Yesterday we covered the key players in the US and Saudi relations. Today we’ll look at the strategic implications of this relationship over the past 40 years and what it looks like moving forward.
Saudi Arabia matters to the US more than many other US allies. Not only are the Saudis massive oil exporters, but they also have strong ties to the world’s Muslim population.
France, Germany and the Brits
The United States’ most important European allies are the Germans, the French and the Brits.
However, British influence is seriously declining with the UK leaving the European Union.
The Germans are heading towards the collapse of its population, a trend for the past 40 years due to the German Boomer generation not having a replacement generation.
The Germans still have the option of immigration, though with taking 15.3 million people in Germany, just under one in five nationwide, immigrated there at some point in their lives, according to new government statistics for 2022. Almost 5 million more were born to migrant parents.
The German population is 79,903,481 (July 2021 est.) German 86.3%, Turkish 1.8%, Polish 1%, Syrian 1%, Romanian 1%, other/stateless/unspecified 8.9% (2020 est.).
With the influx of immigration from the migrant crisis and possibly Ukrainians fleeing the Ukraine War, Germany’s population is still declining unless the trends and courses of people not having children in Germany is the first.
Immigrants after generation tend to adapt and take upon the culture of the new nation, which means immigration short-term is merely a sticking plaster for long-term problems within Germany and developed countries.
The United Kingdom has resolved this problem temporarily with immigration from the ex-British Empire, and the French successfully had a replacement generation which all the other nations in Europe had failed to accomplish.
As for your American long-term ally, in the region providing the European Union survives Germany’s economic and political irrelevance. It’s highly debated whether or not the French care about the European Union or whether or not they see the EU as merely a means to expand the influence of France.
The New Cold War Saudi Arabia
Over the past few decades, the US and the Saudis have partnered up to tackle a handful of critical situations, from stalling the Soviets to the war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 to spur economic growth in Europe and Japan; this relationship has proven vital.
The bottom line is that with major players like Russia and China already in motion, the US and Saudis won’t allow ugly politics to get in the way of geopolitical relations.
Saudi Arabia is a power centre and doesn’t need to be under the American wing, but there’s still a mutually beneficial relationship on the table. Even when the Saudis put journalists on barbecues, and that is not a joke.