In the last year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has transitioned its top security posts from the generation that had been in office for a half century to a younger generation of princes who are now poised to inherit the last absolute monarchy in the world. The new leaders of Saudi Arabia’s security infrastructure are neither young nor inexperienced; rather, they are well prepared for their assignments at this critical juncture in their country’s history.

Late last month, King Abdullah promoted his son, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, to be the first ever minister of national guard, elevating the command of the kingdom’s elite security force to the level of a ministry and placing his son in the cabinet. The Saudi Arabian National Guard, or SANG, was commanded by Abdullah from 1962 until 2010. In the course of his half century in command of the SANG, Abdullah lavished on it the best weapons and equipment money could buy and turned it into the strongest military force in the country, larger and better led than the regular army. Over 100,000 strong and equipped with armored vehicles and helicopters, the SANG has been trained by American advisers since 1975.

The SANG functions as the praetorian guard of the royal family. It secures the capital, Riyadh, and the two holy cities, Mecca and Medina, and is also deployed extensively in the oil-rich Eastern province, which has a large Shiite population and suffers frequent unrest. SANG troops intervened in Bahrain in 2011 to suppress the reform movement on the island, which demands greater political rights for the Shiite majority from the Sunni royal family in Manama. By elevating SANG to the level of a ministry, Abdullah has given his son a bigger voice in the decision-making process of the kingdom on critical internal and external security issues. 

Mutaib’s promotion is part of a pattern of elevating the senior sons of the kingdom’s ruling generation, all of whom are themselves the sons of the modern kingdom’s founder, Abdelaziz bin Saud or Ibn Saud, who died in 1953. As the elders have passed away in the last few years, the king has gradually replaced them with their sons. Last November, Abdullah promoted Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, known as MBN, to be the minister of interior. MBN’s father had been interior minister himself for over thirty years before briefly serving as crown prince until his death in June 2012. The Interior Ministry is the kingdom’s internal police force with over 130,000 paramilitary troops, police and border guards.