Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Kyiv February 26, meeting with Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky. They signed a $400 million memorandum of understanding, one-quarter of which was allocated toward humanitarian assistance and the rest in financing for oil, a deal first announced in October 2022. Despite the visit and a recent Saudi vote at the United Nations against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – repeating a vote Riyadh cast in 2022 – the general view is that Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have maintained a neutral position on the conflict, despite U.S. pressure for a more robust response against Russia.
Divergence With the United States on Ukraine
On both Ukraine and Syria, the United States’ and the Gulf Arab states’ policies have long diverged. On Ukraine, Gulf policy divergence has been an issue of concern for the United States since Russia initially invaded one year ago. Gulf countries, most prominently Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have never accepted the policy rationale of the administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. asserting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine represents a fundamental inflexion point for Western Europe and a danger to the post-World War II arrangements that have ensured order and stability. Gulf powers have tended instead to view the conflict as an aspect of great power rivalry they have preferred to avoid. That Gulf refusal to get on board the coalition against Russian President Vladimir Putin is also rooted partly – and deeply – in economic self-interest. Saudi Arabia in particular views Russia, with its vast oil reserves and 10 million barrels per day of oil production, as a critical ally in the kingdom’s quest to maintain decisive influence over global oil production and, through it, pricing. The economic partnership with Russia is baked into Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 ambitions and its broader aspirations for economic transformation and an energy transition that addresses the imperatives of climate change while ensuring the country’s long-term preeminence in hydrocarbons.
Gulf countries have also reacted quite tepidly – in tandem with countries in the Global South – to periodic U.S. statements of the policy case that marshaled references to the liberal democratic order, somehow threatened by Putin. While in more recent months such rhetoric has been de-emphasized, it played badly in Gulf countries, with their different, mostly monarchical governing arrangements. U.S. officials have also seemed a bit surprised that Gulf leaders do not make the connection between Ukraine and the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait or acknowledge that protection of national sovereignty – in mortal peril in Ukraine – represents the bedrock in their long-time oil-for-security compact with the United States. Russia’s success in Syria, with a decisive military intervention beginning in 2015, enhanced its prestige in the Middle East in a sustained way; Gulf countries have been slow to recalibrate the luster of that prestige in light of how poorly Russian arms, soldiers, and tactics have performed in Ukraine. That said, the Saudi visit to Kyiv, the most senior Arab delegation since the war began, may represent some initial edging away from Russia. While U.S. officials will likely continue to press for more support on Ukraine and greater distancing from Putin, the divergence in policy seems likely to remain, as Gulf leaders discount U.S. and Western long-term resolve and remain invested in the assessment that Putin’s regional dominance, brutality, and willingness to escalate leave him a route for success in Ukraine.
Similar Policy Divide on Syria
On Syria, the Biden administration has largely adhered to the policy contours established by its predecessor. The emphasis remains on a U.N.-led political solution for Syria, accountability for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, leaning in hard on humanitarian assistance, and continuing the small U.S. military presence in northeastern Syria to fight any resurgence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Layers of U.S. sanctions, including the stringent Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, also remain in place as leverage to advance these policies. A recent rationale for staying the course in Syria seems to be to avoid handing Putin any semblance of victory or opportunity to crow in support of his Ukraine misadventure.
After cutting off diplomatic relations with Assad and backing the opposition in the uprising in Syria that began in 2011, Gulf Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, began moving in a different direction in 2018, reopening embassies and pursuing diplomatic normalization. Some Gulf countries returned ambassadors beginning in 2020. UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan visited Damascus in 2021, and other senior-level visits by Gulf officials have continued the process of diplomatic normalization with the Assad regime, including Abdullah bin Zayed’s recent visit in the wake of the earthquakes that struck Syria and Turkey. These efforts run counter to the overall tenor in U.S. policy against normalizing relations, although Gulf countries have avoided getting ensnared in sanctions violations. The United States has expressed unhappiness with each step to improve relations, but consensus among policymakers – reinforced by the administration’s backburner approach to Syria generally – seems to be that the complicated mess that Syria represents makes it difficult for the United States to get too worked up about this policy divergence.
Strategic Diversification
There are two other fundamental dynamics at play in the Gulf that also help explain these significant policy divergences with Washington. First is the Gulf states’ growing emphasis in the past decade on strategic diversification. While the United States is still viewed as the key security partner for these countries, especially in extremis, they want to pursue their economic and foreign policy interests untrammeled by the previous, more aligned approach with the United States. This is, in part, driven by the emergence of China as an economic superpower and rising global security power. But it is also stems from Gulf assessments, shaped significantly by misguided or overstated U.S. policy pronouncements hyping the United States’ interests in Asia and declining need to be involved in the Middle East. While a corrective has set in, driven by recurring reminders that the Gulf remains a critical region for U.S. interests and military presence, these somewhat ill-advised U.S. policy pronouncements helped inform and reinforce Gulf policies of strategic diversification.
Emergence of the Gulf as the Center of Middle Eastern Influence
A second, as important, factor explaining Gulf policy divergence with the United States in Syria and Ukraine is connected with the emergence of the Gulf in the past decade as the center of power and influence in the Middle East (as old-guard regional powers fell by the wayside), and through its economic might and extensive soft power (and, in select cases, hard power) far beyond the broader Middle East and North Africa. This has, indeed, become an extended Gulf moment, of sorts, defined by the emergence of relatively young, vigorous leaders in key countries, rising confidence reinforced by humming economies supported by high energy prices, and, in some instances, vast reserves in resources. This confidence has been reinforced by the crisis in Ukraine, which has reminded the global community of the central importance of oil and natural gas as absolutely vital commodities for the next several decades.
This new Gulf assertiveness was already emerging before the Ukraine crisis, creating numerous divergences with U.S. policies. This confidence has also been critical for key policy convergences, for example, the willingness of the UAE and Bahrain to sign the Abraham Accords normalizing relations with Israel and to participate in the Negev Forum framework with other such signatories and Middle East treaty partners with Israel.
Effort to Unpeg From Broader U.S. Policy Constraints
The Gulf states have a dual approach to managing relations with the United States and asserting their interests, which gets back to why they won’t get with the program on Syria and Ukraine. They are convinced they can unpeg from broader U.S. policy constraints sufficiently to pursue their interests with diverse partners globally (despite periodically causing irritation in Washington) while safeguarding sufficient U.S. goodwill and calculated U.S. policy interest in continuing Gulf security guarantees (implicit and articulated) and also ensure continued access to vital U.S. technology, trade, and investments. The Gulf states feel they can do this – each at their own pace and definition – because of rising confidence in the influence built up over the past four decades, regionally and internationally.
This New Gulf is likely to pick its policy divergences with the United States carefully, as the approach carries risks as well as opportunities. U.S. domestic politics will have their own dynamics that can bedevil relations with the United States, even absent significant policy divergences. And Gulf countries are also likely to remain cognizant of significant cultural, social, and economic transformations underway in their societies and of the broader global challenges – climate change, food security, and critical energy transitions – that will require attention, well-formulated policies, and powerful, influential allies to help Gulf leaders continue the region’s emergence.
In the meantime, on discrete issues, such as Ukraine and Syria, Gulf countries feel emboldened – and compelled – to go their own way. So far, the approach has not stirred up overly problematic policy headwinds with Washington, and it has allowed Gulf countries to implicitly renegotiate the fundamental security bargain with the United States. Crises foretold and not yet visible on the horizon will likely test this approach and make U.S.-Gulf relations seem a bit unsteady at times, as the two sides figure out and continue renegotiating the compact that has proved resilient over the past 75 years. In the meantime, policy differences over Ukraine and Syria will continue as Gulf confidence, strategic diversification, management of transformations, and honest differences over respective interests in specific conflicts create a new norm for intense tactical policy divergences and loose, calculated strategic convergence.
