Russia Woos Riyadh in Bid to Undercut U.S. Global Role

Posted: November 8th, 2017

By Paul Zajac

Paul Zajac is a French career diplomat and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where he focuses on Europe and the European Union, transatlantic and European security issues, NATO and France. Before joining AEI, he was the deputy director of the Center for Analysis, Plannin, and Strategy (Policy Planning) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. He has also been a diplomatic adviser to the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Earlier, he worked on Franco-German security and defense cooperation at the French embassy in Berlin and on NATO and European defense issues at the Directorate for Strategic Affairs, Securit, and Disarmament in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

By Andrew Bowen

Andrew J. Bowen is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and Middle East energy. Concurrently, he advises Greenmantle, an economic and geopolitical advisory firm. Before joining AEI, Bowen was a global fellow in the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center and a senior fellow and director of Middle East Studies for the Center for the National Interest. Earlier, he was director of the Levant Program for the Center for the Middle East and the Baker Institute Scholar for the Middle East at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. His book, “US-Syrian Relations: Security Cooperation in Regional Conflicts” (Palgrave Macmillan), is expected in the spring of 2018.

There is little doubt that Putin’s foreign policy centers on reviving Russia as a major international power, which seeks to undermine the global American alliance that has underwritten international security since the end of the Cold War.

Stretching across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, this alliance has continually thwarted Russia’s primary foreign policy ambitions. Seeking to break Russia free from America’s preeminence, Putin persistently employs tactics below the threshold of war to fracture the global system and artfully exploits the unintended consequences this inevitably creates.

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