Like a vision sent by God, the dramatic graphic renders of the 2029 Asian Winter Games allow us to imagine what heaven must look like. The winter sun lighting up their ski gear, Asia’s finest winter athletes are lining up along the dust-brown mountains of Asir in Saudi Arabia’s southern Red Sea Coast. The weather is like New Delhi in December, 23°C in the day and 12°C at night, but machines powered by a giant green-hydrogen plant will allow fresh snow engineered from sea-water to carpet the concrete ski-slopes at all times.
There will be a gorgeous Nordic-grey lake ensconced in the mountains, a fold-up village for the visiting athletes, villas, hotels and facilities for yachting and diving. Later, there will be two 500-metre high, 100-mile-long skyscrapers, called the Line, where drones will automatically deliver groceries and flying elevators will take residents directly to their apartments.
Elsewhere in the world, sceptics sensing a scam might reserve their judgement until the 2029 Asian Winter Games. Earthmovers are already in motion, though to create Neom—Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s snow-on-the-sands fantasy.
There has been no effort quite like this in human history, at least since God purportedly created man from clay, or a blood clot, or from himself. The crown prince is determined to remake one of the richest and most socially-backward nation-states in the world, in his own image.
Yet, as environmental analyst Ahmed El Droubi has pointed out, the projections on which ideas like The Line are based skate on thin ice. There is already a significant oversupply of high-end property for élites across the region, which has depressed prices. Moreover, there’s not much evidence that well-resourced tourists would prefer faux ski resorts in the desert to real ones in the United States of America or Europe.
Lebanon already has ski resorts at Mzaar and Faraya, which have traditionally been magnets for wealthy Gulf vacationers. Expanding those centres would make more sense than building artificial facilities in the desert. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all boast indoor ski resorts for learners who really can’t be bothered to leave home.
Fascinated—and terrified—experts across the region are asking themselves: Is the crown prince destined to be Saudi Arabia’s own Sun King, a version of Louis XIV, who bankrupted the court of France and pushed his heirs’ heads on to the guillotine?
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Making of a new nation
This much is clear: The new Saudi Arabia isn’t about building concrete structures, but a national self-imagination. Last week, Saudi football club Al-Hilal paid $400 million to secure the services of football superstar Neymar da Silva Santos. His former club Paris Saint-Garmain (PSG) was given a $90 million commission. Earlier, rival Saudi club Al-Nassr of Riyadh made a similar payout to get Cristiano Ronaldo. Al-Hilal is also reported to have made an eye-popping $333 million offer to French captain Kylian Mbappé.
A host of top coaches and players have also been hired by Saudi football clubs: French footballers Karim Benzema from Real Madrid and N’Golo Kanté from Chelsea, Brazil’s Roberto Firmino from Liverpool, and the former Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard.
Ever since early 2021, journalist Ruth Michaelson estimates, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF)—among the world’s largest, with assets of over $700 billion—has, together with other public-sector entities, invested $6.3 billion in such sports deals. Among other things, the PIF also owns top United Kingdom club Newcastle, and has made investments in a golf tournament modelled on the United States Open.
Saudi officials, in private conversations, insist the investments serve a public purpose. Every second Saudi, the data shows, is overweight, and more than 20 per cent are suffering from obesity. Encouraging high-voltage sport, the argument grows, would draw young people to healthier lifestyles. The Saudi authorities are proud of the successes they’ve had in opening gyms, and expanding sports for girls.
This is, at best, a virtuous spin-off from the real aim, though: To make Saudi Arabia a modern, post-theocratic state, insulated from challenges to its authority from an often-restive youthful population.
Ambition versus wealth
To many analysts, creating an ecosystem of top football stars makes little business sense. For one, the audience for pro-league Saudi football isn’t huge. DAZN, a UK-based broadcaster, secured rights to stream matches overseas for a mere $500,000. Football in Saudi has a long record of spending beyond its means, because of state support. In 2018, the crown prince had to clear cumulative debts of $333 million piled up by the clubs.
Little reason is needed to see why top European clubs are willing to offload star players to the Saudi league. Earlier this year, European soccer regulator Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) capped the spending of clubs on player wages and associated commissions to 90 per cent this year, 80 per cent the next, and 70 per cent in 2025.
European clubs are, thus, keen to get rid of some of their highest-priced assets—especially older players, whose performance isn’t always matched by their star value.
The ruins of the Saudi monarchies’ more ambitious efforts to transform the country are everywhere. In 2006, former King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz ordered the construction of six knowledge cities, which would create millions of high-technology jobs. There has been just one—arguable—success. And the $10 billion King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh has struggled in the face of cost overruns, and the lack of enough tenants.
Even though Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf neighbours see the need to position themselves for a post-hydrocarbon future, it’s far from clear if their ambitions to become hubs of finance and technology can be met.
Likely, the Saudi monarchy understands this. But it also knows the alternative to emerging as modern nation-states enmeshed in the global system is chaos.
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Curse of oil
Ever since the discovery of massive Saudi oil deposits in 1938, historian Tyler Priest has written, the kingdom’s security was guaranteed by the United States of America. The US had supplied almost 80 per cent of the petroleum needs of its European allies through the Second World War. The lifting of price controls threatened these economies. Enhanced Saudi production helped bring the cost down again. To sustain the arrangement, the US guaranteed security to Saudi Arabia.
In 1944, former US President Franklin D Roosevelt told a British diplomat: “Persian oil is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it’s ours.”
The charismatic Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent William Eddy, in 1945, secured a successful summit between then Saudi King Abdul al-Aziz and Roosevelt.
Eddy’s efforts ensured the two leaders bonded. Al-Aziz was gifted a DC-3 transport aircraft, which he reciprocated with a diamond-encrusted dagger, belts of woven gold and embroidered harem dresses—a sly reference, perhaps, to Roosevelt’s not-always-scrupulous commitment to marital fidelity.
Empires are expensive, though. Arthur Herman estimated in 2014, that “keeping the region’s shipping lanes, including the Strait of Hormuz, open to tanker traffic costs the Pentagon, on average, $50 billion a year—a service that earns us the undying enmity of populations in that region.”
The US military, the argument went, was effectively providing security for big Asian oil importers like China. The Saudi state knows that. Today, it will need to enmesh itself in a complex network of alliances, involving Iran, China, and the US—and the country will need to do more than sell oil to do that.
Like other monarchies in the Persian Gulf, Saudi rulers know the challenges ahead. The monarchy was built on an 18th-century compact between its rulers and the country’s clerics, which enforced its authority through massacres and terror directed at so-called infidels. The state it built cannot coexist with a post-oil technological society.
Élites in Saudi Arabia, journalist Ben Hubbard has written, hope social liberalism will win the support of young people—but too much excess, or too few jobs, could easily lead to the resurgence of jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. The monarchy, moreover, cannot risk democratising its political life, as liberal as its social mores might become. As the Shah of Iran Mohammad Raza Pahlavi discovered, sudden drops in oil revenue can rapidly discredit authoritarian modernisers, and open the way for revolution.
In 1971, the Pahlavi hosted what came to be known as The Devil’s Feast: quail eggs with caviar, mousse of crayfish tails, imperial peacock, 60-year-old champagne and vintage cognac for royals and presidents from across the world, who had gathered to celebrate his greatness. Eight years later, his authority had crumbled, and the Shah was swept into exile by the theocratic opposition.
Finding himself at the crossroads of destiny, the Saudi crown prince has made a firm decision about which way to march. He will be hoping history isn’t waiting ahead to ambush him.
The author is National Security Editor, ThePrint. He tweets @praveenswami. Views are personal. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)