AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) for Saudi Arabia: A Study of Foreign Policy and Political Process

The purpose of this study was to examine the 1981 sale of five Airborne Warning and Control System AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia in terms of the sales actual effectiveness in achieving the foreign policy goals which former President Reagan claimed it would achieve. Congress, then having the authority to block major arms sales by virtue of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, forcibly challenged the President not only on his interpretation of the national interest, but also on his ability to conduct foreign policy effectively. The thesis examines President Reagans expressed rationale for promoting the sale. The specific areas covered deal with U.S.-Saudi security concerns as well as the concept of presidential influence and leverage in the Middle East. The thesis also looks at the intense political battle and shows that a major arms sale was sanctioned not through logic or reason, but through raw emotion and political clout. The Saudis found the heated arguments over their reliability, stability and motives to be a bitter embarrassment. The thesis concludes by citing specific examples of how the Saudis have since avoided such embarrassment by turning to other nations for arms, most notably, perhaps ominously, to the Chinese for long-range surface-to-surface missiles. Theses.