Saudi Arabia and Communism During the Cold War “King Faisal’s Foreign Policy Towards the Soviet Union: 1962-1975”

Abstract

This thesis examines "Saudi Arabian foreign policy towards Communism during the Cold War: King Faisal 's foreign policy with the Soviet Union, 1962-1975." The goal of this project is to further our understanding of Saudi diplomacy towards Soviet communism during the Cold War. Drawing on a broad range of archival and published sources in Arabic and English, such as government papers, books and articles, this study investigates different attitudes and polices that shaped Saudi Arabian policy in containing Communism around its zenith in the Middle East in the 1960s and 1970s.
Focusing on built strategies of fighting Communism; the policy process was also framed as a struggle against secular nationalism movements and hence Islamic diplomacy became a fundamental motivation for action. These were key features of Saudi policy during the Cold War and were utilised in an effort to mobilize domestic actors in Saudi Arabia. My thesis thus pays special attention to key characteristic of "encirclement syndrome" that enables a systematic assessment of this study. The thesis's main argument is that Saudi Arabia in the 1960s and 1970s fought Communism on all fronts as the results of wider political and religious factors, rather than the actions of an individual ruler or country.