"In an interview with the U.S. television network CBS aired in mid-March, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who effectively runs the country for his father King Salman, said, “Saudi Arabia doesn’t want to own a nuclear bomb. But without a doubt, if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
So, this is basically India and Pakistan all over again, only with countries that are a lot more likely to back terrorists.
"The Trump administration, eager to revive the torpid American nuclear industry, is pushing Saudi Arabia to consider U.S. companies -- such as Westinghouse Electric Co. and Exelon Corp. -- for its nuclear contracts instead of competitors from Russia, China and other countries. "
Perhaps this is about money, or perhaps its about stirring the middle eastern pot. Threaten to give the Saudi's all the nuclear tech they want while deliberately ignoring what they do with it and you might just get Iran to end its own nuclear program if only the U.S. will put a stop to this. Or you might get a nuclear conflict.
This is probably going to go down in history as amazingly dumb. Canada is still a little embarrassed about India, but this will be much worse.
Your post is pretending that China and Russia do not exist.
There is no scenario where Saudi Arabia doesn't get whatever nuclear power infrastructure they're after. Nothing will prevent that. China isn't going to have any problems building Saudi Arabia's nuclear power infrastructure, they'll be thrilled to do it. The same is true of Russia. There is nothing the US can reasonably do to stop China or Russia from building nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia.
Ok, there's one exceptionally dumb broad option: war with the non-US supplier (eg China or Russia), or fundamentally destroy Saudi Arabia as we know it today and kill millions of people to shut down all industrial progress there to prevent any nation from ever attempting to build nuclear power there.
Here's the reality of the near future: you are going to have to accept a bunch of bad actors are going to have access to various nuclear technology. It's only going to spread faster and faster.
Iran is part of the problem, but the less-discussed issue remains Isreal's nukes. The race for nukes in the middle east started long ago. The saudis have just decided to start trying.
There's some interesting reading around this that essentially the Saudi's financed Pakistan's nukes in a deal where they can effectively get them under their control in no time should Iran develop one. Contracted out the development in a way :)
Basically they're going nuclear because Iran is. Saudi Arabia burns about $5B of oil in the summer to fuel air conditioners and it would be easy enough to run a natgas pipeline into the country (most Saudi natgas is used in the petrochemical industry) but Saudi doesn't want to be a fossil fuel importer, too humiliating. None of it makes much sense, to be honest. The entire region is sitting on massive amounts of natgas or solar potential so there is no reason other than prestige or bombs to go nuclear.
If I recall there's too much dust in Saudi Arabia for the solar panels to be any useful (and not enough rain to remove it). Here is some article on the subject: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph240/alshakhs2/. Nuclear would make more sense there.
An acquaintance who works in the oil industry relocated to Saudi Arabia for the express purpose of developing their fracking industry. He said they were burning unrefined crude oil for power generation, and were pivoting to natural gas.
Saudis turning to nuclear tells you just as much about the country and technology as Venezuela going for Cryptocurrencies.
Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian dictatorship, is waging a brutal war against one of the world’s poorest countries (and not even winning) and is committing all sorts of crimes against architecture and urban planning with its brutalistic dystopia in the desert. They run air conditioners not just in their cardboard McMansions, but even outside, in the garden FFS.
Iran happens to find itself on the wrong side politically compared to the US. But in almost any category, from education to innovation to even democracy they run circles around those spoiled brats of heredity literally killing themselves on the highways out of sheer boredom.
Proponents of nuclear power should be quite scared to see this compass that reliably points south adopting their pet technology.
Your comment is either born of extreme ignorance, or is deliberate misinformation.
Lambasting SA for fighting in Yemen and then praising Iran, the other country fighting in Yemen, is beyond ridiculous.
Trashing SA for being an authoritarian dictatorship and then praising Iran, another theocratic, authoritarian dictatorship, that is just as happy to have the secret police disappear its citizens, is intellectual malfeasance.
Where do I read about the outdoor air conditioning? This sounds somewhat viable to me, if we are talking about some semi-enclosed spaces, and there is no wind at all.
Many poor countries, especially in Africa, complain that their resources are exploited and they get nothing from it.
But that doesn't just happens with (Saudi) Arabs. You just don't try to exploit Arabs. When you try, you're the one who gets in debt prison. So at least they're doing something right.
I can easily tell which side you're on, but you missed some pertinent information.
Iran is also fighting in Yemen (by proxy) and has been directly supporting the Assad regime, one of the most brutal dictatorships the Middle East has ever seen.
A bit late for that - they are believed to have provided the finance for the Pakistan nuclear program and the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force bought some Chinese missiles with very low accuracy originally designed as a a platform for nukes (being 1km out probably doesn't matter too much if your target is lobbing a nuke at Tehran).
That train has left the station loooong time ago. Now any country that can fund educations of grad students in the west and has enough money to buy/extract materials needed to enrich nuclear fuel and has enough money to build such industrial operation is given to have access to nuclear technologies.
The fact that NK managed to do it pretty much makes "not have access to nuclear technologies" a non-starter argument
You hear this train of thought a lot: "X country shouldn't have nukes". So why do people say a specific country "deserves" nukes while others don't? Why does the U.S. get nukes while it got to invade Iraq under the pretense of it having nukes? You might say everyone who is ideologically aligned with the policeman of the world (the West) deserves it. But in actuality not every country that has gained that capability fits the definition. The simple answer is that it's all about power balance. If you're an ally of the West, you can have all the nukes you want, but if you're not, you must put yourself at their mercy. Note I'm not commenting on SA here, but the whole "we should be able to decide who gets nukes or not". It's very interesting when you consider how U.S. foreign policy has affected the world and the fact that SA is considered an ally.
You mean of course as opposed to the Chinese or Russians that are alternatively guaranteed to build those nuclear power plants.
Tell me more about this political science genius and how the US controls the entire world and all actions by all nations and at all times, including a superpower like China.
I'm seeing lots of negative sentiment in this comments section. Just a question, why do you think you have the right to say who gets nuclear power and who doesn't?
Why can America get Npower and nukes but SA can't?
The Middle Eastern countries have long-simmering tensions, both internationally and internally, and those conflicts do not make possession of nuclear weapons a good idea. Allowing more countries in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons is probably strategically bad for the entire world. Therefore, the rest of the world, including the evil hegemonic United States, will use considerable political and economic means to try to prevent that. And military force, if it can be done with reasonable safety, given that it's not just the U.S. that doesn't want new members in the nuclear club, but the entire world, including NATO and the UN.
It's not a matter of "we're better than you, therefore we get nuclear weapons and you don't, ha ha." It's that our political system and domestic behavior, however dysfunctional, is still more stable, and we have some experience holding onto nukes without using them, having muddled our way (luckily) through the Cold War.
See, the thing about international relations is this: All those carrier battle groups, and ballistic missiles, and submarines, and main battle tanks, and commandos, and spy satellites, and long range strategic bombers, etc, etc, constitute a country's "right" to XYZ, where XYZ is anything related to international relations. That's why they are created and maintained.
[+] [-] beloch|8 years ago|reply
So, this is basically India and Pakistan all over again, only with countries that are a lot more likely to back terrorists.
"The Trump administration, eager to revive the torpid American nuclear industry, is pushing Saudi Arabia to consider U.S. companies -- such as Westinghouse Electric Co. and Exelon Corp. -- for its nuclear contracts instead of competitors from Russia, China and other countries. "
Perhaps this is about money, or perhaps its about stirring the middle eastern pot. Threaten to give the Saudi's all the nuclear tech they want while deliberately ignoring what they do with it and you might just get Iran to end its own nuclear program if only the U.S. will put a stop to this. Or you might get a nuclear conflict.
This is probably going to go down in history as amazingly dumb. Canada is still a little embarrassed about India, but this will be much worse.
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
There is no scenario where Saudi Arabia doesn't get whatever nuclear power infrastructure they're after. Nothing will prevent that. China isn't going to have any problems building Saudi Arabia's nuclear power infrastructure, they'll be thrilled to do it. The same is true of Russia. There is nothing the US can reasonably do to stop China or Russia from building nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia.
Ok, there's one exceptionally dumb broad option: war with the non-US supplier (eg China or Russia), or fundamentally destroy Saudi Arabia as we know it today and kill millions of people to shut down all industrial progress there to prevent any nation from ever attempting to build nuclear power there.
Here's the reality of the near future: you are going to have to accept a bunch of bad actors are going to have access to various nuclear technology. It's only going to spread faster and faster.
[+] [-] sandworm101|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] north_east_dev|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soniman|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] realusername|8 years ago|reply
If I recall there's too much dust in Saudi Arabia for the solar panels to be any useful (and not enough rain to remove it). Here is some article on the subject: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph240/alshakhs2/. Nuclear would make more sense there.
[+] [-] newnewpdro|8 years ago|reply
An acquaintance who works in the oil industry relocated to Saudi Arabia for the express purpose of developing their fracking industry. He said they were burning unrefined crude oil for power generation, and were pivoting to natural gas.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/15/middleeast/saudi-arabia-iran-...
[+] [-] adrianN|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunstone|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xFFC|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostmsu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedeh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IAmEveryone|8 years ago|reply
Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian dictatorship, is waging a brutal war against one of the world’s poorest countries (and not even winning) and is committing all sorts of crimes against architecture and urban planning with its brutalistic dystopia in the desert. They run air conditioners not just in their cardboard McMansions, but even outside, in the garden FFS.
Iran happens to find itself on the wrong side politically compared to the US. But in almost any category, from education to innovation to even democracy they run circles around those spoiled brats of heredity literally killing themselves on the highways out of sheer boredom.
Proponents of nuclear power should be quite scared to see this compass that reliably points south adopting their pet technology.
[+] [-] fortythirteen|8 years ago|reply
Lambasting SA for fighting in Yemen and then praising Iran, the other country fighting in Yemen, is beyond ridiculous.
Trashing SA for being an authoritarian dictatorship and then praising Iran, another theocratic, authoritarian dictatorship, that is just as happy to have the secret police disappear its citizens, is intellectual malfeasance.
[+] [-] Consultant32452|8 years ago|reply
[0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-to-sell-cluster-bombs-to-s...
[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-paul-ryan-letter-missil...
[+] [-] kozak|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZenoArrow|8 years ago|reply
I wouldn't say Yemen was exactly "winning" either, the situation over there seems horrendous.
[+] [-] VMG|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tree_of_item|8 years ago|reply
What does this mean?
[+] [-] OmnipotentEntit|8 years ago|reply
In seriousness, how the hell is any of this relevant?
[+] [-] thriftwy|8 years ago|reply
Many poor countries, especially in Africa, complain that their resources are exploited and they get nothing from it.
But that doesn't just happens with (Saudi) Arabs. You just don't try to exploit Arabs. When you try, you're the one who gets in debt prison. So at least they're doing something right.
Just my tangential 2c to your spot-on comment.
[+] [-] Cyph0n|8 years ago|reply
Iran is also fighting in Yemen (by proxy) and has been directly supporting the Assad regime, one of the most brutal dictatorships the Middle East has ever seen.
[+] [-] fnord123|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Saudi_Arabi...
[+] [-] charlesdm|8 years ago|reply
If someone can make a buck, someone will do it. And Trump isn't exactly the person to stand up against them.
[+] [-] notyourday|8 years ago|reply
The fact that NK managed to do it pretty much makes "not have access to nuclear technologies" a non-starter argument
[+] [-] cooper12|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlebrech|8 years ago|reply
also (fuel) Diversity is good.
[+] [-] known|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soVeryTired|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=18111
[+] [-] tecknowlogic|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dbcooper|8 years ago|reply
The American Empire is so full of political science geniuses.
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
Tell me more about this political science genius and how the US controls the entire world and all actions by all nations and at all times, including a superpower like China.
[+] [-] swarnie_|8 years ago|reply
Why can America get Npower and nukes but SA can't?
[+] [-] harshreality|8 years ago|reply
It's not a matter of "we're better than you, therefore we get nuclear weapons and you don't, ha ha." It's that our political system and domestic behavior, however dysfunctional, is still more stable, and we have some experience holding onto nukes without using them, having muddled our way (luckily) through the Cold War.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mynameishere|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] friedButter|8 years ago|reply
Mostly cause America got Nukes first