Saudi Arabia Ramps Up Defense Budget at Expense of Islamic Institutions

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 aims to bring about a complete political, economic and cultural transformation to the Kingdom, aspiring to diversify the economy away from oil production and towards cutting-edge innovation transforming its desert dunes into world leading digital technologies. As part and parcel of this strategy, two prominent Saudi fields have undergone major reformation: Islamic religious institutions and national defense establishments. Under the Vision 2030 economic diversification program, Saudi Arabia’s defense spending has grown substantially over the last decade, while the authority of Islamic institutions has taken a step back. Through this process, it seems that the celebrated Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is taking steps towards Western notions of modernity in the liberalization efforts of Vision 2030. 

Saudi Arabia ranked as the fifth largest defense spender in the world in 2022 behind the United States, China, Russia, and India, and has reiterated full intentions of climbing further up these ranks. When Vision 2030 was announced, only 3% of Saudi Arabia’s procurements came from local companies, with the rest sourced from abroad, largely the US. According to the 2023 budget released by the Saudi Ministry of Finance, the Kingdom increased its military spending by 50% in 2023, to $69 billion – approximately 23% of its total budget. The significant increase in the defense budget comes as part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 requirements to localize government spending in the defense sector. This leaves us to question – why the sudden escalation in defense spending at the same time as the Kingdom’s full-scale nation-branding scheme? 

At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s religious establishments have undergone major reform as the monarchy consolidates its vision for the country’s future. The Crown Prince has promised to reel back Islamic extremist presence in the country in favor of a “return to moderate Islam” open to the world and all religions. In his view, Vision 2030 aims to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and lures investors. Bin Salman stated that the religious doctrine is no longer “committed blindly” to the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, or any “certain school or scholar.” However, one must approach such statements with skepticism. While it is true that the Crown Prince has condemned Islamic extremist groups such as the Sahwa movement, a political Islam derived from the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood, in arresting significant Sahwi uUema, he is dually centralizing his power by removing opposition groups to the Royal family who may pose a challenge to their rule. Anyone deemed to threaten Vision 2030 has been preemptively neutralized by the Crown Prince. With these actions, the regime made it clear that no dissenting voices would be tolerated. 

Ultimately, Bin Salman’s push for the Vision 2030 plan tostrengthen Saudi solidarity, defense power and the removal of Islamic extremist presence has come to be overshadowed by his lid on free speech, restrictions on political opposition, and the crackdown on dissent. It is argued that the increase in Saudi’s defense budget along with the Kingdom’s economic innovation acts as a forged nation-branding visage to strengthen the absolute monarchy’s image abroad. This was an effort to use ‘Vision 2030’ in the absolute monarchy’s macrodiplomatic strategy. 

What is emerging from the 2030 Vision plan and an increased defense budget is a Kingdom straddling the boundary between coercive strategies of the past such as surveillance and patronage, with innovations that respond aggressively to the triple threat of globalization, renewable-driven economies, and democratization. One must decide whether the changes to defense and religious fields in Saudi’s Vision 2030 plan are merely a glossy nation-branding scheme to exert greater soft power across the world or a genuine attempt to crawl up from the constraints of Wahhabism? 

The surface-level of Vision 2030 is evident: trade deal after trade deal boosting economic diversification, the retreat of Islamic institutions and greater localized defense spending as an upward trajectory for the Saudi dynasty. However, if further interpreted, it becomes clear that appeals to expanding government budgets on defense artillery are only riding on the support of oil revenues to maintain status and power. The country’s nation branding scheme has succeeded in its strategy, but we must not be fooled by the Crown Prince’s liberalization discourse in order to look past the state’s weak regulatory power, exploitative workforce practices and the absolute monarchy’s suppression of almost all political rights and civil liberties.