Saudi Arabia: A Kingdom in Peril Paperback – October 6, 2016

Closed societies are difficult to describe honestly, especially if one's livelihood depends upon keeping one's self on the bright side of the moon.During a checkered career, I've known westerners who have served in Saudi as bankers, as a diplomat, as an Aramco engineer, as soldiers. To a man -- no point in including women here -- they hated the Saudi experience. Given the Saudi declaration of war against America's domestic oil producers, against America's quest for energy independence, I conceived a deep dislike for the Saudi dictatorship.Not to mention capital punishment to be implemented against gays caught within their boundaries! Pretty bad too to possess a Christian Bible!The virtue of Aarts & Roelants is that a reader actually gets an historically grounded glimpse of Prince MbS's quandary. As a general reader whose interest lies primarily with the geo-strategy of energy markets, I found this a valuable book, although its journalistic quality will not survive the decade.Prince MbS may have bitten off more than he can chew in tackling Saudi bureaucracy and the Wahhabi establishment, but he is a man to watch. As the man says, the young prince is in a tight fight with a short stick.

The authors do a fine job of outlining the issues that threaten security inside Saudi Arabia as well as Saudi security policy toward their neighboring countries. However, the book does not delve deep enough into the schizophrenic relationship between the royal family and the Wahabbist institution. The book also short-changes the issue of internal security and the fundamentalist threat, especially since the details behind various attacks are fairly well known. The problem of writing honestly about a fairly closed state is in open view here as the authors carefully present problems while trying not to offend. Overall a good overview but not the deep dive you might be looking for.