197ing formal and relatively friendlier relations until the mid-1960s. The sud-
denness of the June War and the Arab military debacle pushed Moscow to
a corner and was forced to exhibit its support and commitment to its Arab
allies. On 10 June, a day before the ceasefire, the USSR broke off relations
with Israel and its Warsaw Bloc allies followed suit with only Romania
adhering to an independent course.^1 This phase continued until October
1991, when bilateral relations were re-established and paved the way for
USSR co-sponsoring—along with the US—the Middle East Peace
Conference in Madrid later that month.
Thus, between June 1967 and October 1991, the USSR did not have
diplomatic relations with Israel and this precluded Moscow from playing
any role in peace-making efforts. The end of the Cold War was also marked
by the disintegration and disappearance of the USSR. Until the emergence
of Vladimir Putin in 2000 and resurgent oil prices, Russia remained a mar-
ginal player in global politics, especially in the Middle East. Since its
return, Moscow’s role has primarily been confined to Syria and to a lim-
ited extent towards Iran (Freedman 2018 ).
While these enhanced the US domination in the Middle East, there has
been only limited policy convergence, especially with India over Saudi
Arabia. In the initial years, the al-Sauds were opposed to the US-led mili-
tary alliances, especially Baghdad Pact/CENTO but fears over Nasserism
and his brand of republicanism unnerved the conservative ruling family.
Military coup in Iraq in 1958 brought it closer to Pahlavis of Iran and dur-
ing the 1960s and 1970s both these countries emerged as the close allies
of the US and worked in tandem with Washington. Thus, even the oil
crisis of 1973 where Riyadh disapproved the US policy towards Israel did
not rupture the US-Saudi relations. If converging energy interest formed
the basis, the US consolidated the ties through sustained arms supplies
towards modernizing the Saudi military.
The military-security ties got a boost in 1953 when the United States
Military Training Mission (USMTM) was established in the Kingdom.
This proved vital when the US trained the Afghan Mujahedeen in the 1980s
and organized the military campaign against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
in 1990–91. The presence of foreign armies, especially women and non-
Muslim combatants in the Islamic holy land, spurred anti-regime protests
inside the country led by the conservative ulema from the Sahwa movement
(^1) This proved useful in the 1970s when President Anwar Sadat embarked upon his peace
overtures towards Israel that culminated in the Camp David accords of 1978.
INTERNATIONAL FACTORS