Saudi Arabia is definitely a rather strange country. Everyone says that the puppet is innocent, but Saudi Arabia is obviously rich, but no country can invade it. As for why Saudi Arabia can guarantee its own security, just look at what it does with its money.
Saudi Arabia can guarantee the interests of the "thighs".
The first reason why Saudi Arabia can guarantee security is that it can accurately identify the "thigh" and ensure the interests of the "thigh" as much as possible.
When it comes to Saudi Arabia, everyone often has the stereotype of "oil tyrant". But Saudi Arabia's oil did not belong to Saudi Arabia in the first place, but was firmly in the hands of the United States.
Petroleum extraction
In 1933, Saudi Arabia and the United States signed a series of agreements, and Saudi Arabia sold the domestic oil exploration rights to the American Standard Oil Company.
Thus was founded the Arabian Standard Oil Company of California, the predecessor of the Saudi Arabian National Oil Company, which now controls the country's national oil extraction.
Subsequently, as Saudi Arabia continued to discover oil fields, the value of the oil company also rose.
At this time, Saudi Arabia was relatively poor, but the United States continued to profit from oil on its own soil. In other countries, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States would have ended in two ways.
Saudi oil extraction
One outcome is that Saudi Arabia becomes a comprador government, and the United States eats meat through Saudi Arabia's oil deposits, and then gives some soup to the Saudi government.
Another outcome is for Saudi Arabia to follow the example of other third world countries, directly nationalize the company, and then drive the United States out of their own country.
But Saudi Arabia has taken a different path. On the one hand, Saudi Arabia guarantees the Americans the right to extract and sell oil within its borders, which makes it impossible for the United States to turn the other cheek on Saudi Arabia and make Saudi Arabia behave like a comprador government.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia continues to open other enterprises and actively participate in the domestic oil industry. In this way, although the United States controls the exploitation and sale of oil in Saudi Arabia, it has to rely on Saudi companies for oil processing and transportation.
Saudi oil extraction
At the same time, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries established the OPEC organization, which has the ability to regulate the entire Middle East oil production capacity.
Under this series of actions, Saudi Arabia's status has risen, and the United States has to pay attention to Saudi Arabia's interests.
By 1972, the United States finally relented to California's Arabian Standard Oil Company, which controlled the extraction and sale of Saudi oil, and allowed Saudi Arabia to buy its shares.
So Saudi Arabia bought all the shares of the company from the United States in eight years, and finally gained control of the company.
Arab-American oil company
In the whole process, Saudi Arabia allowed the United States to continue to extract its own oil, and then spent a lot of money to buy back the right to extract and sell the oil, so that the United States made a lot of money.
After regaining the right to exploit oil, Saudi Arabia actively cooperated with the "oil strategy" of the United States, and even collapsed the Soviet Union to a certain extent.
From the perspective of the United States, in the face of such a country, are you embarrassed to invade it?
The Saudis know what money can't be saved
The second reason why Saudi Arabia can guarantee security is that it will not save a penny of money that should be spent.
Although Saudi Arabia does not have much military industrial capacity of its own, it has money and can buy weapons from all over the world.
Saudi Army
Therefore, Saudi Arabia has always had the image of an "oil tyrant" in the international arms trade market, and when buying weapons, it pays attention to not buying the right ones, but only buying expensive ones.
And relying on its own "money ability", Saudi Arabia can also buy many things that other countries can't buy.
For example, when the situation in the Middle East was unstable in the last century, Saudi Arabia bought China's Dongfeng-3 medium-range missiles, etc., and was the only country in the world that obtained medium-range ballistic missiles through military trade channels at that time.
With the DF-3 in hand, Saudi Arabia has ensured its own security for decades to come.
Saudi Dongfeng-3 missile
When Iraq invaded Kuwait that year, Saudi Arabia pulled out the DF-3 in its hand and lit it up, and then Iraq did not dare to let the army step into Saudi Arabia.
Subsequently, the Dongfeng-3 in the hands of Saudi Arabia was seriously aged, and Saudi Arabia spent a lot of money to buy a batch of Dongfeng-21 from China to complete the upgrading of medium-range missiles.
In addition to the weapons in hand, Saudi Arabia also relies on its "money ability" to hire "thugs" with combat effectiveness.
What many people don't know is that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan also have a deep military cooperative relationship.
Pakistan Army
Because Saudi Arabia often hires Pakistan's army to fight, the main focus is "although I have no combat effectiveness, I can spend money to let the combat effectiveness of the army serve me".
Saudi Arabia is good at seeing the wind and steering the rudder
The third reason why Saudi Arabia can guarantee security is that it has a strong ability to steer the rudder in the face of the wind.
There is a classic line in the movie "Let the Bullets Fly": I just want to be the wife of the county magistrate, and I don't care who the county magistrate is.
Saudi Arabia is a country that sees its position very clearly, that is, the spokesperson for the interests of foreign powers in the Middle East.
During the Cold War, the United States was in an advantageous position in the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, so the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States was quite close.
US-Soviet Cold War
At the end of the Cold War, when the United States wanted to attack the economy of the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia actively cooperated with the United States to increase oil production and push down the price of oil.
At that time, the Soviet economy was basically dependent on oil exports, and the decline in the oil economy led to a sharp decline in the Soviet economy, triggering the "economic collapse" of the Soviet Union.
Therefore, the collapse of the Soviet Union also had something to do with Saudi Arabia.
In the 21st century, Saudi Arabia has basically followed the United States, paying not a penny less in protection fees to the United States, and often buying American weapons from the United States.
As a result, after the "2020s", the United States gradually fell behind in the confrontation with China, and Saudi Arabia began to gradually lean to the side of China.
Now the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States is very poor, and even Saudi Arabia has dared to humiliate the United States openly.
When U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Saudi Arabia in June 2023, Saudi Arabia did not even hang the U.S. flag, which was obviously saying "you are not welcome" to the United States.
As for China, Saudi Arabia has taken on a different face. Not only is the cooperation with China very close, but also began to cooperate with China's strategic deployment.
For example, the previous rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran was largely driven by China. In the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict, China has contributed some force behind the scenes, and Saudi Arabia has also contributed some force, and the United States has suffered.
Saudi-Iranian rapprochement
It can be seen that Saudi Arabia is very good at standing in line and making itself invincible.
Resources:
[1] Outside the Yangtze River, "The United States failed twice in a row, Blinken arrived in China early in the morning, and a detail of the scene in Beijing lit up"
[2] Global Network, "U.S. Media Says China Has Exported DF21 to Saudi Arabia Russian Media: Unbelievable"