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The Persian Gulf’s Strategic Triangle: The relations between the United States, Iran, and Saudi Arabia from 1969 to 2014 under Neoclassical Realism
Iran and Saudi Arabia are today the two most influential countries in the Persian Gulf, and their foreign behaviour is strongly linked to how they perceive the role of the United States in the region. Nevertheless, a glance at the specialized literature on the International Relations of the Middle E...
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| Format: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Philipps-Universität Marburg
2021
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| Online Access: | PDF Full Text |
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| Summary: | Iran and Saudi Arabia are today the two most influential countries in the Persian Gulf, and their foreign behaviour is strongly linked to how they perceive the role of the United States in the region. Nevertheless, a glance at the specialized literature on the International Relations of the Middle East (IRME) indicates a lack of studies exploring these three relations together in a single theoretical framework. Thus, this thesis asks how these three countries can be studied as a strategic triangle, meaning they share highly interdependent relations that affect their international behaviour, exploring the characteristics of this triangle and how it changes through time. For that, I examine their grand strategies from 1969 to 2014, arguing that their decision-making process is so interlinked that a change in one dyad (for example, Iran-Saudi Arabia) has effects on the other two. Hence, I challenge the scholarly tendency to examine state-state relations only on the bilateral level by building a triangular framework that investigates the three together and at the same analytical level of scrutinization.
I employ Neoclassical Realism (NCR) as the theoretical framework and use case studies analysis and process tracing as the methodological choice. NCR sustains that while power distribution within the system conditions international politics, unit-level factors shape and mould a state's behaviour, enabling different reactions to similar systemic stimuli. Via NCR, I developed the following explanative chain: contextualized power (independent variable) →, status satisfaction, regime identity, and foreign policy executives (intervening variables) → strategic triangle (the dependent variable). I applied this chain to four different periods: 1969-1979; 1979-1990; 1990-2003, and 2003-2014. Each period represents a balance of power alteration within the Persian Gulf, changing the dynamics of the triangulation. These periods represented my four case study chapters, in which I described the triangle's characteristics and tendencies. These case studies confirmed my hypotheses, which are: the first triangle is a menage à trois (all relations are positive), the second a stable marriage (connections between the US and Saudi Arabia are positive as theirs with Iran is negative), the third, a romantic triangle (Saudis have positive ties with the other two, which continue enemies), and the fourth is a revised stable marriage (US-Saudi Arabia positive, Saudi-Iran and US-Iran are negative).
My decision to employ NCR to explore this topic also concerns the axiological goal of inserting the thesis into the Global IR movement, which criticizes the Western bias within most of the International Relations mainstream. Exploring an IRME's topic via NCR aims to bring the Realist paradigm closer to the Global IR movement while reducing Middle East Studies (MES) isolation from the centre of IR theorization. I concluded that the complexity of the three countries' relationship is indeed better grasped through the strategic triangle construct. Moreover, the thesis brings key empirical findings that contribute to questions about the regional system and theoretical results about the utility of NCR, the importance of ideational, cognitive, and leadership factors for the case, and the advantages of exploring stat-estate relations in more complex arrangements such as triangulation. |
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| DOI: | 10.17192/z2023.0485 |