It’s tempting to argue that the Strategic Defense Agreement (SDA) signed by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia during Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS)’s visit to Washington fell short of expectations by excluding an explicit security guarantee for the kingdom. After all, Qatar received such guarantees just two months ago in an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. How come Saudi Arabia, whom Trump said is as great an ally as Israel, didn’t get a similar deal?

This is the wrong question to ask, and the wrong argument to make.

On paper, it’s true that the language in the Qatar executive order is stronger than the SDA (and candidly, stronger than in any other U.S. security arrangement with Middle Eastern partners minus Turkey, a NATO ally). But there is no real difference between the two.

I would even go as far as to say that had Trump and MBS signed a Senate-ratified formal defense pact that would legally obligate the U.S. to defend Saudi Arabia in the event of an external attack against it (à la NATO’s Article 5), there would still be no real difference.

That’s because both defense arrangements are much less significant if they don’t specify how the parties intend to upgrade their military ties. And in the case of the SDA, it’s vastly unclear how the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will translate their new........

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