Middle Eastern Foreign Policy & Structural Balance Property
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/saudi-arabia-iran-dilemma-us-foreign-policy/
Anyone who’s been following politics recently is probably aware of Iran’s recent actions in the Middle East, particularly in the Straits of Hormuz. This has led to rising tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Iran is a long-standing enemy of the United States in the region, and Williamson is right in saying that as vicious, depraved and anti-American as the Saudi regime is, they are not quite as “vicious, depraved and anti-American as their Iranian counterparts.” The cases for going to war at this juncture against Iran are less palatable than this article seems to make out, but further sanctions, as well as putting in place American deterrents in the Straits of Hormuz to prevent further Iranian military action seem to be appropriate. And in allying with the Saudi’s to do so, while also maintaining the very real threat of war should the Iranians continue to partake in aggressive behaviors, this beautifully demonstrates the Structural Balance Property.
In this case, we have a foreign policy situation in which three nations are in play which all have negative relationships with one another (for the most part). This is not a balanced triangle, because A, B, & C are all mutual enemies. So this structure incentivizes two of the three to gang up on the other one. In this case, the United States and Saudi Arabia forming a positive relationship in order to combat Iran. Now, the triangle is balanced, because there is one positive link. This illustration isn’t perfect, because if we really sketched it out, the American node representing military/economic power would be tremendously larger than either of the other two, in which case you’d really see the incentive that the Saudis have in conflict to join with the US.