Saudi Officials Linked to Jihadist Group in WikiLeaks Cables

[happyslug]

23. I have written about this is the past, comparing it to the Soviet Union 1970-1990

During that time period you had a similar change of generation. Stalin was a murdering thug, but even he needed people to do what he wanted done. This group of people changed constantly under Stalin (as it did under King Saud I) but once Stalin died, you had a quick kill off of Stalin's biggest killers (The head of the NKVD was shoot and the NKVD was reorganized as the KGB to get rid of some of the old order), but then the killing stopped. The second generation were in charged and they wanted no more of the killings, they wanted to rule, but no more killings among themselves.

Thus the Soviet Union just stopped killing members of their leadership by the mid 1950s The number of Political Prisoners dropped. If someone was jailed for a Political crime, they were rarely executed after 1955. Thus the "second generation" of rulers of the Soviet Union took charge of the Soviet Union. These people had lived under Stalin, they had known Stalin, they had survived Stalin. They saw each others as survivors, almost brothers, thus you had infighting but no bodies.

That started to change about 1970. Older members of the "Second Generations" started to die off and had to be replaced by younger people, people who had NOT meet Stalin, or suffered and benefited under Stalin. By 1980s, the older Generation was reaching the age when they started to die off. Thus the third generation started to take over more of the operation of the Soviet Union. These third generation were not a collection of survivors, as the second generation had been. The third generation were maneuvering for position to take over once the Second generation died off. Thus under Reagan you has a serious of leaders of the Soviet Union who had come into power in the 1930s under Stalin taking over one after another as their died off.

Finally Gorbachev was elected. He was the First leader of the Soviet Union NOT born under the Czar. The whole second generation had basically died off. You did have some of the old WWII vets left, but most were dying off due to old age, but the Second Generation under Stalin had entered power during the purges of the late 1930s, thus tended to be 10 years older then the WWII vets. Thus WWII vets were around but the Third generation had finally moved into the positions of power and proceeded to fight over who will get control over what in the Soviet Union. The in fighting increased and this became worse when Gorbachev permitted competitive elections (i.e. elections where the candidates were NOT all communists).

The Communists were still in charge but infighting over who would get what increased. Finally the Russian equivalent of the NSA decided to attempt a coup, which failed but the result was Gorbachev was out, the Soviet Union was dissolved and Russia opt for rapid conversion to Capitalism. After ten more years, Putin took over and ended the experiment in Capitalism and slowly developed a policy of crony capitalism with Putin slowly moving against the ex Communists who were now the oligarchs of Russia.

As you see, the moves of the third Generation and the in fighting occurring starting in the 1970s lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I suspect similar infighting is occurring now in Saudi Arabia. The Second generation is dying out, and the third generation is moving in. This is made worse by the custom outside the Christian West (and China) to marry one's cousin. Thus the cliques inside the royal family tend to be self perpetuating (To avoid this is why the Catholic Church banned Cousin marrying in the Dark Ages, something most people in what use to be called the "Christian West" do NOT do to this day).

Thus, while King Saud died in 1952 a year before Stalin died (in 1953) the second generation of King Saud were much younger then the second generation after Stalin. Thus the Soviet Union went into problems over succession in the 1980s and it appears that Saudi Arabia only started around 2000. In the case of the Soviet Union the transition took only five years (Yeltsin's rule in Russia was the RESULT of that infighting, not part of it, when it became clear what Yeltsin had done was NOT working he was replaced by Putin).

Thus it is taking more time for the third generation to take charge in Arabia, but you see the same type of infighting, as the various sides try to show they are better Communists (in the case of 1970s and 1980s Soviet Union) or better Salafists (in the case of Saudi Arabia). This lead to the Soviet Intervention into Afghanistan, the only non communist ally of the Soviet Union (Stalin had though Afghanistan to primitive to even think about making communistic). In the case of Saudi Arabia, its recent attempts to make the Middle East a Salafism holy land.

More on Salafism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement

You can see similar situation in history. The Third Generation of the Yuan Dynasty after Kublai Khan, ended up fighting among themselves so much that the native Ming Dynasty ended up taking over China. Kublai Khan himself was a third generation after Genghis Khan and he came out on top, but only in China, he lost control over the rest of the Mongol Empire. Augustus Caesar was the First Generation ruler, taking over from Julius Caesar, Tiberius was his Second Generation, Caligula and Nero where the third generation (With a drop back to the Second in the person of Claudius who ruled between those two tyrants). The infighting during Nero reached a point that he lost control and replaced.

This third generation is a well know historical problem for ruling elite, but a problem a lot of people do NOT want to see, for who comes out on top can vary. You can NOT predict who will come out on top, if anyone (look at the Case of the Soviet Union, it ended up being dissolved not ruled by a new set of elites, on the other end look at Kublai Khan, he was the third generation and he came out of top setting up another three generation of ruling elites).

This will be interesting times, and that is NEVER a good time to live in.