Are there any existential threats to the Saudi monarchy?

I think every government always has a certain subset of it’s citizens that would like to replace them. A pluralistic democracy has less of that because it allows groups to participate in public decisions, so autocrats face more of it.

In particular, the House of Saud long has had a very delicate relationship with hard-line Islamists/Wahabbists in the country who would like the country to be ruled by a fundamentalist theocracy, but has settled for the monarchy. This is why MBS liberalizing the social order is tough. Doing so too fast risks backlash from that element.

MBS seems to have identified that Saudi Arabia has economic challenges coming in the future that will force his economy to diversify from a purely oil based economy. Right now the Saudi populace (and alot of middle east oil economies) are used to the economy being propped up by oil.

If the west starts moving away from oil a few decades from now b/c of environmental concerns, then the price of oil will decline and volumes will decline. And that’s a BIG risk for him. With the internet, it’s also harder and harder to deny those citizens who want more social freedoms while balancing the social conservatism of his Wahabbists I mentioned above.

But I would categorize all these threats as being ‘long term’ threats. I haven’t heard of any serious short term threats.

Not really. There are a couple possibilities:

1) Iran and its allies are primarily Shi’ite muslims, while the rest of the muslim world is overwhelingly Sunni. There is no great love between the two factions; they have fought before. It is concievable that they will war again. Thrown in Islamic Jihad, What remains of ISIS, what remains of Al Qaeda, there could be more Arabs killing Arabs.

2) Internal dissension in Saudi Arabia – MBS has liberalized quite a bit (although not enough) and there are plenty of arch-conservative Wahabis that would prefer going back to the ‘old’ super-religious way of life. There is probably some risk of them rising up. Although because of the strength of the internal security forces, not a bad thing.

3) Russia could get tired of MBS and poison him like they have done with others. This would likely be if MBS got close to the United States again.

4) Israel could assassinate MBS if they felt threatened, although this seems unlikely because Israel will achieve more with MBS in power and as a friend.

There’s no imminent threat, but that doesn’t mean some crazy couldn’t come along – like they did in 1975 when King Faisal was assassinated. link

Sex.

They like it, but they have to import all the really good stuff.

Sooner or later it will kill their balance of payments.

An asteroid impact.