Lucien Zeigler | Arabianomics.com | 8/24/10
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) discusses the new US-Saudi arms deal in the context of US strategic realities in the Middle East in the coming years and decades. As the US leaves Iraq, which is many years off from having a respectable national military, Saudi Arabia stands alone as America’s most stalwart ally in the Gulf.
The US-Saudi Arms deal “will help secure the flow of energy exports to the global economy and help limit oil prices; they reinforce deterrence rather than threaten it; and they all reduce the size of the force the US must deploy or be ready to project into the region,” Cordesman writes. “They will also help ensure the US strategic position in the region at time when other powers like China are becoming key players in global energy, and when recycling “petrodollars” is even more important than in the past.”
Cordesman’s piece is a must read on the US-Saudi arms deal. Read it here.
