This report, based on three prolonged trips to the Kingdom over the past year, the most recent in January 2019, will take a deep look at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who dominates every aspect of foreign and domestic policy, to try to answer what lies behind his Mona Lisa smile. It will also examine the Kingdom’s social progress, its economic stagnation and its growing political repression. Readers will have to evaluate for themselves whether the social progress he has offered Saudis in general—and women in particular—offset his autocratic tactics at home and abroad.

Belfer Center Senior Fellow Karen Elliott House muses about the diplomatic steps that the Israeli Prime Minister and the Saudi Crown Prince might be willing to take with one another.

The looming question in U.S.-Saudi relations: Can the crown prince retain unchecked authority in the Kingdom? And if he does, can the U.S.-Saudi relationship—including close cooperation on Gulf security and global oil policy and large infusions of Saudi money into U.S. Treasury bills—remain undamaged? In short, can King Salman retain his son as crown prince and the U.S. as a close ally?

The case of the vanished and apparently murdered Saudi activist and writer Jamal Khashoggi is a tale with a victim and villains, but no heroes.

Since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced his intention to transform this country nearly two years ago, Saudis and foreigners alike have questioned whether he is serious or merely enjoying power. The time for doubt is over. Last week’s news that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is in talks to build a tech hub in the kingdom is only the latest sign. Look for more such initiatives when the crown prince visits the U.S. in early March.

Change is accelerating in Saudi Arabia. Over the weekend King Salman bin Abdulaziz removed his predecessor’s powerful son as head of the national guard. The king detained 11 princes along with current and former ministers on corruption charges. Behind the move is Saudi Arabia’s young reformer, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He is gambling that the moves will be seen at home and abroad as cleansing the kingdom of tarnished old ways—not as the whim of an authoritarian ruler.

“Welcome to the new Saudi Arabia,” says the youthful minister of the country’s newly minted Ministry of Entertainment. We are sitting in darkness watching the LED-lit bodies of New York dancers gyrating on an arena stage to deafening hip-hop music. Behind us, some 1,300 Saudis of all ages—robed men and abaya-covered women sitting side by side—are whooping their approval.

We asked two Belfer Center experts on Saudi Arabia to tell us what should be done to improve the strained relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Nawaf Obaid, a visiting fellow at the Center, served until recently as special counselor to Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf and previously was special advisor for strategic communications to Prince Turki Al Faisal. Karen Elliott House, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center, is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and editor and former publisher at The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future, published in September 2012.

Can an audacious young prince make his tradition-bound family bow to his will and force his somnolent society to wake up? With the sweeping powers recently bestowed on 30-year-old Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi royal family, its 30 million subjects and the outside world may soon find out.