>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today we are joined by Dr. Wayne Bowen, who is the interim associate dean of the college undergraduate studies at the University of Central Florida and a professor of history.

Welcome to the show, Wayne.

>>Thank you.

>>Wayne, we're talking today about the book you've written on Saudi Arabia, which is coming out with a third edition soon.

Tell us a little about the book, first of all, and your motivation for writing it.

>>Sure.

Well, the book is a textbook, so it's a gentle introduction for students whether high school or college that begins almost from the from the beginning of time and then goes up to fairly recent events.

The last edition was from 2014, and there's been a tremendous amount happening in Saudi Arabia over the past decade.

So that's why we're working on a new updated edition.

>>This is a history, of course, and you're talking about this change in the last decade under King Salman and Mohammed bin Salman.

How does this compare to earlier eras of Saudi history, which which, you know, having written a lot in Saudi Arabia myself, are traditionally defined by the king who is and who is on the throne at the time?

>>That's right.

I was looking at my latest edition of this book this morning in preparation for this discussion.

And I noted there was only one sentence on the last book about about then Prince Salman.

And so tremendous amounts have changed now with the seventh king in Saudi history.

But I was also reminded that this is a relatively young country.

I mean, we have this sense that it's a land of ancient traditions and dating back for centuries and things haven't changed.

But really, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia really dates from after the First World War, the 1930s is when it was formally inaugurated.

And so it's really current events in a lot of senses when we're talking about the kingdom itself.

>>So you're having a compressed timeline then?

Because it is it is an ancient place, but yet the modern Saudi Arabia is so relatively new.

So tell us some of the unique things that Americans may not pick up in some way because we have we have a presumption here about Saudi oil wealth, obviously, Islam.

But what is it all about?

>>Right.

Well, I think the the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is unique in a lot of ways.

I mean, every country has its own unique characteristics, but there are a lot of things that really are absent in the peninsula, which we might think are surprising.

For example, there's no standing water.

There's no ponds, lakes, rivers.

There's no place that year round has water.

There is obviously desert, but not just a single kind of desert.

I mean, having been there for relatively recently, I was reminded of how many different kinds of arid terrain there are, there are rocky mountains, there's dunes, there's all sorts of things in between.

And it's also a place that's very much alive.

We have this sense of the Sahara Desert with, you know, sweeping sand deserts where nothing lives.

But really, there is vibrancy, there's animal life, there's flora, fauna and lots of different ecosystems in this in this peninsula and in this country.

>>There's also obviously a lot of people, and particularly young people, and Saudi demographics are interesting because you're talking about the rise of the state.

But in 1970, the population of Saudi Arabia was, what, maybe a fifth of what it is today.

>>That's right.

Right.

The population growth is slowing a little bit as typically happens as as as incomes rise throughout the world.

But it is an overwhelmingly young population.

So the fact that they're that the crown prince, who in many ways exerts executive control, is in his thirties, in fact, I think he turns 38 this month, really reflects the country.

And it's very much unlike many Western countries.

You know, we think about the United States where we're dealing probably with two septuagenarians competing for the presidency next year.

Saudi Arabia more recently has had much younger leaders than we have.

>>That has not always been the case.

Of course, you've had.

You have you have a unique succession line in Saudi Arabia, which which I'm sure you discuss in great detail in your book.

Explain that a little to our audience.

>>That's right.

So.

So, again, modern Saudi Arabia.

You can date either from 1902 when Abdulaziz returned to Riyadh after being in exile in Kuwait or really 1932, when the kingdom was formally instituted with its current boundaries across the entire peninsula.

And there's been seven monarchs and initially the chain of succession was to the to the eldest and most qualified son surviving of the initial King Abdulaziz.

And so it went on for that way until the current king, who is who is probably the last son of Abdulaziz who will be able to reign on the throne.

So there have been a series of quite old monarchs in their seventies and eighties, really dating back until the later years of King Abdulaziz.

>>What is what is the significance?

I'm not talking about the crown prince in particular right now, but I'm talking about King Solomon's decision to change the line of succession because this is a radical departure, because all of his predecessors, other than the first modern Saudi king, which was his father in 1902 or 1932, his father.

So we're talking about just one generation still, and then all his brothers before them.

But it was always to be passed to the next oldest son.

So now you do have he does have living brothers, but they're not in the line of succession anymore.

What's the significance of of breaking that chain?

And now is there going to be a new succession pattern going forward?

>>Right.

So interesting question.

I mean, you're absolutely right, Mohammed bin Salman, under normal circumstances.

20 years ago, 30 years ago, would never have been in consideration.

He is, I think, the sixth son of the second wife of the current king.

So somewhere fairly down the line now, I will say, though, that the the the approach of the Saudi family as a whole has been the oldest qualified son.

So there have been cases where we don't have to go into the details, where previous Saudi royals have either abdicated or have surrendered their rights before taking the throne.

So but not to six of them in a in a succession.

And so so certainly that's unusual.

Now, there is and there is an allegiance council.

There are supposed to be formal consultations within the family upon not only the naming of the king, but the crown prince and the deputy crown prince.

Those have continued, but it remains to be seen how things will happen once presuming Mohammed bin Salman becomes the king, what will happen after him.

>>So when you're talking about history in kind of succession, but one of the most interesting periods in Saudi, Saudi Arabia and also one of the one of the most dangerous was a rivalry between the second and third who became the third king but then was the crown prince.

You're talking about King Saud and his his brother, Faisal.

>>That's right.

>>Can you tell us a little about that rivalry?

>>Right.

So the Abdulaziz wanted his son, his eldest son, Saud, to become the king.

But after he became king and even a little beforehand, it became clear he was not he didn't have the same discipline as his father.

He didn't have the same approach to to spreading the wealth within within the family and beyond.

He was much more interested in, well, personal pleasure and enjoyment and and spreading funds to his favorites, as opposed to investments in the kingdom.

And so there began to be concerns within the family.

Faisal, his younger brother, was a much more responsible, competent, royal and so there were there was a couple of times and ending in 1964 when he was actually removed from power and sent into exile.

Fortunately, succession since then has been much more stable and and clear.

There have not been the same interruptions, and the king since then have been much, much higher quality.

>>Of course, Saudi, the kingdom is located in a particularly volatile neighborhood in terms of recent history.

And so you're talking about this period that was playing out at the same time that Nasser was in power in Egypt and you had a unification between Egypt and Syria.

You had a series of wars, but you also had different ideologies under consideration there.

How has Saudi Arabia been able to keep loyalty to the royal family and stability on the ground in the kingdom?

>>Right.

So one of the chapters in my book and the last chapter in the last version I call the Iron Domino, because if we think about what you've talked about, not only the rise of Arab nationalism that spread across the region, the attraction of socialist parties like the Baath Party and so on, then later Islamic fundamentalism, and then even more recently, the Arab Spring, the move for democratization that began in 2010, 2011, and then, of course, even in the midst of the Cold War and even earlier during the during the Nazi era, Saudi Arabia has remained, I don't want to say safe but able to weather those storms.

And I think it's partly because it is such a different place.

I mean, we think about the colonial experience that was common throughout the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia was never colonized when it was Arabia.

The Ottoman Empire controlled the periphery on the two coast, but it was a fairly light rule.

In fact, it was typically done through local elites, local nobles, rather than directly through Ottoman occupation.

So the entire peninsula's never been under foreign occupation, certainly never in one time.

If you go back to even to ancient periods, the Romans didn't even try to conquer it because they were confronted with this desert.

No sources of water supply, as we discussed, and just decided it wasn't worth the effort.

So it has this unusual history in never having been colonized, certainly not completely, and never having been under a single rule until the coming of the Saudis, both in their early effort and then the more modern and more successful one.

>>Would you call Saudi Arabia kind of a company town?

I mean, you're talking about Saud is named after the family.

So it's literally a family's nation.

So how do you how does how does that play out?

And has that has - have they been able to inspire, for example?

And in Jordan, you look at the success of the late King Hussein was he created a sense of Jordanian nationalism which didn't really exist before him.

Have the Saudis been able to create a sense of Saudi nationalism or is it loyalty to the monarchy itself?

>>Well, I think that I think the idea of Saudi Arabia as a nation state is one of the key elements that Mohammed bin Salman is trying to promote.

It's one of the three legs of the Vision 2030.

I think if we look at earlier years under Saudi Arabia, there certainly were loyalties, but often they were personal loyalties, tribal loyalties, people who saw economic benefit or received economic enjoyed, economic prosperity.

I don't want to say they were bought off, but certainly they were engaged on a fiscal or cultural basis into the regime.

So I think this is a new approach to try to create a sense of pride and national identity, not based on loyalty to some broader supranational idea like Islam or being Arabs or even necessarily just to the monarchy, but to being Saudi.

And I think this is a new thing, again, a new country and an even newer idea bringing nationalism to the peninsula.

>>So you mentioned the 2030 development plan.

Can you explain just some of the basic components of that to the people?

It's mentioned a lot in the media, but without a little context, that doesn't doesn't resonate.

>>Sure.

Well, there were there were three main components to the Vision 2030 Plan, which was basically a strategic plan for the entire kingdom.

It was first unveiled in 2015.

Mohammed bin Salman, who at the time was deputy prime minister or deputy crown prince, not even the second to the throne at the time.

But nonetheless, he developed around him a sense of urgency and a sense that we have to make a better future to to move away from the dependance exclusively on oil, to move away from a dependance on royal benefits provided to the population, but instead to provide a real economic diversification to the economy.

So components of that are increasing economic activity in other areas, tourism being a main one.

For the first time ever in its history, Saudi Arabia is a major tourist destination.

I mean, you think about from 1932 to 2005, theres essentially no tourism in the entire country.

>>Except religious tours.

>>Well, I would say a pilgrimage is not the same.

Right.

So obviously, as the custodian of the holy places, the Saudi monarchy had an obligation to provide access to Muslims worldwide to make the Hajj one of the five pillars of Islam.

Not exactly tourism.

It's a religious obligation.

They provided services, airports, hotels and so on.

But beginning in 2005 and then accelerating after 2015 with the Vision 2030 Plan, Saudi Arabia is trying to become a destination.

So I think by some rankings they've risen from not even on the list to in the top ten in terms of places visited number of visitors and revenues generated.

So not just encouraging people who have made the Hajj to come back, but standing up entirely new destinations.

AlUla, which is a beautiful example of ancient Nabatean civilization, very similar to Petra, if you've seen those.

Petra in Jordan often gets a lot more attention.

They're building theme parks.

They're building water parks, resorts along the coastlines to give people a different kind of experience for for particularly for middle and inner, middle and upper income tourists who've already been to Italy and Greece, you know, a dozen times.

This is a new destination someplace they can come back and tell their friends.

That's a real it's a real opportunity there for Saudi Arabia to carve out a unique niche.

>>Well, you mentioned the Nabatean ruins and you mentioned Petra in Jordan.

And you know that, of course, a lot of people know it because it was in one of the Indiana Jones movies.

>>Thats right, the Last Crusade.

>>And I mention that because it's important.

Saudi Arabia for a long time was perfectly happy to not be accessible to outsiders.

So what's changed in the mindset there?

And that they've decided that it's okay for tourism?

That's one question.

The other is, is there a danger in becoming suddenly open when you have been a more closed society in the sense of not very accessible?

That does not mean in any way unwelcoming, but they were not accessible by the way, by outlook.

>>That's right.

Well, when I wrote the first edition of my book in 2007 2008, I explored the possibility of trying to go to Saudi Arabia and I got absolute no that unless unless I somehow got a job with Aramco or some other ongoing business, it was not open for historians, not open for tourists, not open for anything along those lines.

And so they have created that industry from nothing.

I think the Saudis are mindful of the experience of other countries that have opened up too quickly.

So they might think about Iran in the 1970s, they might think about the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

They're aware of this history and the idea that you can go too fast, too soon.

And so I think I think that maybe explain the focus of Vision 2030 on economic development, on building a vibrant society, but not necessarily democratization and strengthening the nation at the same time, as we talked about earlier.

To move slightly away from the culture of consensus to maybe a cultural to culture of decision, centralizing authority a little more to try to, at the same time protect against any risks of going too fast.

So I think it's a complex equation trying to increase ties to the West in economic terms and cultural terms, but not import the same politics.

And I would say it's not just democratization.

That is something that would be of concern, but that has not yet happened in Saudi Arabia.

It's also important to remember that this is a place where the military has not had a major role in politics.

And to Americans, that may seem a normal, typical thing, but for most of the world, even Western Europe, Spain, Portugal, Greece, there haven't military dictatorships in recent memory.

And the fact that Saudi Arabia is has been very successful at incorporating its military multiple branches into the state as opposed to setting them up as a rival power base so they can avoid, hopefully not only the risk of acceleration into democratization, which the kingdom would not want, but also to be protected against the threat of military coups.

So it's it's it's a multiple concerns on multiple fronts and trying to handle all those through Vision 2030 while making the country richer, stronger and a better place for citizens.

So part of 2030.

You're mentioning kind of this openness, kind of making it a better place to live and easier place also creating jobs, a lot of other things.

Lot of elements that go into it.

But a lot of a big importance is on the jobs component and creating opportunities, particularly for younger, educated Saudis.

And and they, of course, sent over the last 15 years the King Abdullah scholarship.

Originally, they sent hundreds of thousands of young people overseas, including the United States, including to UCF to to be to get their education at the cost of the to the state.

This was done, of course, to to have more qualified people and things.

But are the Saudis cognizant of the Iranian example you just mentioned in the seventies, the Shah had sent all these people to students during the White Revolution to get educated, but they came home and didn't have those jobs, but they had better, greater expectations for their lives.

And there was, of course, that led to when you have expectations here and deliverables here, it leads to political instability.

Is there that concern in Saudi Arabia?

>>Well, clearly that there's that concern.

I will say, though, that in every monarch in the history of Saudi Arabia, the recent history of Saudi Arabia has has at least spoken about Saudification.

We need to have more of our own people having these jobs.

You don't need as many foreign workers here.

But it seems to actually be succeeding for the first time.

And one statistic that I found really interesting and in 1980, 90% of the engineers working for Aramco, the oil company, the multitrilli were foreigners.

Now that number has reversed and 90% of them are Saudi, many of them trained at international universities in the United States and the U.K. throughout the world.

So that's a single data point.

But nonetheless, I think it reflects that there are more Saudis finding jobs at home.

Youth unemployment is still a major problem.

But I think what the Vision 2030 Plan might be able to accomplish is diversifying that economy.

So when I was last there in early 2022, I met a number of Saudis who were working in the film industry around AlUla.

In fact, Kandahar recent film release starring Gerard Butler was being filmed at the same time we were there.

And so they're trying to create film industry, entertainment industry.

And it's remarkable because ten years ago, maybe 12 years ago, there were really no places for public entertaining.

>>There was no movie theater.

>>No movie theaters, no regular theaters, no places where young people could hang out together.

There was sex segregation in restaurants and cafes.

There were no major sports activities other than segregated by gender.

And now they're everywhere.

Certainly in the major cities, in the resort areas, major concerts, major sporting activities with international attention.

It's really dramatic in terms of the transformation and the new opportunities for young people not only to enjoy, but also to have gainful employment in areas that would have been inconceivable 20, 30 years ago.

>>I want to talk a little about legitimacy and political legitimacy.

We were used to, you know, in the West talking, you know, democratic election gives legitimacy because you're the elected and the winner gets gets to govern.

Then in Saudi Arabia, legitimacy comes from what elements?

I mean, you're talking about originally a tribal society, but you mention the custodian, the royal families, custodians of the Holy mosque, of the Holy mosques, rather plural.

What are the explain legitimacy in the Saudi context?

>>Right.

So it doesn't derive from executing a constitution as it would be in many Western countries.

I think you're right.

It it builds on many bases, any one of which can weaken, but hopefully be taken up by others so that the the dynasty, the fact that the Saudi dynasty has successfully created a modern state for the first time in the history of the peninsula, I think is significant.

As you mentioned, being the custodian of the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, enabling pilgrims to make the Hajj on a regular, predictable basis, not always without challenges.

So the recent pandemic was a huge difficulty with I think maybe only a couple of thousand allowed at the height of the pandemic to make the Hajj and the holy cities.

Mecca in particular, were also attacked in 1979, which was a which was a tremendous embarrassment for the monarchy.

It actually led to a dramatic shift in conservative domestic policies.

They closed the last movie theaters, for example.

And so, you know, also the providing for economic benefits.

I mean, this had been through distribution, distribution of oil revenues throughout the country.

But I think the monarchy now is trying to provide additional sources of income, people who make their living from from tourism, from restaurants, from all these new opportunities.

And I think stability also is a big issue.

I mean, I think we talked about major threats throughout the region that have washed on the shores of Saudi Arabia but have not come into the country in a significant way with the exception of some dangerous years when global terrorism was on the rise in the early 2000.

So I think it also helps in a sense that it's a bad neighborhood.

I mean, if you look at almost any direction, you can see countries that have suffered from civil wars, from foreign occupation, from internal conflicts, from military coups.

And so being not those other countries is also a positive to say, you know, Saudi Arabia's different.

We've not faced a revolution like Iran.

We've not faced a military coup like Egypt.

So I think I think that also makes people fearful of pushing too hard for change within the society because they see it could lead to ways which will be worse than what we have now.

>>You, of course, had this this the kingdom has grown because of oil revenue, unquestionably.

And still that is the lion's share of the economy.

Overwhelmingly so.

So 2030 to diversify economy is also to make it less reliant on oil over time.

And the Saudis clearly I mean, you've you've you've read the history.

They're aware that, you know, oil is not going to be there forever, that the world's tastes may change in terms of their where they get.

Where were their the origins of energy come from, whether it's going to be fossil fuels or renewables.

And of course, you've done the history on this.

You realize, like in the eighties you had low oil prices and you had the Saudi government became very vulnerable because of those prices, because if you get 99% of revenue from oil, that's great and good years, but not in bad years.

Can you explain a little about, you know, oil obviously has been a blessing to the kingdom, but it also can be a curse if over relied on.

>>That's right.

Well, and I think the the recent efforts under Vision 2030, even before that, to develop a sovereign wealth fund and to to take the revenues from oil and kind of follow the example of a much smaller country, Norway, which has built up tremendous wealth many times over the annual income from oil and enable them to be cushioned when those prices do collapse or as as investment gradually shift to other other sources of energy.

But Saudi Arabia is also trying to move in that direction, too.

So they have a multibillion dollar solar investment.

I mean, if you think about the desert, one thing it has in addition to sand is the sun.

And so they're heavily invested in long term battery storage, trying to encourage investment in a high tech, high tech energy industries.

And the fact that they have billions of dollars to invest means they can take some risks with that.

And so I think but it is definitely a race.

Can they diversify their economy and their investments to the point that when oil goes away, not if, but when it goes away, it's not an issue for them anymore.

I'm not sure yet that we know.

I think it also depends on the timing.

I mean, how quickly will renewable energies become viable as a true alternative to internal combustion?

We're not there yet globally.

Clearly, oil is much more efficient in terms of its ability to generate energy and certainly its reliability.

It doesn't matter if the sun goes away for six months, you still have oil.

It's always there.

But I think they're mindful of it.

It's just a question of whether the technology will enable them to supplant to supplant oil in time, for them to not face a crash, whether that's in 20, 30, a hundred years.

>>So we'll have to have you back another time to talk about specifically with the US-Saudi relationship, but it's a common thread throughout the history.

Do you think that this is a durable alliance and will be something that the U.S. can rely on going forward?

>>I think the the question is reliance in both directions.

Certainly it's a more mature alliance than it was from the compared to, say, the fifties and sixties when they were Saudi Arabia was entirely dependent on the United States for defense and had a weak military, and it was quite concerned.

But the United States also is willing to provide that umbrella of protection.

I think Saudi Arabia has become a more modern nation.

Certainly under Vision 2030.

It's become as asking the question as this in our national interests.

And so you see the you know, the opening to Iran, the potential for increased commerce with China, the ambivalence about the relationship with Russia, not entirely supporting the US position on the Ukraine war, for example, I think Saudi Arabia saying we're an independent nation.

So just because it's in your interests doesn't mean that's in ours.

However, we're still tremendously important.

We equip their military.

We engage in extensive trade.

And I think there are cultural ties that will intensify as Saudi Arabia looks to diversify their economy.

They're not going to be looking to the Chinese film industry or to the Russian tourism industry.

It's going to be Western companies, primarily U.S., that come in and assist, equip and collaborate in ways that other potential partners are just unable to do.

>>Wayne Bowen, thank you so much for joining us today.

>>Thank you.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.