Rise of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman shatters decades of royal tradition

He has slashed the state budget, frozen government contracts and reduced the pay of civil employees, all part of drastic austerity measures as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is buffeted by low oil prices.

But last year, Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince, saw a yacht he couldn't resist.

While vacationing in the south of France, Prince Mohammed spotted a 134-metre yacht floating off the coast. He dispatched an aide to buy the ship, the Serene, which was owned by Yuri Shefler, a Russian vodka tycoon. The deal was done within hours, at a price of approximately €500 million (roughly $720 million today), according to an associate of Shefler and a Saudi close to the royal family. The Russian moved off the yacht the same day.

It is the paradox of the brash, 31-year-old Mohammed bin Salman: a man who is trying to overturn tradition, reinvent the economy and consolidate power - while holding on tight to his royal privilege. In less than two years, he has emerged as the most dynamic royal in the Arab world's wealthiest nation, setting up a potential rivalry for the throne.

Saudi Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is young and if he became king his reign might be long.Credit: Nicolas Asfouri

He has a hand in nearly all elements of Saudi policy - from a war in Yemen that has cost the kingdom billions of dollars and led to international criticism over civilian deaths, to a push domestically to restrain Saudi Arabia's free-spending habits and to break its "addiction" to oil. He has begun to loosen social restrictions that grate on young people.

Mohammed bin Salman's rise has shattered decades of tradition in the royal family, where respect for seniority and power-sharing among branches are time-honoured traditions. Never before in Saudi history has so much power been wielded by the deputy crown prince, who is second in line to the throne. That centralisation of authority has angered many of his relatives.

His seemingly boundless ambitions have led many Saudis and foreign officials to suspect that his ultimate goal is not just to transform the kingdom, but also to shove aside the current crown prince, his 57-year-old cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, to become the next king. Such a move could further upset his relatives and - if successful - give the country what it has never seen: a young king who could rule the kingdom for many decades.

Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister and longtime counter-terrorism czar, has deep ties to Washington and the support of many of the older royals. Deciphering the dynamics of the family can be like trying to navigate a hall of mirrors, but many Saudi and US officials say Mohammed bin Salman has made moves aimed at reaching into Mohammed bin Nayef's portfolios and weakening him.

The 134m superyacht Serene is pictured berthed at Auckland's Wynyard Wharf in 2015. Soon after it was purchased by Prince Mohammed in an impulse buy for $720 million.Credit: Getty Images/Phil Walter

This has left officials in Washington hedging their bets by building relationships with both men, unsure who will end up on top. The White House got an early sign of the ascent of the young prince in late 2015, when - breaking protocol - Mohammed bin Salman delivered a soliloquy about the failures of US foreign policy during a meeting between his father, King Salman, and US President Barack Obama.

Many young Saudis admire him as an energetic representative of their generation who has addressed some of the country's problems with uncommon bluntness. The kingdom's media have built his image as a hardworking, businesslike leader less concerned than his predecessors with the trappings of royalty.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, hold a bilateral meeting before the start of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China.Credit: AP

Others see him as a power-hungry upstart who is risking instability by changing too much, too fast.

Months of interviews with Saudi and US officials, members of the royal family and their associates, and diplomats focused on Saudi affairs reveal a portrait of a prince in a hurry to prove that he can transform Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman declined multiple interview requests for this article.

Among the powerful: Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) shakes hands with Saudi Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Credit: Getty

But the question many raise - and cannot yet answer - is whether the energetic leader will succeed in charting a new path for the kingdom, or whether his impulsiveness and inexperience will destabilise the Arab world's largest economy at a time of turbulence in the Middle East.

Tension at the top

Saudi Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the opening ceremony of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China.Credit: Getty

Early this year, Mohammed bin Nayef left the kingdom for his family's villa in Algeria, a sprawling compound an hour's drive north of Algiers. Although he has long taken annual hunting vacations there, many who know him said this year was different. He stayed away for weeks, largely incommunicado and often refusing to respond to messages from Saudi officials and close associates in Washington. Even John Brennan, the CIA director, whom he has known for decades, had difficulty reaching him.

The crown prince has diabetes, and suffers from the lingering effects of an assassination attempt in 2009 by a jihadist who detonated a bomb he had hidden in his rectum.

Mohammed bin Nayef.Credit: AP

But his lengthy absence at a time of low oil prices, turmoil in the Middle East and a foundering Saudi-led war in Yemen led several US officials to conclude that the crown prince was fleeing frictions with his younger cousin and that the prince was worried his chance to ascend to the throne was in jeopardy.

Since King Salman ascended to the throne in January 2015, new powers had been flowing to his son, some of them undermining the authority of the crown prince. King Salman collapsed the crown prince's court into his own, giving Mohammed bin Salman control over access to the king. Mohammed bin Salman also hastily announced the formation of a military alliance of Islamic countries to fight terrorism. Counterterrorism had long been the domain of Mohammed bin Nayef, but the new plan gave no role to him or his powerful Interior Ministry.

He gets around. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.Credit: Getty

The exact personal relationship between the two men is unclear, fuelling discussion in Saudi Arabia and foreign capitals about who is ascendant. Obscuring the picture are the stark differences in the men's public profiles. Mohammed bin Nayef has largely stayed in the shadows, although he did visit New York last month to address the UN General Assembly before heading to Turkey for a state visit.

His younger cousin, meanwhile, has worked to remain in the spotlight, touring world capitals, speaking with foreign journalists, being photographed with Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg and presenting himself as a face of a new Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Hangzhou, China, for the G20 summit. Credit: Getty

"There is no topic that is more important than succession matters, especially now," said Joseph Kechichian, a senior fellow at the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who has extensive contacts in the Saudi royal family. "This matters for monarchy, for the regional allies and for the kingdom's international partners."

Among the most concrete initiatives of Mohammed bin Salman, who is defence minister, is the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which since it was begun last year has failed to dislodge the Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies from the Yemeni capital. The war has driven much of Yemen toward famine and killed thousands of civilians while costing the Saudi government tens of billions of dollars.

The prosecution of the war by a prince with no military experience has exacerbated tensions between him and his older cousins, according to US officials and members of the royal family. Three of Saudi Arabia's main security services are run by princes. Although all agreed that the kingdom had to respond when the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital and forced the government into exile, Mohammed bin Salman took the lead, launching the war in March 2015 without full coordination across the security services.

The head of the national guard, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, had not been informed and was out of the country when the first strikes were carried out, according to a senior national guard officer.

The national guard is now holding much of the Yemeni border.

US officials, too, were put off when, just as the Yemen campaign was escalating, Mohammed bin Salman took a vacation in the Maldives, the island archipelago off the coast of India. Several US officials said Defence Secretary Ash Carter had trouble reaching him for days during one part of the trip.

The prolonged war has also heightened tensions between Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Nayef, who won the respect of Saudis and US officials for dismantling al-Qaeda in the kingdom nearly a decade ago and now sees it taking advantage of chaos in Yemen, according to several US officials and analysts.

"If Mohammed bin Nayef wanted to be seen as a big supporter of this war, he's had a year and a half to do it," said Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East analyst at the CIA and a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Near the start of the war, Mohammed bin Salman was a forceful public advocate for the campaign and was often photographed visiting troops and meeting with military leaders. But as the campaign has stalemated, such appearances have grown rare.

The war underlines the plans of Mohammed bin Salman for a brawny foreign policy for the kingdom, one less reliant on Western powers like the United States for its security. He has criticised the thawing of America's relations with Iran and comments by Obama during an interview this year that Saudi Arabia must "share the neighbourhood" with Iran.

This is part of what analysts say is Mohammed bin Salman's attempt to foster a sense of Saudi national identity that has not existed since the kingdom's founding in 1932.

"There has been a surge of Saudi nationalism since the campaign in Yemen began, with the sense that Saudi Arabia is taking independent collective action," said Andrew Bowen, a Saudi expert at the Wilson Centre in Washington.

Still, Bowen said support among younger Saudis could diminish the longer the conflict dragged on. Diplomats say the death toll for Saudi troops is higher than the government has publicly acknowledged, and a recent deadly airstrike on a funeral in the Yemeni capital has renewed calls by human rights groups and some US lawmakers to block or delay weapons sales to the kingdom.

People who have met Mohammed bin Salman said he insisted that Saudi Arabia must be more assertive in shaping events in the Middle East and confronting Iran's influence in the region - whether in Yemen, Syria, Iraq or Lebanon.

Brian Katulis, a Middle East expert at the Centre for American Progress in Washington, who met the deputy crown prince this year in Riyadh, said his agenda was clear.

"His main message is that Saudi Arabia is a force to be reckoned with," Katulis said.

New York Times