Abstract
Introduction
Saudi Arabia’s regional foreign policy has undergone significant recalibration amid changing regional security dynamics, intensifying great-power competition, and evolving patterns of interdependence in the Middle East. This study examines how Saudi Arabia has managed these uncertainties between 2010 and 2025 through the combined analytical lenses of Strategic Hedging Theory and Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT).
Methods
The study employs a qualitative longitudinal case-study design incorporating documentary analysis and process tracing. Data were drawn from official Saudi government documents, diplomatic statements, summit declarations, bilateral and multilateral agreements, and strategic policy publications covering the period from 2010 to 2025. The analysis traces changes in Saudi Arabia’s foreign-policy behavior in relation to shifts in the regional security environment and assesses the composition of its strategic responses over time.
Results
The findings indicate that Saudi foreign policy is best understood as recalibrated strategic hedging, rather than as successive shifts between balancing, bandwagoning, and accommodation. Throughout the study period, Saudi Arabia combined security alignment, autonomous capability-building, strategic diversification, and selective accommodation to protect national security, enhance strategic autonomy, maintain regional influence, and preserve strategic flexibility under conditions of persistent uncertainty. Changes in foreign-policy behavior primarily reflected shifts in the relative composition of this strategic portfolio rather than fundamental changes in its underlying strategic objectives.
Discussion
Integrating RSCT with Strategic Hedging Theory demonstrates how transformations in the Middle Eastern regional security environment generated changing strategic pressures and shaped Saudi Arabia’s adaptive policy responses. The study contributes to international relations scholarship by extending the application of strategic hedging to a major regional power and conceptualizing recalibrated regional-power hedging as a strategy for simultaneously managing intra-regional security competition and dependence on extra-regional powers while preserving multiple strategic options.