Interview with Bilal Saab: US Military Assistance in the Middle East

Friday 29 April 2022

Bilal Y. Saab is a political-military analyst on the Middle East and U.S. policy toward the region. He specialises in the Levant and the Gulf and focuses on security cooperation between the United States and its regional partners, and national security and defence processes in Arab partner countries. A former Pentagon official, he is the director of the defence and security program at the Middle East Institute, and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Saab is also the author of ‘Rebuilding Arab Defense: U.S. Security Cooperation in the Middle East’, which asks “after decades of US military assistance in the Middle East―providing expensive weapons systems and conducting military exercises―why are the military capabilities of US allies in the region still lacking? Why does it matter? And what can be done to remedy the status quo? Saab addresses these vexing questions through a set of in-depth case studies. Identifying the pitfalls of diverse assistance programs, he convincingly demonstrates the importance of institution building in efforts to achieve effective security cooperation in a region that remains of great strategic significance.”

Interview conducted on 9/12/2021 by Ella Handy, Media Administrator Intern, 4th year International Relations student.

Can you please tell me about your book?

The book is about US security cooperation in the Middle East. I investigate why our military assistance programs in the region, more often than not, have produced undesirable outcomes, but I also suggest how we could do better. The central argument of the book is that for far too long, we have focused on arms sales, equipment, hardware… rather than helping these partners build the institutional infrastructure required to effectively employ and sustain these weapons. And by ‘sustain’, I mean creating the necessary institutions that involve strategy, logistics, human resource management, accounting, acquisition and procurement, etc… I have four case studies to illustrate this point: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Lebanon and Jordan.

That sounds fascinating. In terms of the US relying on supplying arms and equipment rather than helping build the institutional infrastructure needed, has that been because of the US military-industrial complex?

Possibly, but not necessarily. I do address all of that in the book. Of course, we’re getting a lot of money by selling arms and equipment to these states, so that’s good for the economy, but in terms of helping create stronger partners, we haven’t really achieved that.

Let’s begin with the issue of motivation. For at least a couple of decades, from the late 1970s/early 1980s until the 9/11 era in the early 2000s, we as the United States were never truly interested, and neither were our partners interested, in actually creating stronger militaries that were more effective on the battlefield. On our part, we never viewed this as a priority because we were physically present in the region to provide security – we didn’t really need help. And, we didn’t really trust our partners to take on any significant security roles in the region, because we knew that they were weak. The Middle East for us was such a core region, perhaps second in importance after Europe, because of our dependence on oil, that we really wanted to take care of things by ourselves, security wise. And also, at the time, we didn’t want certain Arab states to become powerful militarily, because we were worried about how they would utilise that to act against Israel. So the margin for error was super small. You know the expression if you want something done well you’ve got to do it yourself? That was basically our motto from the early 80s all the way to the 9/11 era and the 2003 Iraq War.

Regarding the regional partners themselves, meaning the Arab states, nobody really had an interest in developing their military capabilities because a) they trusted that we were going to protect them, and b) they had no clue how to do that on their own, or how to even ask for help. Plus, the threats that they were facing during that period were manageable – there was no resurging Iran; there was no ISIS; there was terrorism all along, but it was more or less manageable. So there was no great sense of urgency for these states to really invest in stronger military capabilities, especially after they saw what we did in Desert Storm in 1990-1991, which perpetuated the idea that anytime anything bad happened, the Americans would intervene. So, on both ends, there was no interest in institutional capacity building.

However, I argue in the book that after the 2003 Iraq War, that mindset started to change. Firstly, this was because the Middle East mattered much less to us – the oil issue became much less significant because we became self-sufficient (though not independent, of course). Secondly, the threats facing the region had proliferated, such as the rising influence of Iran and the growth of ISIS. Thirdly, we became much more interested in the Indo-Pacific and in East Asia than in the Middle East. In addition, Arabs and Israelis are on much better terms now because of the Abraham Accords, and the Egyptians and the Jordanians signed peace deals earlier.  So all of that made it much more important and possible for us to really start getting serious about helping these Arab states develop serious military capabilities, because the US no longer wanted to act as the policeman of the region.

Yet, because we had never done this before, we had to start from scratch. So we started developing a new mindset and aligning our bureaucracy. You asked me about the military-industrial complex – we started aligning at least our governmental bureaucracy in a manner that would benefit the pursuit of those capacity building efforts, in ways that we had never done before. It was, and still is, a huge learning curve for all those involved.

So this is where we are now – I would say that our military capacity building efforts have become much more significant since 2017. Why? Because our Congress has come up with legislation now mandating that we must conduct capacity building any time we sell arms to these partners. That kind of legislation never existed previously. So we are now at least better postured to start delivering on those services, and investing in those aspects, than ever before. However, we’re facing so many challenges because – again – we’re starting from scratch. It’s incredibly difficult to try to help build military capability in countries that are authoritarian, and that have concerns about how much they want to open up their national security ecosystem. In these contexts, very few people control everything and you don’t want to liberalise too quickly, as it could get out of hand. So there are a lot of difficult trade-offs and questions that they have to wrestle with.

I guess one of the difficulties that comes to mind is that there’s also connotations of neo-colonialism, due to the history of Western intervention in the Middle East. So, would you say that that’s an issue facing the US when trying to help with the development of military capacity building on the ground?

That’s a fair point. The short answer is no, because there is no way that any of this could be pursued without the consent of Arab states. Colonialism is very different. Imposing our presence and preferences is an entirely different system. This is happening with the consent of both parties. They have to recognise that they want to do this, and they have to signal to us that they need our help. And that’s exactly what has been happening in at least Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan. So it’s very different.

That definitely makes sense. With regard to the US providing military assistance to states within the Middle East, is that more to do with ensuring regional security and protection from regional actors, or to ensure protection against encroaching Russian expansion and Chinese influence?

I don’t think the reasons for us doing this are that specific, beyond that it’s the right thing to do. It’s not, I don’t think, grounded in threat-based analysis, but rather opportunity-based analysis, and the idea that you have to be stronger militarily in order to defend against a range of threats. So it’s less about deterring greater Russian presence or Chinese influence, and it’s less about Iran. It’s much more about the fact that this is now a good time to invest in self-defence capabilities. How they are deployed is a different conversation.

You also have to realise that each country is going to have a different level of interest and a different level of investment in this entire enterprise. Everybody’s going to have some resistance to certain areas in terms of what they’re going to develop, and they will want to limit access to us. This is because these are sovereign countries and they want to maintain secrecy in terms of how they run their national security system, because they either feel embarrassed about how vulnerable and weak they are, and/or they don’t trust any outside entity with those secrets. So, there’s always going to be limitations in terms of how we can work together and help these states develop that institutional infrastructure. Some are more eager than others to really go all in, but some are going to resist, and that will affect the outcome of this cooperation.

Completely. So I can imagine for example, it being quite difficult to deal with the Saudi state…

Actually, that’s not true. I think you picked the one country that has gone all in with us. It’s counter-intuitive, but I’m glad you mentioned it. If there’s one country out of the four that I study in the book that has come to us and asked us to help them overhaul their entire defence architecture, it’s the Saudis. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, because we’re starting from scratch. They had no effective pre-existing institutional infrastructure at all. But, since 2018, we have been involved with the Saudis on every area having to do with defence – logistics, procurement, acquisition, human resource management, anything you can think of in the defence enterprise. We are helping them to create a joint staff, and defence strategy amongst other aspects. And they have been an open book. So, it is actually the one example that I am most excited about, because they have given us all the access that we need.

Now of course all of that is subject to the nature of political relations between the two countries. If those are tense, such as following the murder of Khashoggi, then you can imagine how that is going to affect the pace of cooperation on defence matters. On a military-to-military level of cooperation, I think that the current collaboration is superb. But it cannot be done in isolation, and is impacted by the broader political context. Whenever those ties are tense at a senior level between the King and the President, or between senior leadership on both sides, that ultimately affects cooperation. And I think you can see that since the murder of Khashoggi, and everything else MBS (Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud) did that was controversial, cooperation as far as the defence reform efforts has been affected. It slowed them down, although of course Covid did that too. But we do have a full-fledged program with the Saudis, which is really the most exciting thing we’re doing in the entire region.

That’s incredibly surprising, because like you said, it’s really counter-intuitive.

It is. And I’ll tell you one more thing that’s counter-intuitive – the UAE, which is, I would argue, the closest Arab partner we have right now, and the most militarily effective, is the country that’s keeping its cards closest to its chest, in terms of working with us on defence reform. There is no official involvement of the United States government in the defence reforms that are taking place in Abu Dhabi right now. We give them advice, and we sell weapons to them, but in terms of helping them and being on the ground in the same way that we’re doing with the Saudis with defence reform, that’s not happening. And that’s their preference. You would think it’s the other way around, and that it’s the Saudis that would be much more resistant to that kind of influence and advice, with the Emiratis being all in, but that’s not the case.

That really is interesting. Although, quite a few of these states that the US is dealing with in terms of military cooperation have quite poor human rights records. So how does the US justify cooperation with these states in spite of this?

Excellent question. Well one of the areas within this capacity building universe that we’re helping them with, is the rule of law. So, we’re addressing how to effectively employ those arms, in a manner that respects not only international law, but American laws, because we are also subject to laws whenever we sell arms to these countries, with the condition being that they do not violate human rights. So, that is the argument that the administration has used, and will continue to use, but you can imagine how it can be very challenging to monitor every single thing that the Saudis do, or how well they are using these things. It’s always going to be tricky, and we’re always going to struggle with this, but at least there is legal support to justify why we are pursuing this course of action.

Absolutely. I know you haven’t talked about the US’ military relationship with Israel in your book, but when supplying Arab states with military assistance, that relationship does clearly need to be taken into account. Does the US risk stoking tensions between certain Arab states and Israel by arming the former, despite the recent Abraham Accords?

No. When the Israelis themselves don’t voice concerns about us selling advanced weapons to the Emiratis or the Saudis, that should give you a clue. This is nothing like the late 70s/80s/90s, where every single time we would try to sell even a surveillance plane, no matter how advanced or irrelevant, to the Saudis or other Arab states, the Israelis would ask us not to do it. Now it’s a very different environment – the Abraham Accords as we’ve mentioned; the Egyptian/Jordanian peace treaties; the fact that these two parties (the Israelis and the Arabs) share common goals when it comes to security – they both face a similar threat, which is Iran. So no, not at all. I think the evolution of the Israeli mindset on this issue is remarkable.

Finally, out of the states within which the US is helping to build military capacity, in which has internal politics posed the largest obstacle, increasing resistance to greater US involvement?

I’m going to reverse that question. Because it starts with the partner. So it’s less about us imposing and trying to get involved uninvited. It’s much more about the kind of signal we are getting from the country, first and foremost. So, the signal has been non-existent from Oman, and, to a lesser extent, Qatar. We are yet to really receive communication from them asking us to help. The same goes for the UAE, as I mentioned before. And this is because, and I think you hit the nail on the head, their internal politics are still not in a place to allow that kind of re-organisation of their entire military infrastructure. Anytime you overhaul your national security bureaucracy, it’s not just going to be limited to the military, it’s going to impact who owns the guns, and who is going to have more influence. Especially in the Arab world, as the people in the military are basically the ones who call the shots throughout. So, these countries are not yet ready to have that conversation with us and to invite us to come and help them out.

So, to go back to your question, it’s not about their internal politics preventing us from helping, or resisting our efforts, it’s just that they’re not ready yet to call us up to come and help them. And those most eager, as I told you, are the Saudis. Because they now have some kind of clarity about who is at the very top of that pyramid – that’s MBS. He’s secure and comfortable enough to initiate the kind of restructuring – regarding both military and foreign policy – that is not possible in other Arab states. I’m in no way making an argument for authoritarianism, but I’m saying that when the politics are right, it’s much more likely that the leader will initiate that kind of restructuring process. It’s almost like the most conducive political systems to the initiation of large-scale military defence reform are democracies, but also very stable autocracies.

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