dimension in classifying the type / degree of Saudi power, and to demonstrate its regional and international weight, when I discussed part of my master’s thesis titled “Just Power Versus Human Dignity: The New Geopolitical Trend”, which is the “Geo- Religious Dimension”. religious », and how Saudi Arabia, starting with the name of the state’s leader,“ the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, ”passing through its embrace of the most important Muslim sanctities, and ending with the enormous soft power it possesses from religious scholars who have a great influence on hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world .. makes Saudi Arabia through this The “geo-religious” dimension is also a great power, unique, and if it has another analogy in this dimension, then it definitely does not reach the size of its geo-religious influence on it.

The thing is mentioned, for even like “Samuel Huntington”, the owner of the “clash of civilizations”, and one of the prejudices against Arabs and Muslims, he put in one of his research papers on the classifications of powers in the world, Saudi Arabia as a leading power in the region, as opposed to Iran and Israel.

The political scientist and professor of Barack Obama, Professor Kenneth Waltz, before his death published an article that came in the form of a will to his student who was at the time in the White House, in which he requested that he restore the balance of powers in the Middle East in favor of Iran at the expense of Israel, which was almost done during the Obama era And after that, the Trump era came to restore today the balance of power in favor of Israel at the expense of Iran, which is the usual doctrine of the Republicans from which the American foreign policy in the region is based, which was established academically and among its most important theorists, “Henry Kissinger”. In the cases of the political schools of Waltz and Kissinger, Saudi Arabia is the only one who worked, as a generosity, the balance of power in the region, as a force and power in the region to be reckoned with and has its own foreign political agendas … not as a follower guided by the phased American foreign policy link, and the witness is that Saudi Arabia did not sign a peace agreement with Israel, and adhered to the solution of the Arab peace initiative, and that In the future, she would sign a peace agreement with Israel, which would be according to its terms and a peer-to-peer agreement.

The question is, does Saudi Arabia need to adopt one of the political theories, such as – specifically – that most famous theory, which is the political realism that relies on military force as a main starting point in its foreign policy?

The Swedish political scientist / Joseph Rudolph, the founder of the term and foundations of “Geo-Politics”, defines the state as a living being with a personality. Let’s run this definition on a quick example that will answer the previous question above.

The Ottoman Empire was one of the most prominent examples of the application of “classical political realism”, as it was a military state par excellence, and most of its resources were allocated to spending on armies and military campaigns, while the total amount spent on health, education and development was negligible besides what the state spends on its military campaigns. Expansive. This is what depleted the Ottoman Empire economically and politically, until it reached the “sick man” stage, after which Ataturk came and separated the resuscitation equipment from the state of hopeless state.

While in the situation of the third Saudi state in particular, we find that since the era of its founder, King Abdulaziz … and until the era of his son today, King Salman … it went against the direction of the Ottoman state, so the unification of the state in which the tribes were separated in the hands of Saba on more than a million square kilometers, And then reconstruction and development at home, although it proceeded in periods slowly and timidly, but it made a modern and sustainable state of governance, security and safety in it, and it won great international respect and acceptance .. As for the form of Saudi foreign policy, it often combined throughout the periods of its rulers between “Idealism” »And political pragmatism, and it has deviated every dimension – well it did – from classic political realism with its expansionist military concept, as we see it today in the regional agendas of countries such as Iran and Turkey. And the meaning is that it is well Saudi Arabia did .. the fact that the accumulations of the international political path up to this afternoon has pushed even the greatest power in the world to America, to back away from adopting “political realism” in its foreign policy, significantly, and to return to the liberal, pragmatic form of its foreign policy over such a decade. Free trade agreements and economic and political alliances, meaning that they relaxed her role as “world policeman”, or as “Henry Kissinger” once described his role as US Secretary of State … that he is an employee of the emergency number 911, for the world’s policeman!

America is still the strongest and only pole in the world, but what is different today is the emergence of emerging powers that forced even America to recognize “Multilateralism”, the forces coming strongly in the international political theater, and it is a witness to America’s retreat from its classic political realism, to political pragmatism, the present age And the next is the era of globalization, informatics, artificial intelligence and creativity, and a plurality of forces, including Saudi Arabia .. in this rapid political and economic transformations train .. it occupies and will occupy a seat in the compartment of the “business” class, not “economic” .. not by wishful thinking, but by work and institutional planning of skin and ambition. And Al-Salim, and today in the reign of the Emir of her vision is the very ambitious young man, Mohammed bin Salman, more than any previous era.

A final word, and the author often is a “consultant” who provides his services to those concerned free of charge .. I hope the Saudi leadership will make among its top priorities the adoption of R&D in a systematic and institutional manner, and I know that there is currently a Saudi movement in this direction, but it is still The movement is a luxury not a necessity, and the movement must be a necessity, as it is the most important indicator in the full answer to the article’s title question: “Is Saudi Arabia a superpower?”

There is a study that I have studied and conclude with .. This study says that in Europe every million dollars spent on projects creates 8 new jobs, while spending the same amount in R&D contributes to creating 14 new jobs, and of course it will automatically be calculated as an addition to the national product and the revenue. On human investment (the axis of construction and progress), and thus the country’s position in international rankings of power.

Bahraini writer