Why is Saudi Arabia always against Russia?

Russia and Saudi Arabia, two seemingly far apart countries. However, in the international political and economic game, there has been a long-term tit for tat. Although there has never been a direct armed conflict between the two countries, the secret game has never stopped. At present, the Gulf kingship led by Saudi Arabia manipulates the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to suppress oil prices, making Russia, which is suffering from western sanctions and economic difficulties, even worse. Politically, the Sunni forces led by Saudi Arabia have long competed with the Shiites supported by Russia, and dark battles have spread all over the Middle East.

The feud between Saudi Arabia and Russia goes far beyond this. The biggest problem between the two was at the end of the Cold War, when the international oil price was kept at a low level for almost the whole 1980s under the full pressure of Saudi Arabia, which caused a devastating blow to the Soviet Union, whose national finance was heavily dependent on oil output and the cost of domestic oil development was naturally much higher than that of the Middle East. To put it bluntly, Saudi Arabia can be said to have made great contributions to the victory of the United States in the Cold War in the early 1990s.

But it seems unreasonable for Saudi Arabia to do so. After all, in addition to the indirect geopolitical game with Russia, the most important means for Saudi Arabia to crack down on Russia is to suppress oil prices. But Saudi Arabia itself also depends on oil exports for a living.

Although the cost of oil exploitation in the Persian Gulf is much lower than that in Siberia, Saudi Arabia is naturally more tolerant than Russia in this oil war. But in any case, this behavior of suppressing oil prices is tantamount to glistening and not making money. This is almost the way of Xie Xun's seven-wound boxing-it can hurt people, but it also hurts yourself.

But even so, it is surprising that Saudi Arabia does not hesitate.

Why did Saudi Arabia do this?

It is to safeguard national security. However, Saudi Arabia is not Iran, let alone Turkey. Its territory is located at the southernmost tip of the Middle East, and its geographical relationship with Russia is very distant. Even if Russia has a traditional hobby of expanding its territory, it is not Saudi Arabia's turn to be stabbed.

Is that competition between oil exporting countries? This seems to make sense. Saudi Arabia and Russia are both the largest oil producers and exporters in the world. In order to compete for the share of the international crude oil market, it is not unreasonable for the two countries to boycott.

However, Saudi Arabia's approach is too exaggerated. After all, if it is only for market share, it is only a business matter. Since it is commercial competition, it will naturally follow commercial logic.

The essence of business is profit. Of course, if it is possible to form a monopoly, then in view of the huge benefits brought by monopoly, it is indeed a way of commercial warfare to suppress oil prices, crush opponents and monopolize the market in the early stage (such as Didi, Uber's crazy car subsidy some time ago, and suppress the living space of taxis, which is this logic).

However, this practice is limited after all. If you continue this practice when your opponent is invincible, it is not profit, but self-harm. In this case, the best way is for Saudi Arabia and Russia to unite and jointly control oil prices, which is a realistic choice in line with their own interests (for example, the merger tide of domestic O2O enterprises last year is the embodiment of this idea).

However, Saudi Arabia's approach is completely inconsistent with business logic. In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia depressed oil prices for ten years. Now that oil prices have fallen for more than a year, there is a high probability that they will continue to slump in the future. This is not a rational choice in line with business thinking. Therefore, the reason why Saudi Arabia has repeatedly attacked Russia is not determined by simple economic factors, but more importantly, political considerations.

So, what is the deep hatred between Saudi Arabia and Russia, so that it is necessary to beat yourself black and blue and bring down Russia?

In the cloud's view, this is mainly due to the structural geopolitical conflict between the two. Behind this is closely related to the diametrically opposite national strategies of the two countries.

Seeing this, you may feel strange: just now the cloud said that Saudi Arabia and Russia are geographically distant, and Russia cannot directly threaten Saudi Arabia. In this case, where does this geopolitical conflict begin?

It is true that Russia cannot directly threaten Saudi Arabia, but the problem is that Russia's strategic thinking in the Middle East has already constituted a huge conflict with Saudi Arabia's interests.

This conflict is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.

First of all, Russia's Middle East ally is Saudi Arabia's enemy. Throughout Russia's choice of strategic partners in the Middle East, all are Shiites-the earliest Syrian Assad government, belonging to the Allawi branch of Shiites. After the Islamic Revolution broke out, Iranian Shiite clerics came to power, made friends with the United States, and Russia began to contact Iran again. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, relations between the two countries made great strides forward. With the end of the Iraq war, American troops finally withdrew after overthrowing Sunni Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi central government was dominated by Shiites. In this case, Russia is once again linked with Iraq.

About why Russia chose Shiites, Maronite Army will explain in detail in the future Russian series. But this practice itself has undoubtedly greatly intensified the contradiction between Saudi Arabia and it. As a Sunni tycoon, Saudi Arabia not only has natural sectarian contradictions with Shiite countries, but also has structural geopolitical contradictions between them. In other words, although Russia cannot directly threaten Saudi Arabia, its strategic layout in the Middle East has already formed a conflict with Saudi Arabia.

Of course, if this is all, Saudi Arabia's hatred of Russia is not deep enough to retaliate in an extreme way of "self-harm." The reason why Saudi Arabia hates Russia so much is that Russia's operation in the Middle East conflicts with Saudi Arabia's national strategy.

Russia is different from America. Although the United States has always played the role of emperor in the Middle East. But the United States is a country in the Western Hemisphere, and the Middle East is the main geographical plate that is most alienated from the United States in the world. This geographical pattern determines that it is not only impossible for the United States to plan the territory of the Middle East, but also because of its limited direct influence, it has to rely on local local forces and establish its comparative advantage through a series of alliances with Lian Heng. To put it bluntly, the United States must rely heavily on the in-depth cooperation of local agents in order to effectively safeguard its interests in the Middle East.

Based on this logic, the relationship between the Middle East allies and the United States is more of a partnership. Although it can't be said that they are completely equal, on the whole, Middle Eastern allies still have room to independently exercise state power and implement national strategies, so they are not too influenced by the United States, and the United States must fully respect their allies' independent power and national interests, otherwise it will really make trouble, and the United States will actually treat them badly. This is also a major reason why Saudi Arabia is willing to form an alliance with the United States.

Russia is different.

First of all, Russia itself is a veteran geopolitical power and a typical continental civilized country. The characteristics of national civilization determine that its power expansion is mainly realized by the traditional means of control-digestion-absorption.

Secondly, even in the heyday of the Soviet era, Russia's national strength was far from that of the United States. Under the situation that the Middle East has been dominated by the United States, if the indirect game is played by fostering agents like the United States, then Russia is definitely not an opponent of the United States.

Finally, Russia is directly adjacent to the Middle East, and there are two natural geographical channels between them, Central Asia and Caucasus, which enables it to achieve direct control over the Middle East without going through the hands of agents like the United States in the western hemisphere.

Based on the above three points, Russia's way of managing the Middle East is to focus on itself and strive for direct control of the Middle East. As for the local forces in the Middle East, even if they are willing to take the initiative to play for Russia, it is impossible to obtain a roughly equal partnership with the United States, and more of them become vassals of Russia, just like Eastern Europe. As for their own national interests and strategies, they must also succumb to Russia's overall strategy and lack the space for independent operation.

This has naturally seriously violated the interests of local forces in the Middle East. It is precisely because of this that Iran has never been willing to bow to Russia even under the dual pressure of the United States and the Arab world. On the contrary, it prefers the slogan of "no East, no West, only Islam", forcing Russia to have no choice but to invade Afghanistan and seek a strategic breakthrough in the Middle East.

Of course, Russia today has no ability to suppress the Middle East. So ... but this does not mean that their vigilance against Russia has been eliminated. After all, Russia's huge land area and geographical relationship linked by mountains and rivers determine that as long as this northern giant does not fall, its threat to the Middle East will naturally exist. Now Russia is honest. At that time, because of poor strength, I naturally relied more on agents, not for progress, but to preserve my remaining influence. But if one day Russia revives the Middle East, it will return to its old business.

The way Russia operates determines Saudi Arabia's position. The geographical position of the Middle East is very important, and it is also the main oil producing area in the world. Moreover, the Middle East itself is divided, which determines that geopolitical intervention by foreign forces in the Middle East is inevitable.

For Saudi Arabia, the different modes of operation of the United States and Russia in the Middle East naturally make him willing to stand on the side of the United States-mixing with the United States can not only get the help of the world's largest country, but also affect his rights and interests, while mixing with Russia can only make himself a slave.

In addition, Saudi Arabia's national strategy is completely in conflict with Russia. In the previous article "Geopolitics: Why Saudi Arabia Must Implement Absolute Monarchy 76", Yunshijun once analyzed that most of Saudi Arabia's territory is desert Gobi, and its geographical strength is extremely poor. With the blessing of oil, there is today's trend. But oil is limited, and once it is exhausted, Saudi Arabia will be finished immediately. Therefore, Saudi Arabia must use the oil red to expand abroad, occupy relatively rich geographical plates such as Syria and Iraq, and prevent Saudis from returning to the Arabian desert to chew sand after running out of oil.

Saudi Arabia must expand its territory and Russia must achieve a high degree of control over the Middle East. There is a structural conflict between their interests. In this war, Russia naturally occupied an absolute advantage by virtue of its own geographical advantages. In this case, Saudi Arabia must seize every opportunity and weaken Russia by any means, otherwise it is impossible to win in this competition.

Finally, the way Russia and the United States use Middle East oil is also an important reason why Saudi Arabia is pro-American and anti-Russian.

The Middle East is the largest oil producing area in the world and a decisive force in the international oil market. For such an important resource that can determine the global political and economic structure, the United States and Russia naturally have to make a big fuss.

But the United States and Russia have made a fuss in different ways.

As far as the United States is concerned, because of its strong economic strength, global influence and highly mature financial system, it does not need to directly control Middle East oil or even pricing power. What it wants is to link oil to the dollar and establish its own financial hegemony based on petrodollars. As long as financial hegemony is established and the dollar becomes an international hard currency, the United States can get all kinds of resources it wants with its beautiful knife, and it can also be used as a means to influence the global political and economic trend.

Russia is different. Russia's strength and influence are far less than that of the United States, and it simply does not have the minimum ability to establish financial hegemony. Therefore, Russia's idea of Middle East oil is not to make any oil rubles on this basis, but to gain the dominance and pricing power of the global oil market through the overall control of Middle East oil as a bargaining chip with western industrial countries.

In view of this difference between the United States and Russia, Saudi Arabia's tendency is obvious. Although Saudi Arabia has oil, oil is only a commodity, not a currency. In other words, Saudi oil will eventually be converted into hard currency, and then it can be converted into all kinds of precious things it wants.

Saudi Arabia, a small upstart in the Middle East, is certainly unable to turn its currency into an international settlement currency. After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the golden functions of money ceased to exist. In other words, Saudi Arabia must link oil to the currency of another country. Otherwise, what will it receive from the oil after it is sold?

Therefore, for Saudi Arabia, the qualification of this oil settlement currency cannot be grasped by itself, and there is no actual loss to the US dollar.

The benefits are real.

The United States ranks first in the world, and its political, economic and military strength ranks first in the world, so its currency is the strongest-Saudi Arabia does not want its oil bills to turn into a pile of waste paper at intervals.

And cooperation with the United States can also be exchanged for American protection.

Crucially, in order to cooperate with the United States, Saudi Arabia only needs to support the dollar peg to oil. The dominant position of the international oil trading market, oil pricing power, etc. It is not uncommon in the United States, and Saudi Arabia can take them all into its own hands-this is an important political resource. Make good use of it. In particular, Saudi Arabia said that in the Middle East and even on the world stage, it can make a difference and become an important force-as long as it does not hurt the United States too much.

On the other hand, if Russia cooperates with it, then Russia must realize direct control of oil and manipulate the international political and economic structure from the specific level of oil trading. In this mode, Russia can't leave much room for Saudi Arabia. Saudi oil will completely become a geopolitical tool of Russia, mainly serving Russia's national interests-not Saudi Arabia.

Therefore, in terms of the political utilization of oil resources, the different utilization modes of the United States and Russia also determine that Saudi Arabia must be pro-American and resolutely anti-Russian.

In short, the national conditions of the United States and Russia, as well as the geographical relationship with the Middle East, determine that the cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia can develop into a win-win model, while Russia and Saudi Arabia are destined to be a zero-sum game. Based on this different interest, Saudi Arabia is of course willing to attach itself to the United States and attack Russia to the end.