Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Mohammed bin Salman was already an active policy maker prior to becoming the heir apparent. Having been immediately appointed defense minister upon his father’s accession, he quickly launched an aggressive military policy in Yemen known as Operation Decisive Storm. In March 2015 Saudi Arabia led a coalition of mostly Gulf countries in a military intervention in Yemen to rescue the government of Pres. Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi from a rebellion by the Houthis, a Zaydī Shiʿi group centred in northern Yemen. A heavy aerial bombing campaign and naval blockade began in March, and coalition ground troops entered the country in August. Despite the scale of the attack and the superiority of the coalition’s weaponry, the Houthi forces proved difficult to dislodge. With the Saudi-led forces unable to strike a decisive blow and the Houthis receiving some level of support from Saudi Arabia’s rival Iran, the fighting entered a prolonged stalemate. The conflict’s impact on the civilian population of Yemen was catastrophic: bombing raids killed innocent people, destroyed infrastructure, and disrupted humanitarian operations, and the blockade cut the flow of food and medicine into the country. Nonetheless, Saudi intervention to prevent the takeover of Yemen by a group backed by Iran was seen by many Saudis to be necessary to contain Iranian influence and helped bolster Mohammed’s profile.

As crown prince, Mohammed likewise pursued an aggressive foreign policy in the region. Many of these policies centred on containing Iranian influence while attempting to establish Saudi dominance in the region. Rhetoric against Iran became more terse: Mohammed accused Iran of “direct military aggression” for supplying the Houthis with weapons. He also led a blockade against Qatar, not only for its friendly relationship with Iran but also for its support of other rival actors in the region, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Among the most brazen examples of his aggressive foreign policy was the Saudi influence on the sudden resignation of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri while on a visit to Riyadh in November 2017; after significant international pressure, the Saudi government allowed Hariri to return to Lebanon, where he immediately rescinded his resignation.

With falling oil prices causing a growing fiscal crisis in the kingdom, Mohammed pushed ambitious initiatives to alter its economy and finances. In 2016, before he was crown prince, he introduced Vision 2030, a sweeping program to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil revenue by diversifying its economy and making it more open to foreign investment. It included plans to sell 5 percent of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, in the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history and raise $100 billion for the company. Mohammed likewise announced a $500 billion project to build the megacity of Neom, envisioned as an innovative commercial and industrial hub along the Red Sea.

In line with these efforts, the government started implementing a number of social reforms. The government announced that it would issue tourist visas for entertainment events, such as concerts and sporting events, and a 35-year ban on cinemas was lifted. Women were granted more freedom in an effort to increase their involvement in the workforce. Among the restrictions lifted was a driving ban, and the government began to issue driver’s licenses to women in June 2018.

However, while some restrictions on women were being lifted, observers noted an uptick in arrests of people who protested the many remaining restrictions on women. Moreover, extreme laws that prevented women’s autonomy were brought into the spotlight in January 2019 when a Saudi woman, Rahaf Mohammed, fled to another country to escape the control of her family. Her plight drew international attention to the severity of the Saudi guardianship system, which requires Saudi women of all ages to receive permission from a male legal guardian to travel or to make a variety of decisions. In recent years guardians in Saudi Arabia could even use a smartphone app that made it easier for men to grant permission remotely, a technological advance that was hailed by some for making it easier for women to do more without accompaniment but was also noted for effectively giving male guardians even greater control over women. In August 2019 a set of decrees allowed Saudi women to travel abroad without the permission of guardians. The decrees also allowed women to obtain family documents and guardianship over minors and to register births, marriages, and divorces.

Meanwhile, the government had also undertaken a more authoritarian approach to stave off potential political challenges. Dozens of princes, business leaders, and senior officials were arrested in November 2017 in a surprise sweep described by authorities as an anti-corruption action. Because the detained individuals included some of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in Saudi Arabia, many observers suspected that the true purpose of the sweep was to secure the aspirations of the crown prince. Many were released only after relinquishing partial control of their businesses to the state or paying billions of dollars.

The crackdown on dissenters began receiving considerable international attention in late 2018. After Canada called for the release of imprisoned political dissidents, Saudi Arabia accused Canada of violating its sovereignty, expelled its ambassador, and froze any new trade with the country.

In October it became apparent that Saudi officials had coordinated the extrajudicial killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent journalist and exiled government critic who had once been an adviser to the royal family. As the evidence mounted after initial denials from the Saudi government, the international outcry continued to grow. The killing of Khashoggi was especially concerning to the international community because it was committed on foreign soil against someone who was living in exile. The incident shattered the image of Mohammed abroad as a reformer and drew attention to his suppression of dissenters.

As relations soured with many international businesses and political bodies because of the scandal, Mohammed embarked on high-profile visits to South Asian countries and China in February 2019. He received especially warm welcomes in Pakistan and India, which had become increasingly reliant on Saudi investment and trade in recent months. While he was in China, Saudi Arabia’s biggest trade partner, the two countries agreed to 35 economic agreements worth $28 billion. Many observers believed the weeklong trip was designed to buffer international criticism by showcasing Mohammed’s statesmanship.

Meanwhile, amid the ongoing stalemate in the war in Yemen, the Houthis in northern Yemen were becoming increasingly aggressive in attacking Saudi Arabia in mid-2019. Both missiles and drones struck several targets, including a civilian airport in Abhā and a military air base in Asir as well as targets involving oil production and public utilities. On September 14, 2019, two major Saudi oil-processing facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais were hit by a series of drone strikes, temporarily shutting down half of the country’s oil production. The Houthis claimed responsibility for the strikes, which were more effective and more distant than their previous strikes. The United States, however, blamed Iran, saying U.S. intelligence showed that the strikes had been launched from the north. Saudi officials likewise said that the strikes did not come from Yemen.

The Saudi oil industry recovered quickly, nonetheless, and in March 2020 it engaged Russia in a price war, flooding the market with its own oil in an effort to expand its share of the market. The two countries were at odds over how to respond to a sudden decline in the global demand for oil because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which threatened both countries’ revenue and market share. An agreement to cut production was reached in mid-April, but demand (and therefore Saudi state revenue) remained low for months, forcing Saudi Arabia to undertake austerity measures in order to make up a portion of its deficit.

Also in March, hundreds of prominent public servants were detained in a sweep reminiscent of that of late 2017. The detainees included members of the royal family close to the throne, including King Salman’s younger brother Ahmad and the former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continued, Saudi officials announced that only a handful of local Saudi pilgrims would be permitted to perform the annual hajj ritual in Mecca. In addition to the religious and historical significance of such a restriction, the suspension of religious tourism altogether (including the lesser ʿumrah pilgrimage) was especially costly to the Saudi economy, which relied on billions of dollars from pilgrims each year. Restrictions remained in place into 2021, although a limited number of vaccinated pilgrims from abroad were allowed after the annual hajj had been completed. The restrictions were largely lifted in 2022, but the number of pilgrims remained limited to roughly half the typical amount.