 Middle East meetings, so I'd like to take a vote. Should we begin an hour late or an hour and a half late? More seriously, it's a pleasure, frankly, to introduce Nalifah Bade. We've worked together. We've written books together. And he's produced, I think, a study which really deserves attention, and it's a pleasure to really have him presented here. I think the other comment I would make is not a long introduction where I list his career. He's a bit young for that. But I think it is extremely important that we are beginning to see, in the Gulf, military and strategic analysts that deal in numbers, that deal in hard facts, that focus on plans and on resources. Because far too often, it has been a dialogue based on concepts and political opinions and not on the actual trends in the forces. I think it's equally important that we have scholars that speak for the countries in the Gulf and provide transparency. I think it's also true that if the United States is to have a strategy that focuses on having partnerships in the world and in this region, it has to have the partners who can fully deal with the United States on an equal basis. And to do that, you need transparency, you need strategic studies, and you need a focus that goes beyond what sometimes has been the glitter factor and emphasis on arms sales. And I think that's particularly important because it's now of touches on his own work. The resource issues here are incredible. The Gulf Cooperation Council, according to declassified DIA estimates, spent 80 times more on arms deliveries between 2008 and 2011 than Iran. And Iran is not a hegemon of any kind. It is a power which is, in many ways, dependent on weapon systems that were delivered to Iran when I was at the embassy in Tehran in the early 70s. It is also a case where Saudi Arabia spent over $10 billion on arms deliveries during that period to Iran's 200 million. And the GCC, when it comes to new arms orders, spent 252 times more than Iran between 2008 and 2011. The issue is really, do you use resources wisely? I think it is also particularly important, not so much for this audience, but in general to point out, that we recognize the importance of this partnership. Secretary Hagel has, President Obama has. We are not reducing forces in the Gulf. We actually increased them significantly last year. And it is important to point out that American power in the Gulf is dependent on power projection, not forward deployed forces. And often, this point gets lost. Also, when you talk about Asia, it is an obvious, but often forgotten point that Iran scarcely is the rival of China as a power in dealing with US and Gulf capabilities and defense. I think one last point I would make, and Nalif touches on this in his paper, but it is important for Americans to remember. There are many estimates that talk about energy independence. The United States government does not project energy independence. The Energy Information Agency basically gets, in its standard case, to a dip to 32% import dependence, which lasts for about three to four years. But this isn't the Nixon administration, which for a few of you is at least something you can remember, as I can. We're not talking about direct US energy imports as a measure of US import dependence. That hasn't been true for nearly a decade. The US only imports about 8% of its goods in the form of petroleum. It imports 88% of its other imports as manufactured goods, many of them from Asia. And something like 25% of our imports come from Japan and from China alone. Without the flow of oil out of the Gulf, without the security of that flow, which is a form of indirect imports, we would not have the functioning global economy. We would not have the US economy we have today. And it is actually those indirect imports which show just how much we need Saudi Arabia. As indeed, Saudi Arabia needs us. We are not the same culture. We're not in the same place, and we will never have exactly the same interests and values. But until there is a much different Iran and a far less threatening problem in terrorism, the kind of focus that Nawa brings today, I think, is one on a critical partner and one that we need, at least as much as they need us. Nawa? Thank you very much, Professor Quaresment, for this wonderful introduction. Thank you all for coming today. The presentation I'm just about to present to you is about a year worth of work where I've been, after admit, with a sizable amount of colleagues back home, have been trying to think about what's the consequences and the repercussions of having these tens and tens of billions of military hardware coming into the country over the next five years. And so, as Professor Quaresment just said, as of today, Saudi Arabia is in commitment of just under $100 billion in US weapon systems. And that's excluding the weapon system that we are currently in negotiations with our European allies, especially the French. And so having all this coming in over a set period of time is obviously going to change the way Saudi Arabia perceives itself, Saudi Arabia's capabilities, and the responsibilities that come with having such a new enhanced defense infrastructure. So if you allow me, I'm gonna go quickly through the slides that are prepared for you today, and then I'll be more than happy to answer any of the questions you have. To start with, we're grappling with, due to the fact of what happened, especially after 2011, and the repercussion that that's had on other major Arab countries in the region. The most important of it being that point one is really that defined Saudi Arabia, and with this we'll define how we perceive our responsibilities and how we go forward over the next five to 10 years. But more importantly is the second point, which is a point that if you want, it's become a de facto reality and not something that the kingdom has seeked on the contrary. All of you scholars on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf have always seen that Saudi Arabia has always wanted to take more of a behind the scene role. And this is something that if one has been left onto it due to the fact of the other major Arab countries falling apart or in the process of falling apart or heaven falling apart. And so this is a fundamental underlying reason for why today me and some of my colleagues back home have thought about where does this leave us and where does this leave the kingdom going forward. The other two points are pretty clear, are pretty straightforward. The defense doctrine itself is composed mainly of seven major points of which the most important being the defense of the homeland, the success and counter-terrorism efforts, the bolstering of defense of partner states which we're seeing today, especially the ones that have been affected by the Arab upheavals. And then more importantly in our, if you went in our show or in our face-off with the Iranians, the potential incredible projection of power outside our boundaries which is something that we've been looking at very seriously over the last two years and something that Professor Korsman has been writing about for some time. And then is if you want the established policy since King Fahd which is the fundamental policy of being against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And then the last two points are very, if you want, will define the kingdom going forward which is the establishment of two separate commands which will be your cyberspace which is now fundamental to any major country and space where a country as wealthy and essential as Saudi Arabia doesn't really have a large functioning space program and that could come in handy for a lot of the other developments that the kingdom is seeking. And then finally potentially the most important of all these points is how do you bring in all these weapons system and how do you merge them in with the services that they're going to be under and how do the services among themselves come out and coordinate their responsibilities. And this is something that we see today in the US where there's always the command and control problem. But in Saudi Arabia it's one of our, it has been one of our weakness, there's been a lot of improvements but we hope that there'll be more of such. This is a simple map of the geographic location of Saudi Arabia just to explain that this doctrine is basically based on being able at the end of it to be able to guarantee the main point of trade and commerce which dot the surroundings of the kingdom which are up the Suez Canal, the Babelmandem to the bottom and the Strait of Hormuz. Currently Saudi Arabia does not have a say in how these chalk points are being defended and how the defense of the commerce is being done. It's being done by an international coalition based on raw US power. The idea would be is to have at some point enough capabilities and enough resources in order to be able to have to be custodian of the future of these points who at the same time are so vital to the well-being of the kingdom and to the international global economy. Using Professor Korsman's models that he's created decades ago, what I've done here is that I've given an assessment of what is currently in Saudi inventory, give or take and what through meticulous number crunching and estimates and talking to people around the kingdom would be what could be a minimum to be able to implement the doctrine that's being proposed today. So for example, for the army being a barren land, the focus has to be on hardware because of the other countries that don't have these kind of borders. And so I'm more than happy within the Q and A if anyone has specific questions about the weapons system to get into. But these kind of numbers are part of when you all hear about the tens and tens of billions of dollars that are being signed between Saudi Arabia and the US. They come out to roughly looking like this in terms of weapons system. A new development which in a way is very fundamental to how Saudi Arabia perceives its security domestic and foreign is the changing nature of the role of the National Guard which was initially set up to be primarily a domestic based force against domestic insecurities. What you have here is that you have a National Guard that's beginning to play much more of a foreign role. And that shows for example in the establishment of its new Air Force Command made up of attack helicopters as well as potentially, although not yet said, having a main battle command capability which in the past has not been the case. If you want we can get back to this in the Q and A because that's fundamental to how Saudi Arabia sees its internal as well as its foreign security. The world, this is the command basically that if you've all seen over the last two, three weeks the big military show exercise that took place to commemorate the ninth anniversary of King Abdullah's reign, a lot of the media paid attention to the medium range ballistic missile that was shown parading. This is an older version of the systems that's currently in the thinking of the Saudi military leaders to purchase. More importantly is you will all notice at the bottom is the ICBM number here. And the question which people will have is why does the Saudi Arabia need such a force? And this comes back to the nature of how we see Saudi Arabia's role in the future. And Saudi Arabia's role seen from my perspective is not just having a regional role, but having a global role. And having such a capability is not necessarily geared towards any regional foe, but more like geared to what we perceive as our biggest enemy, which in this case is Russia. The naval capabilities, this as some of the officers and analysts that follow Saudi military capabilities closely. The Navy has unfortunately been the last of the major services to start seeing the investments that are coming in. Problem is that the Navy has a unique role in the sense that it is there. It is the first line of defense against the Iranian forces in the Gulf, as well as it is being called upon more and more to have more of a role in the Sea of Aden and the Arabian Sea all the way to the Bab el-Mandab. And so this what we have here is what would be a scenario that is required and needed currently with what is happening in the region. And this goes on to this map. This map has to focus on Saudi defensive doctrine that came about in the 1980s, which hadn't been necessarily talked about and properly analyzed outside of the kingdom, which was called the Fahad line at the time. And if you see the lines there, these are usually the Saudi maritime lines, the boundaries in the Gulf, but they basically parallel what was seen at the time as the Fahad defensive line, which was that Saudi Arabia would shoot down any incoming unauthorized fighter jets. And that happened when two Iranian fighters crossed into Saudi airspace unannounced and were shot down by two at the time. They were quite new, Saudi F-15s. And so this is the kind of thinking that is guiding this defense doctrine to re-establish or to re-emphasize such a doctrine on one side of the Gulf or potentially on the other side on the Red Sea. And this comes to the massive investments that's going into what is today quite modern and quite capable air force. And this is if you want the core of the ongoing FMS programs between the US and Saudi Arabia. And using Professor Kurzman's model to differentiate and to be able to ascertain how important an air force or how capable an air force is vis-à-vis another one, especially in the Middle East, where we have, for example, a Syrian air force or an Iraqi air force that has 800 planes and 90% of them are obsolete. Here, these numbers focus on the high quality combat aircraft as was initially defined by Dr. Kurzman. And I've tweaked it a bit because it's an issue of what kind of generation aircrafts would be considered a high quality. So here what I've used is I've used the Eurofighter Typhoon, the new Saudi F-15s, which are starting slowly to come into the kingdom, and the upgraded tornadoes who has basically turned the aircraft into a complete different one, and potentially a fourth platform. And this would be if you want the crust of what would be the future look of a Saudi air force in order to sustain what's being proposed here in the defense doctrine. And finally on the Marine, this is what more goes into the special operations or rapid deployment force capabilities, and specifically zeroing in on some of the conflicts that are currently ongoing in the region and across our borders in some cases. And this is also an investment in having a credible viable capability to going into certain areas if need be in the future, especially with all the uncertainties happening around the Middle East. Now the basis of all this, the question would be asked, why would Saudi Arabia be spending all this money, be thinking about a complete different defensive posture? What are the underlying factors? And this is one of them as Tony earlier said, this is something that's not debatable. It's a simple fact and this will be there for a very long time to come, decades. And focusing both on the export numbers and on the spare capacity over the years we've been seeing that the export numbers haven't changed. If anything, Saudi Arabia's export numbers via the Russians has actually increased. And on the spare capacity front, which is now being used more and more because of all the disruptions in the other Arab countries that have potential sizeable exports is clear. And so this is the kind of fact that preempts a doctrine and preempts the strategic thinkers in Riyadh to think about, well, we not only have regional responsibility, but we also have a global one. And that translates into these kind of numbers as predicted by the IMF for this year. Now these numbers comparatively are not very impressive, but these are the numbers of the major economies of the region. And through numbers, as I learned many years ago from Professor Korazman, they don't show all the picture, but usually they show a very big part of it. And when you have numbers such as these to countries Iran or Egypt or even Pakistan, so then you understand why the reason isn't so much turmoil. And why a defense doctrine with so much investment, correct investment, being able to ascertain what we're gonna do with these weapons system is important for the future going forward. And then finally, if I would conclude with this, which is on everyone's mind, which is a source of huge problems today in certain Muslim countries and which has become an issue on how to identify and determine US policy in the region. It's the cleavage between the two major denominations in Islam. And from this perspective, why is this map so interesting to us, for example? Because it shows that the cleavage is not overall in Islam. The cleavage is in very specific areas where there are Shia communities. And this is something that has to be addressed, and it's also something that has to be understood before being addressed. And in so many cases, it's still out there. And so what you'll see within the wider Muslim world, you have three countries that have Shia majority population, Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain. Bahrain is key because of what happened there in 2011. And then you have problems in other areas in other countries that have significant Shia communities. The Shia communities I'm referring to are from different Shia denominations, not only the Twelvers that prevail in Iran and Iraq. And so this is something that is fundamental to understanding the causes, how potentially problematic it is to be able to start addressing it. And so leaving you with these thoughts, I hope that I've been able to give you an idea of why this Saudi doctrine, if this will ever be implemented, or if some of it will be implemented, what I hope it will be, is so important to the future of the kingdom. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, my main function from now on is to moderate a question and answer period. Let me say that first, if you would wait for the microphones, we do have those, don't we, Sam? And please, when you begin your question, introduce yourself. I will call on you by row and seat. I know many of you, but this seems to work better. I suspect this audience fully is aware of the fact that a question generally ends in a question mark. And we do have a number of people here. So this may not be the ideal opportunity to give a speech. We do have some very nice marble steps outside. And if you want to address passersby, please feel free to do it. But I really would hope that we can focus largely on questions and issues that now have to respond to. Anyway, with that introduction, first hand back there. Good morning. Thank you for your presentation. I'm Alan Sessoms. I'm a senior fellow at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. And I was at Belford Center for a while. You said something that struck me as interesting. You said that Russia was the main adversary of Saudi Arabia. Would you explain that a bit, please? Thank you for the question. As I think we can all agree, Russia over the last several months has proven what are its real objectives, be it in Europe or in the Middle East. And the focus, at least from my perspective, is that the Iranians are always being blamed for Assad still being in power. But if there is a power and if there is a country and a group of individuals that have been key to a survival, it has been the Russians. And we see the Russians today operating in very odd ways in several other Arab countries. And so over the long term, we see, you know, they've won in Ukraine, what they wanted in Syria, they have the upper hand. It is not a group of people, it is not an environment in Moscow that's gonna let go. And it will only become more and more problematic. And so if you look at five tenures down the line, if there is a real enemy for us, it is the Russians. And bearing in mind that you have to remember the history of the relationship, the Russians still blame us along with the Americans for their failed invasion of Afghanistan and then all that that precipitated within the Russian border. So there's a lot of animosity and a lot of history there between the two countries that will only become bigger over time. Thank you, Andrei Ashilal with Reuters. Wanted to draw you out on two sort of separate weapons kind of issues. One has to do with this, you know, really long effort to modernize the Saudi Navy. It's been in the works for, you know, longer than most people remember. And I wonder if you think that that is gonna be accelerated to some extent, you know, because of the geopolitical situation. And the same for the regional missile defense efforts that the U.S. is leading in the Gulf states, been some tensions, obviously with Qatar and, you know, how do you see that unfolding and what role do you think Saudi Arabia will play? And then finally, maybe just to close it out, one of the crown jewels of the U.S. sort of weapons arsenal is the F-35. And the understanding has been that, you know, there will be some delay, you know, before the Gulf countries get the F-35 after Israel receives it. Do you expect Saudi to be one of the first countries to receive it? And if so, you know, why and if not, why not? Yeah, the first question is, if you will see in the report, I thank a very courageous officer in the Navy who took part in the Houthi War and who nearly lost his life in that. And he was from the Naval Special Forces. And if you want this issue of the modernization of the Navy has been, if you want, a situation that no one really has a viable explanation for because it's so pressing and so important and yet it's taken so long. But on the positive note, there has been now an acceleration of funds being dispersed for search and weapon system. And at first, there's gonna be a sizeable modern weapon system coming in from France as well as the French currently training the special forces of the land forces. So there is a very close relationship between France and Saudi Arabia that exists. And so as a stop cap measure to start this big process, which I tried to explain, it's already in the process. Now, another reason for that has been the fact that we've been waiting on search and weapon system from the US and because of internal political wranglings among different constituents on where it should be built or the feasibility of certain weapon system, they haven't happened. And so that in a way has also delayed our decisions on the weapon system to be put into the Navy. And that especially has to do with the Eastern Fleet expansion program, which is now slowly coming to fruition. But more importantly is the fact that there's also and people are also advocating to have a third fleet because of the threats that Saudi Arabia has encountered in the Gulf of Adin in the Arabian Sea and the new phenomenon of pirates. And so the issue is that let's get the first two fleets going so that we can start thinking about the third fleet, which is as well needed. So we're absolutely on board on that. On the question of the missile defense system, to be very honest, the actual discussions are new. So they seem to be quite advanced now. I wouldn't be able to comment on how viable or how unviable for the future they will be. But seeing what kind of systems the kingdom has bought and how they've been slowly being deployed within the different forces, I'm not sure that I'm still unsure how they would be able to fit in. Doesn't mean that they won't be able to fit in if the decision is made to go ahead and do such a wide defense system. Oh, sorry. This is a very good question. I actually don't know. But this is one of the reasons why the fourth platform is still left out because that will be between a French and between a potential other American platform. But that's still a big unknown to us. Thank you. Dave Deroche from the Neary South Asia Center and National Defense University. Aside from the strategic choke points, what other objectives do you advocate for Saudi power projection? These were the fundamentals, but the whole projection. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that. Has to do with, for example, being able to safeguard strategic allies, partners which are listed in the report, which would be able to counter a potential hypothetical aggression by an Iranian force. An Iranian force, I use it very carefully because we never know who's. Yes, oh, absolutely, oh, absolutely. But so this is why if you want, if you see the emphasis here is on special forces, rapid deployment forces, massive air superiority, because these are the kind of capabilities that we need if we're going to be able to safeguard the list of countries and be able to project power in order even to dissuade. And the best example is Syria today, for example. So it's still unknown if we have or if we don't have the capabilities to, for example, do no fly zone over Syria. I'm not saying we do, I'm saying we don't. We just, we don't know because we have our disposal of some very competent pilots and as well as some state-of-the-art aircrafts. But the question is, why are we not involved in doing something like that? And so this is part of the thinking that preempted me to write some, to do this report. The gentleman in the second row there. Novel, this is very interesting. Dave Ottaway from the Woodrow Wilson Center. That's very interesting presentation. My question is, you didn't once mention the GCC. And is there a difference in your mind between a Saudi defense strategy and a GCC defense strategy? And how do you match the two or does Saudi Arabia go on its own? Thanks, David, for that. I don't mention GCC per se because by the nature of the sizes of the countries, if you just have an exercise in, a scarly exercise in thinking about these issues, we will obviously have different perceptions on our threats as well as different perceptions on our responsibilities. And so why didn't mention GCC in that because a lot of the GCC security infrastructure that's being talked about and debated out loud is based on a Saudi structure. For example, the Peninsula Shield and so forth outside of an American umbrella. So if you bring in the GCC today, it's all based on an American umbrella still being there forever. Now, something like this shows that we inherently believe this not to be the case. We can debate when it's gonna happen, but it's clear that for so many domestic reasons in the U.S., this is no longer a viable option. The difference is that we have the resources, capabilities to be able to protect ourselves and a lot of our strategic partners who immediately border us. And here I'm talking specifically about the Gulf countries. And so if the GCC hasn't mentioned per se is because I'm first focused on putting up a new framework which would be mostly based on a Saudi force. Now, if I'm going to pick up on that question a little because since King Abdullah proposed a much stronger unification of the GCC, if you look at the technologies involved, it actually has declined in interoperability. It's technology base has become less relevant to joint operations. You have had a rather odd constitutional issue raised by Kuwait about integrating forces. You've seen Oman threatening to withdraw and you've seen Qatar actually isolate it. As you look at what has happened in the gap between what Saudi Arabia and some others, I believe the UAE have proposed and what you've actually gotten, how do you see this influencing this plan? Thanks, Professor. This is fundamental to this plan is that the countries that you've mentioned currently are able to tell the big brother, no, we're not gonna do this, we don't wanna do this because there is a security framework in the region that exists. Qatar, for example, is able to do what it's done because there is a big American air base there. And so how this changes is we believe inherently over the medium to long term, most of these countries will fall into line in forming some form of a Gulf union. It will take time. We use the Europeans as an example and we could say that it might take as much time if not longer. But this also depends on how they feel they are vulnerable to a potential being squeezed between us and the Iranians without an American guarantor there. But yes, you're absolutely correct. Because of the similarities in cultures and customs, you haven't seen this, unlike what's reported in the press, this pressure and this bullying by Saudi Arabia of you guys have to fall in line or else. And we saw the best example with the Qataris. With everything they've done, there was never any threat of any attack, any threat of any embargo that most we did was just take out the ambassador. So there is a similarity that we're always in my opinion to mitigate such regional quarrels of becoming major issues in the future. The gentleman in the fourth row there. My name's Tom Cochran. I'm puzzled by your suggestion that the Saudis need 20 ICBMs presumably to deter Russia. Could you explain how Russia would be deterred by these 20 ICBMs? And I presume you would infer that they would be loaded with chemical-like explosives and not nuclear weapons. And given that Moscow has an air defense system, I don't see them doing any good. And I could see a lot of harm coming from such a program. The fundamental premise of that countries that have such weapons system are not gonna use them. So we're not gonna use our Chinese missiles. We're not gonna use our new ballistic missiles that we're gonna buy. The issue is not so much a potential of using this sense of perception. The Russians have them, other countries have them. So the question is why shouldn't Saudi Arabia have them? And so stopping short of going what you're referring to to a nuclear tipped missile, this is the best that we've come up with. And if certain countries don't like it, well, so be it. This is how we see it. The third row and my left. Tom Lipner from the Middle East Institute. Now if I wanna ask what's basically a political question, do you expect to have the opportunity to present these thoughts, these ideas, to the people in the Saudi government who are responsible for thinking about these things? And if so, who would those people be? Who's in charge of this? I was fortunate enough with this study over the last year to have been able to get a lot of feedback from a lot of officers and a lot of officials within different circles of the administration in Riyadh. And what I've had is that if I would have liked to name more of the people, but it would have gone on and on and on. The problem is that there is a lot of thoughts, there's a lot of thinking because they're seeing that there's a lot of weapon system coming in. What I hope to do with such a study is to launch the discussion about first coming up with something official, because this is not official. Maybe they can disagree, they can shoot down a lot of it, but at least have it to start a debate, which I hope will be the case. And then to be very specific to your question, the people that are interested in these kind of issues are the new generations. For example, the recently appointed deputy defense minister, very able, very capable. And his appointment was a big boost to the officer court. The current minister of the National Guard. Another career who started all the way from the bottom and made his way up. So fortunately, in a situation back home, you have people that are willing to listen and that see the importance of doing such exercises. The gentleman in the second room. Thanks for your presentation. Hanif Qashani, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. I was curious with Saudi Arabia at odds with Iran in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, for instance. I just wanted to see what your take was given the timing of the nuclear negotiations of the Saudi foreign minister inviting Iran's foreign minister to visit Saudi Arabia in the near future. Thanks. This is something also that's, again, it's become, because it's reported in the press, it becomes a reality. This invitation has been there for several months now, if I can remember. I think it was in February, if I'm not mistaken, when the foreign minister did his tour of the Gulf states. It never happened at the time because the discussions were about what are the issues you're coming to talk about. Let's sit down and talk seriously, not just get to know, we know each other. And so what the foreign minister said was that the invitation is open, he can come whenever he wants. It wasn't, so the Iranians replied, there's no written invitation, no, I mean, you wanna come, you come, you don't have to, you don't need these special cases. And so it's about, it's more about the timing of it and the content, so hopefully he will come or President Rafsanjani will come. And they could have serious discussions, not just for opportunities, but to be able to sit down and have the conversations that are so important to so many people and so many countries around the world today. No, if I am, I wonder if we could go to the issue of the tensions which have existed between the US and Saudi Arabia over security issues or stability issues. I'm not sure whether I should, how I should phrase it, but there obviously have been serious differences over Syria and to some extent Egypt, over the entire response in some ways to the security and stability issues in the Middle East. And I wonder, from a Saudi perspective, how you see those tensions today? It's something that you said earlier on and it's been repeated several times. There's too much at stake for both countries and this relationship goes back 70, 80 years. David here has written a book about it, Tom has written another book about it and it's not a relationship that's born, that's new people that are newlywed. Having said that, when 2011 happened, there was a fundamental differences in the reading of always happening. And a lot of people at the time in the US administration believed that this was the beginning of something very new and they were all very romantic about it and believed that this is going to lead to a much better future for the entire Arab world. Also on the other side were much more pessimistic about it. And I remember at the time hearing from several people back home who had had these discussions with US officials about how they saw it ending. And what I heard at the time prompted me to write the first of my reports at Harvard, which was the failing of the nation state system in the Arab world. And it was not only about that this would lead to upheavals and instability, but this would actually lead to certain Arab countries falling apart, disintegrating. And today we see it happening in front of our eyes. And so if you want, this is the fundamental tensions that developed back then that have continued. Now what if you're referring to the big blowout that happened was obviously about Syria, but not so much about the US not doing A, B or C. It was about how it came out. And it was about how the US administration managed this communication by being very committed in one instance and then within a 24 hour period completely changing its posture. And then obviously the whole situation with the secret talks between certain US administration officials and the Iranians. So it's, if you want, it's a situation where the much junior partner is very upset with the much bigger partner. It doesn't mean it's going to ultimately affect the situation going forward, but it's also going to let the junior partner come up with something like this and have a new outlook on instead of always living in a security parameter and in a security environment as was the case coming up with something new because we believe we're able to do so. The gentleman in the first row. Yeah, thank you. My name is Mohamed Al-Sharif. I'm the ambassador of the Arab League. I'm from Saudi Arabia by the way originally. I'm sorry, I came late. I don't know whether you touched or how do you see the role of the GCC in relation to the Arab League. Aside from the military issues that you discussed, do they compete with each other or do they complement each other? How do you see the situation between the two organizations? So can I start, Safir? I will refer the ambassador's question to the table here. What you have today is that you have a shift of economic, political, and religious power in the Arab world from the historical center, which was the Levant and Egypt to the Gulf state. It's just fact, these are the numbers. I don't think necessarily it's a competition between the two. I think what you have is that you have even a shift within the Arab League about who are the most influential countries and we see it today in their deliberations in Cairo. What would, now it'll be, I personally, I don't believe that today we can make a plausible assessment because of the situation in a lot of these Arab countries. But let's say that there is a final breakthrough on a schedule for a Gulf union. I think this would impact very positively on this new reorganization that everyone keeps talking about in the Arab League. But it's a shift, it's a change that a lot of Arabs outside of the Gulf are not yet fully accepting that the power has shifted historically from one area of the Arab world to the other. The lady in the second row. Mary Naota with the Wilson Center, I know. You have outlined a very ambitious plan for the building up of the defense capability of Saudi Arabia. How long do you think a project of this sort in my take, assuming it gets, you know, a version of it gets adopted? In the study, the timeline I give is five to 10 years. Putting in mind that some of these weapons system have are in the process of being delivered. But the issue here is not so much about the weapons system that it's more about the training, the indoctrination, which over the past several of the Saudi services have lacked. And so a lot, there's a substantial amount of these funds that's going specifically to training, enhancements, the extra manpower that are gonna be needed to mend these new weapons system coming in. So my timeframe is five to 10 years, and I hope that, and I thought carefully about this because we're entering a very precarious period in the region. And I don't think we have that much time available in order to get a project of this sort underway, be it this or being any other project of that magnitude. Because if I may say, the funds have been allocated. This is not an, if the funds have already been there, a lot of these contracts have been signed. So the issue is that you have a situation where you have everything coming in. So the question is, how are you gonna manage all the stuff coming in? Gentleman in the third row. Thank you, I'm still Dave DeRosh. When you raise that question, it calls to mind the issue of manpower capacity within the kingdom. So just in the last three months, the Ministry of the Interior, which we haven't discussed today has signed a $70 million case for training. The sang, as you mentioned, has been increased to a ministry. Do you think there actually is the manpower, being a soldier is not for everybody? Do you actually think there is the manpower of not just people that you can hire and give a check to, but that are willing to do this sort of thing within Saudi Arabia? How do you propose to deal with that? I know the Ministry of Labor has had a hard time trying to get Saudis to take jobs that are perhaps less unpleasant than being a soldier at times. Yes, this is a fundamental point that was one of the more critical points that on which the study is based on. Currently in Riyadh you have three major U.S. training missions done by three senior U.S. generals. And one of the issues, which I found in starting, is that the notion that Saudi Arabia has a manpower problem in, for example, in a rudimentary job such as being a simple soldier is not there. We actually have an overcapacity. The Ministry of Labor, which you correctly point out, is having problems putting Saudis in jobs that need special training. Hence the general government organization, such as the big project that's ongoing at the Kennedy School for the labor industry. Bringing soldiers into the services is not that hard. I'll give you an example. In 2011, after the uprisings happened, there were a series of world decrees that came out. One of which was the expansion of, was to increase jobs personnel in the Ministry of Interior by 60,000. So with the world decree, suddenly the Ministry of Interior had 60,000 extra jobs in the various services that operate under it. From my understanding, the ratio to job there when this came out was one to four. So you had four men applying for this one job. And so in the history, if you look at from the security military aspect, there's never been a problem in stashing jobs in these fields before. And now we even have more of such. On the more skilled level, for example, engineers and so forth, we have the huge King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, which today has reached over 150,000 of the students and there's a job fair ongoing currently just across the corner. Again, the army is able, the armed forces are able to get into this job market. And I understood, I'm not sure, but I've understood that they've actually sent representatives to be able to pick out newly graduates. They did it in London and I think they're doing it here, but I'm not sure. So the issue of manpower and capacity is still there, but it's manageable if we have a system in place that can bring in the correct causes. So I'm not as worried about this as I'm worried about other issues. Gentleman in the second round. Thanks for your presentation. I'm Dan Markey at the Council on Foreign Relations. Can you describe the thinking in Saudi Arabia about the potential for a conventional balance and doctrine to offset a nuclear Iran? How this is being discussed? I see in the report you note the need for Saudi Arabia to rethink its nuclear doctrine if Iran were to cross the threshold, but is there any thought to a conventional balancing capability? Thanks. See the issue with having nuclear weapons, it's not so much an issue of will you use them, especially in the Middle East, it's a perception. So let's say tomorrow Iran says, well, you know what? We've just declared that we have nuclear weapons. It's the perception that it syncs to, within the Arab communities, that wow, this is an all powerful country that we can't stand against anymore. So it's not so much about the use of it, it's about the thinking of it. And so up at the Kennedy School, there is this program on managing the atom, and you know, excessively brilliant minds spend their time thinking about these issues, not about actual, that you're gonna use it to bomb someone, is what is the political and the strategic meaning of anyone being able to credibly claim that he can detonate a bomb or put it on top of a missile and send it. Our problem is that if this is to happen, then it's a game changer for us, because a lot of what's written here, a lot of what the thinking by much more competent and senior strategic thinkers in Saudi Arabia wouldn't, would mean much less if for example, tomorrow the Iranians come and say, we've detonated a bomb. Putting this into consideration, you see these resounding numbers coming out of Tehran by the admission of President Rouhani about how the Iranian government is nearly bankrupt and about the economic and financial situation it's in. So as Professor Korzman said earlier on, Iran has nothing of being, of even claiming to ever being a hegemon in the region. But unfortunately, this kind of analysis is not yet widespread within the region. They just focus on, they hear about Iranian officers being in Syria or about potentially being having Iranian officers in the south, in the north of Yemen. And this is enough to say, wow, this huge power that's upon us that's going to basically take us out. And hence why the nuclear issue is so, it's such a game changer and such a zero sum game for us, because if they do have it, then how conventionally, how many tanks, how many planes, how many troops will be enough to bring back some sense of confidence within the people that you can sustain and you're Iran having a nuclear weapon. And I don't think it can be done. If I may follow up on that. One point, Secretary Clinton, without defining exactly what it meant, offered the Gulf States extended deterrence of the kind that the United States once offered to Europe. I don't believe there's been any formal follow up to that in public, but it is an offer which I think technically is still on the table. So that would be question one. The second is that sometime between July 20th and six months later, we are supposed to either have an agreement between the P5 plus one and Iran or not have an agreement. And how does the kingdom look at this negotiation? How would success change its policies? How would failure change its policies? Thanks. Yes, the American deterrence is a physical deterrence which is obviously highly appreciated, but it still doesn't get to the point I was making to the gentleman, is that politically is how would it be seen if Iran, for example, does develop a nuclear, like for example, take the case of Pakistan today. Pakistan has a lot of the same problems Iran has. It's the same structural problems is by no means a wealthy country, but it has a special standing in the Muslim world today because of the fact that it has nuclear weapons. Now if you ask me are the Pakistanis that we're gonna use, they're nuclear bombs? 99% of you, this will never happen. So it's not so much about the physical aspect because we don't believe the Iranians will actually use it. I mean, they're not gonna be silly enough to use nuclear because that'll be the end of that state as we know it. But it's unfortunately because of the last map I've shown, because of the political situation, the tenseness in the region, this is not so much a military issue that it's become a political, strategic balance of power issue that we actually cannot be seen to ever lose. What's your second question? Sorry. What happens with the P5 plus one if it succeeds and if it fails? Well, it's no secret, we didn't have much hope or much anything positive to say about it. If it succeed, so be it, but the chances of that happening in my perspective at least is very remote. And hence why the unknown is so important to us because we have no say if it succeeds or if it doesn't succeed. And as you correctly point out, if it does succeed, there will be a lot of things that will change in the Middle East. And hence why we can no longer be seen as if you want having a future guaranteed by an outside factor that we have no control over. And hence proposing something like this is a beginning and why you see all these weapon system and contracts being signed all the time. My name is Hanyu Kayli. The question is about the US talks with Iran and all that. You just mentioned that if it does succeed, then so be it, don't you think that Saudi needs to have some sort of a voice or a place on the table in those negotiations simply because of the fact that, you know, if anyone's gonna be affected directly, it's gonna be Saudi and the neighboring countries in the region. And what do you think Saudi's position on that is from being on the negotiation table? There's been calls for GCC to be on the negotiating table. So we see it from the perspective that it's not just that all countries will be affected by it. So for example, in Turkey has repeated it several times that we should have a voice at the table representing the Gulf countries. But you see, this framework came into being several years ago and we weren't part of it then. So realistically we don't see that we could be part of it now, which is unfortunate and somehow having being on one side with the rest of being on the same side as for example, the Russians and especially the Russians, this would be inconceivable for us. So for the time being, if the GCC is agreed, so be it, but I doubt this will happen. And the second row. Thank you. I'd like to go back to the issue of manpower for a moment because I was doing some quick calculation as if you were talking. And I may have missed a slide because I started doing my math after you had been talking for a while. But you are talking, I think about 640,000 men under arms in your plane. Given the size of the Saudi population and particularly the age, you know, only half is male, probably less than half given the normal demographics, you have a very young population, but a very large percentage of it is far too young to be in the military. You end up, I think, with an extraordinarily high proportion of men under arms compared to the rest of the population. So what does that do to the economy of the country to the structure of the labor force? What I did was that I looked specifically at the age groups you mentioned and we took it five to 10 years out. If you see the population growth in Saudi Arabia has been extraordinary. And so what we see is that the biggest part, the segments, the largest part is the graph population goes this way. Thing is that it's becoming like this. So the part between, if I remember correctly, between the 10 to 25 is huge. And this is the problem with the new responsibility of the Ministry of Labor. And so in bringing people into service, we're gonna be looking at, this is the range that we look at. The officer corps that are now responsible to receiving all these weapons systems and they're already in the army and they've done certain studies. So what we're looking at, we're looking at the sizable population where it's the base between the 10 to 25, 15 to 30, is gonna be quite large and will only increase over the next 10 years. And so this will mitigate the problem that we're currently seeing where we have all these graduates that don't find necessary job or that find job but they're underemployed. And so we looked at this. If you want, I'm happy to send you the graph when I find it to say, and it did match the timeframe that's set in there. That doesn't mean that the people coming into the service, this would be a career for them because a lot of people, soldiers and so forth are there but they also have their own businesses on the side. But it's a way to be able to ascertain that there is enough manpower in order to be able to advance, to have a capability that we believe is necessary going forward. Now if I can't help but note that one solution would be that since you now have more women graduating from secondary school than university, if you make the women, the officers and the men the enlisted personnel, you have an obvious solution to your personnel problem and the armed forces. But there's perhaps a more serious point in the back. For the microphone. Sorry, Andrea Shalal with Reuters. I just had a sort of a follow up to the earlier question and I just wanna make sure that I'm understanding you correctly and I apologize, I came in a little late so I haven't seen your full report or read it. But it sounds to me like you're describing a sort of a shift in Saudi perceptions, particularly with regard to the US and kind of this effort to also hedge their bets a little bit more than they have in the past. And I wonder, given what you said about these problems with the Navy and the SNAP program, is it your understanding that the Saudis are growing impatient with US sort of willingness to release weapons, particularly things like a modified Aegis platform and are now looking to France and other players? And to go back to the F-35 question, maybe I wasn't quite sharp enough about it. My understanding is that the US government will release the F-35 at some point to Gulf States at some whatever acceptable delay after the Israelis have it in their possession. But when I'm talking to people about that weapon system in particular, what is always said is the strong relationship with Qatar and the UAE because of the bases. And Saudi never seems to get mentioned so I'm wondering if it's gonna sort of be a tension point in coming years or whether it'll be avoided because the Saudis will say we don't even want it in the first place. I mean, it's no secret that I mean, today how the world is developing, we have other suppliers and they're willing to provide the kind of weapon system that potentially the US wouldn't necessarily. There's been delays, there's been delays over the last several years for all kind of reasons about certain specific systems that had been requested. Ultimately, they were released. So it's not, we're not in a situation where there's been a no, there's never been a no. But at the same time, it comes back to the perception, we are going towards a paradigm where we, the understanding is that we should be guarantors of our own security and this is what this is about. And so the debate is how do you do that and how do you get there? On the issue of weapon system, yes, we have a very, it's no secret, we have a very close relationship with France. Today they are the ones that are training and doing a good job with the enhancement of our special forces and so forth. We're getting into satellites, we're getting into all kind of different systems that in the past that's never been the case. So I wouldn't necessarily say that it's, if you don't buy here, we'll go somewhere else. No, it's not that, it's not that. There is a new reality being set there and in some cases, the domestic functionality of the US government in releasing certain weapon system becomes a burden on how we develop or how we see our time scale to developing certain of our forces. So I would put it in this way. It's very easy to talk about a lot of these systems. F-35 is a good example. We have no idea what the life cycle cost or the maintenance burden is. Stealth aircraft, at least to date, have been extraordinarily difficult maintenance issues, storage issues, and it's easy to want them. It's not quite the same as being able to afford and operate them. Aegis ship is something you can buy as a status symbol but actually creating the operational capabilities and sustaining a very high visibility platform in the middle of the Gulf is not always the easiest thing on earth and that really raises the question, how much as the kingdom moves toward this concept, are you going to develop the kind of test and evaluation capability within the kingdom that for example would avoid ending up with the early models of the tornado or over-buying a complex US system without proper regard to cost and its actual performance in your hands? That is critical to why this is different. In the last year or two there's, now there it's become a norm to have large scale military exercises before it was unheard of. The last one is just several weeks ago and it wasn't so much that it was a show force, it actually wasn't, it was a show to see if, as you always write about the interoperability of the different forces, how they work together, how they don't work together, when needs to be done and to be able to test what we have and what's coming in. So the National Guards done one, did a big one at the end of last year. Now this time with the first one it was on a bigger scale where there was over 130 personnel that took part from the National Guard, the Army and several service of the Ministry of Interior with Air Force and National Guard attack helicopters as an exercise platform in three different territories of the kingdom. So what you say is actually part and parcel of the thinking and we learned our lesson of buying the best and the most expensive but not necessarily knowing how to properly use it. That's why on the Air Force slide there is the high quality aircrafts that I mentioned are all non-stealth, although it's debatable if you go to what manufacturer they'll say there is some stealth capability but let's just say for all intents and purposes, for example on the F-15, the new F-15 variant there was two choices the Saudis had. They had the F-15 SE which is the silent eagle and they had the F-15 SA which is the new variant of the most advanced one which was a Singapore one or the Singapore and Korea one. And the decision was made to actually go with a non-stealth one because of the exact issues Professor Korserman is raising. So it's not so much, there's been a shift in going after a lot, going after a huge amount and I make it clear in the study that you don't want a massive army, Iraq or Iran or Syria. They're just there in Europe and don't do anything. And this is something, it's a big learning curve and I think the way it's being done I'm actually quite optimistic about it. Hi, I'm Salman Jal Ahmad from the Bahrain Embassy. My question, well I'm intrigued by the power play perception that we talked a lot about and Iran is an expansionist state. You know, it has this slamming hegemonic doctrine that it's been trying to enforce. Its nuclear capabilities have definitely strengthened that doctrine at least perceptively and we can't deny that. I was wondering, you know, you seeing Saudi strengthening its military capabilities and infrastructure, whether you're worried that you may end up being criticized for sharing similar doctrines of hegemony. I mean, Iran, I mean you guys do share some similarities. Iran symbolizing the mothership of Shiites in the region and Saudis being the mothership of Sunnis. So do you think or are you worried by strengthening your military infrastructure that this would be criticism and how would you handle that? I mean, for all the criticism, Saudi Arabia has come under over the last decade. I think we've developed quite a strong skin for that. I mean, it doesn't really factor if we're gonna be criticized for it or not. We just, it's not there. But what's important is that there's a difference is that we don't have any hegemonic ambitions. We're not gonna go invade any countries. Even the intervention Bahrain, you saw how careful it was Don, how many statements came out, clarifying what was being done, who came in, who didn't come in. So it's a complete different notion. On the other side, yes, Iran does have these principles and this belief, but at the same time, when you, for example, hear what their president is saying, you're saying that there is nothing about hegemonic that they can ascertain to be capable of doing. So there's a fundamental difference and to show it's, for example, the Saudi Arabia's relation with the Gulf states. I mean, there's a lot of friction, there's a lot of tension, but it hasn't ever emerged to the point where it's gonna be bullying. If you don't do this, we're gonna do this, or we're gonna stop, we're gonna go in, we're gonna invade. And this is really something to safeguard the stability of the region, not so much to change it and to have an imperial ambitions on any countries or to redraw the map of the region. For example, like the Russians are doing currently in Eastern Europe. Hania O'Kaley again. The question in your study did, and in light of what you were talking about, Saudi Arabia has been known to buy the best and not think of long-term. Did you take a look at, for example, MIC and what plans they have or how would they be able to utilize such a thing to be able to actually turn towards either self-dependency or developing something that they have already, instead of depending on looking for providers throughout the region or the world? MIC, the military industrial operation. Oh, yes, yes, oh, yes, yes. Oh, absolutely. The companies that are involved in this, this would be the second part of the study, because all this is good, but if you don't develop the indigenous base, for example, if a gun breaks down, if you still have to take the spare parts coming from outside, it becomes a problematic to be able to credibly do what you need to do. So there's been several companies that have started. There's been more coming in as subcontractors now to the services, but it's a big component of the funds that are going into these weapons system is to be able to grow indigenous. So part of what Hanny was saying. And this is something that I understand is a priority among the new officer court leaders that were just named last week, which is a big component is to start having indigenous modeling, indigenous production and indigenous factories to be able to do even at some point, certain parts that we don't necessarily have to import at a much higher cost. I think one should be very careful about these arguments. Two countries I can think of have found this to be a form of self disarmament. One is India, which frankly has built up its military industries in ways which have been immensely costly to the effectiveness of Indian forces. The other is Iran, which is claimed now for decades to be producing and doesn't. But has created the facilities and spent a lot of its limited money on them. But let me turn because we are coming toward the end too. You touch briefly on the issue of counterterrorism. But counterterrorism is not simply a matter of the counterterrorism forces. It is a matter of eliminating the forces that create extremist and terrorist groups. Kingdom has just passed legislation which will make it much harder for volunteers who've gone outside the kingdom to return. It also under King Abdullah had a whole set of economic measures to try to bring stability. But I wonder if you could talk at least a bit about the civil dimension of counterterrorism. One of the reasons why I didn't delve so much on counterterrorism and this because the whole counterterrorism program is managed by the Ministry of Interior and with the successes that you all know. On the civil side, that's becoming much more interesting initiative because you're having various ministries get involved now. So you still have the Ministry of Interior that deals with the rehabilitation of them. But as well as you have new NGOs that are coming up. For example, my other center in Riyadh, the King Faisal Center has been doing some terrific monthly publication on the different forms of terrorism within Saudi society. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna take a gun and go shoot someone or blow something up that you're a terrorist. It's the whole encouragement is what kind of dialogue you use with people that listen to you, what kind of words, what kind of justification you give them. And one of the study that was done by a colleague shows that in some cases the people that are using the words and the scholarship are much more lethal than the guy that goes and shoots or puts a bomb. So you've had NGOs, for example, the King Khalid Foundation has done a superb campaign against, which is not terrorist related, but to show you an example, which is against the beating of women in Saudi Arabia. And that's been put in the newspaper, it's been put on TV and so forth. So you have that new impetus that's coming in from think tanks, NGOs, cultural centers, they're all in their own field doing activities on that. And hence why it's become so much more difficult for families to be happy to say, we know my son went and just did this in Syria or went and did this in Afghanistan or in Yemen because there is now a civil, there's no societal responsibility to be on the right side. And the right side doesn't mean listening to some cleric that's gonna tell you, you will go to heaven if you go to Syria tomorrow and X, Y, Z you do. So this is, but this is not part of this, this would be part of a different paper. Thank you. I think we have one last question. The gentleman in the third row. Patrick Ryan, newsletter called Seussress. Thank you for your presentation today. Can you talk a little bit about the bilateral relationship and the motivation for Saudi Arabia now wanting to be the guarantor of its security? We've had statements both from officials and unofficial sources that the Gulf partners were concerned about the reduction of the footprint, American energy calculus shifting and the pivot to the East. Some of these concerns have been addressed by President Obama, Secretaries Hagel and Kerry in visits. How much of those reassurances have been accepted by Saudis and where do we stand now with the confidence that American security guarantees are still in place? To be honest, I don't know if, I'll be very honest, that's my opinion, but I don't know if that matters anymore. In the sense that there are the fundamentals, as Professor Korsman explained, they're gonna be there, they're not changing. But, and it comes to the question David was asking, if the Gulf countries have a certain perception about their security, about their regional situation, does differ from how we see things. Again, it has to do with size, it has strategic outlook, capabilities and so forth. And this will guide because we cannot kid ourselves and say that there will be a new basis for a US-Saudi relation. It's not gonna break, it's too important to break, but the fundamentals on which it was based, which is oil for security, won't necessarily be at five, 10 years from now. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming and may I ask you to thank the speaker in the usual manner.