A/T: Relations Resilient – Security
Arab spring could be the deciding factor in relations - swamps security
Financial Times 2011 (June 16, "Arab spring tests US-Saudi relationship" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4082dc70-984d-11e0-ae45-00144feab49a.html#axzz1SlOYMHrW, SRM)
Still, Washington and Riyadh could be at a turning point in their 60-year relationship as the Arab spring has laid bare its contradictions. The wave of democracy spreading across the Middle East is widely viewed as good news in America, but the onset of dislocating change in the region is anything but good news for the Saudis. The US support for democratic change means “we have become a source of insecurity rather than security for Saudi Arabia”, Mr Miller said. The relationship is founded on the core understanding that the US will provide security for Saudi Arabia, which in return will do its part to keep oil prices stable. It has come under strain from the outset, notably when the US recognised the state of Israel in 1948.
***Impacts***
Loss of relations with the US leads to Saudi prolif
Feldman 2003 (Yana, Senior research analyst at FirstWatch International, “Country Profile 8: Saudi Arabia” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute; http://www.sipri.org/contents/expcon/cnsc1sau.html)
The strategic situation of Saudi Arabia is such that the Kingdom might consider a nuclear alliance with a friendly nuclear power or its own nuclear deterrent an attractive option. The Kingdom is situated between two powerful regional rivals – Israel and Iran. Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons while it is strongly suspected that the Iranian nuclear programme has been developed to create the option to develop nuclear weapons. As recently as 1991, Saudi Arabia may have depended on the nuclear umbrella of the United States to deter the possible use of chemical or biological weapons against targets in Saudi Arabia by Saddam Hussein. The continued deterioration of security ties with the United States might well provide an incentive to secure a viable nuclear alternative. Although Saudi Arabia appears to be a low proliferation threat at this stage, given their considerable level of wealth, links to nations that have known nuclear programmes, the possibility that Saudi Arabia would consider a nuclear weapons option for the future remains a concern for some analysts.
Collapse of US alliance causes Saudi Prolif
Luft and Korin 2004 (Gal Luft and Anne Korin, Commentary Magazine, Institute for Analysis of Global Security, http://www.iags.org/sinosaudi.htm)
There are some particularly alarming scenarios to consider here. If the Saudis were to begin worrying seriously about a future American seizure of their oil fields, they might well seek ways to deter it. Given the weakness of their own military, one option would be to acquire nuclear weapons. Although talk of a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia may, at this juncture, seem farfetched, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Saudi Arabia could break its military dependence on the U.S. either by entering into an alliance with some other existing nuclear power or by acquiring its own nuclear capability. In either case, China would play a crucial role.
Loss of alliance Nukes
Levi 2003 (Michael, Science and Technology Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies @ Brookings, “Would the Saudis Go Nuclear?,” http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/levi20030602.htm)
Why would Riyadh want nukes now? Because of a potentially dangerous confluence of events. The rapidly progressing nuclear program of traditional rival Iran has no doubt spooked the Saudi leadership. Last fall, dissidents revealed the existence of a covert Iranian uranium-enrichment program, forcing analysts to drastically revise down their estimates of how long it might take Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Reacting to that development, Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently wrote that "Saudi Arabia is the state most likely to proliferate in response to an Iranian nuclear threat" because, he argued, the Saudis fear a nuclear-armed Iran could have designs on Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy that is home to a large number of oppressed Shia. After all, Tehran has for years allegedly supported Shia terrorist groups operating in Saudi Arabia and was blamed by many analysts for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. Holding back the Saudi nuclear program, of course, has been the kingdom's relationship with the United States. Though America has never signed a formal treaty with Riyadh, since World War II the United States has made clear by its actions—most notably, by protecting Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf war—and by informal guarantees given to Saudi leaders by American officials that it will protect the monarchy from outside threats. Since the September 11 attacks, though, that relationship has grown increasingly frail. When a RAND analyst last summer told the Defense Policy Board, then chaired by Richard Perle, that Saudi Arabia was "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East, he not only raised hackles in Riyadh, he reflected the opinion of many close to the Bush administration. R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and White House confidant, was even more emphatic in a speech last November, referring to "the barbarics [sic], the Saudi royal family." The recent decision by Washington to pull most of its forces out of Saudi Arabia, reducing its deployment from 5,000 to 400 personnel and moving its operations to Qatar, has added facts on the ground to the rhetorical barrage. This recent decline in U.S.-Saudi relations can hardly make the Saudi royal family feel secure. Suddenly removing the U.S. security blanket just as regional rivalries are intensifying could push the Saudis into the nuclear club. That's a scary prospect, particularly when you consider the possibility of Islamists overthrowing the monarchy. Instead, the United States should be careful to maintain Saudi Arabia's confidence even as the two nations inevitably drift apart. The United States might even extend an explicit security guarantee to the Saudis, the kind of formal treaty it gave Europe to keep it non-nuclear during the cold war-and the kind of formal arrangement Washington and Riyadh have never signed before. Such a formal deal could raise anti-American sentiment in the desert kingdom. But the alternative might be worse.
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