By PRANAY B. GUPTE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES; FOREIGN POLICY LAST IN A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL ARTICLES ON INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS FACING THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION.THE FOLLOWING ANALYSIS IS BASED ON REPORTING BY MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN IN NEW DELHI, YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM IN LONDON AND PRANAY B. GUPTE IN RIYADH. IT WAS WRITTEN BY MR. GUPTE.
THE FOLLOWING ANALYSIS IS BASED ON REPORTING BY MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN IN NEW DELHI, YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM IN LONDON AND PRANAY B. GUPTE IN RIYADH. IT WAS WRITTEN BY MR. GUPTE.
Concerned with the Iraqi-Iranian war and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the West's other major oil suppliers in the Persian Gulf area are seeking a way out of a major security predicament. They would like to depend on the United States for their security while giving the impression in the Arab and Islamic world that they do not.
In the view of most Persian Gulf rulers, one European diplomat said, ''too cozy a military relationship with the Americans at a time when anti-Western feeling is thick in the region may well put their own survival in doubt.''
''My warning to the Reagan Administration,'' said John C. West, the departing United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, ''is that the problems of the Gulf are many and very complex, and they are not capable of any easy solution. These problems could create major foreign policy setbacks for President Reagan.''
Stressing the dependence of Western nations on the Gulf region for oil, Mr. West said there was ''an absolute necessity for protecting these interests at any cost.'' No Quick Solution Foreseen
However, policy makers in the area say there is little hope that the security predicament will be resolved soon. Some of the traditionally conservative and pro-Western nations in the Gulf have recently espoused policies aimed at distancing themselves from American ties. At the conference of Islamic leaders held in the Saudi resort town of Taif last month King Khalid of Saudi Arabia urged all Moslem countries to avoid military alliances with the superpowers. This month Saudi Arabia and five other Arab countries in the Gulf area - Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates - announced the formation of an organization dedicated to economic unity but apparently aimed at planning a regional defense system.
Western and Arab diplomats and other specialists on Gulf affairs have suggested that the Reagan Administration should clearly outline how it plans to protect Western interests in the area formed by the Gulf countries.
Their comments did not, however, extend to possible future policies toward the two other oil-producing nations of the Persian Gulf region, Iraq and Iran. The United States has diplomatic relations with neither, and it has taken a neutral stance on their war. U.S. Advised to Heed Pressures
The analysts recommended that the United States, in formulating its policies for the region, should demonstrate a sensitivity to the internal pressures felt by the Gulf rulers. Those pressures include opposition from fundamentalist Islamic groups to rapid Western-style development and the potential for instability caused by the presence of large numbers of foreign nationals within their borders. Gulf rulers charge that the Carter Adminstration did not sufficiently show such awareness.
In fashioning its policy toward the Gulf nations, analysts said, the Reagan Administration should not be put off by the need of those countries to denounce what they perceive as automatic American support for the Israeli occupation of Arab territory. And the specialists stressed that the United States should make the ''American security umbrella'' as subtle as possible.
The Reagan Administration's policy, the analysts went on, could have an impact on the ability of the governments of some of the small countries to survive. But they said there were doubts among Gulf rulers that a meaningful new American approach would be developed. The Pakistani Position
Many of the concerns of the Gulf countries are shared by Pakistan, which has increasingly supplied Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations with laborers and military advisers.
At the same time, Pakistan is wary of provoking Moscow by providing too much military aid to Moslem insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, and it has made clear that it is unwilling to increase assistance to the rebels unless it gets guarantees for its own security, presumably from the United States.
According to highly placed sources in Islamabad, what Pakistan means by guarantees are larger American arms sales than Washington has been willing to make and suspension or reduction of the opposition that the Carter Administration had to what it believed to be a Pakistani program to develop nuclear weapons.
There is a widespread hope among Pakistanis that under Mr. Reagan the United States will be inclined to discuss aircraft sales and provide economic aid without linking them to their nuclear plans. Pakistani authorities have repeatedly denied any intention of making nuclear arms, but Western informants say that such a program is under way and that nuclear weapons could be produced by 1983.
Suggestions that a new Pakistani-American relationship might develop have caused some alarm in neighboring India, which has twice fought and defeated Pakistani forces and which intensely distrusted the close ties between the United States and Pakistan that prevailed in the 1950's. Test Seen for Reagan
In the Gulf region itself, it is generally agreed among Arab officials and Western diplomats that the area is likely to provide a major test of the Reagan Administration's ability to devise a cogent foreign policy. A Saudi official said the test would be whether the United States could ''construct a coherent policy that will properly cope with the threats to our area.''
He was alluding to a fundamental Saudi concern that the preeminent danger stems from Soviet expansionist aims. Other concerns are said to be similar Iraqi ambitions and Iran's attempts to export its Shiite Islamic revolution.
The United States' traditional alliance with Israel, analysts say, will probably be a major obstacle to any new American policy approach. Gulf rulers are said to believe that Washington has not moved swiftly or forthrightly enough toward resolving the questions of Palestinian rights and Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories.
One Western analyst said that the United States should try to find a way to make progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement that would not compromise the American commitment to Israel but would at the same time prove acceptable to the Arab countries of the Gulf area. Oil as an 'Instrument of Politics
He and other area specialists said the Reagan Administration should keep in mind that the Gulf countries could, by withholding oil, try to force the West to move faster toward a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement. Recalling that oil was last used as a political weapon after the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, the Saudi Oil Minister, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, warned recently that his country considered oil an ''instrument of politics.''
On another front, conservationists in the region have put pressure on Gulf rulers to decrease oil production and preserve their resources for future generations.
A further concern is the oilfields themselves. Saudi officials and their counterparts in the five other Gulf countries said in recent interviews that they recognized the fundamental vulnerability of the fields. 'Oilfields Not Defendable'
One Western military analyst in Dhahran, the major Saudi oil center, said the oilfields were ''simply not defendable.'' He noted that in the event of an air attack from the Iranian airfield at Bushire across the Gulf, the warning time for Saudi fighter planes would be barely 10 minutes.
Partly because of the recognition of oilfield vulnerability, partly because of the concern that they not be too openly identified with American security interests and partly because of the worry about what they view as Iraqi expansionist aims, Saudi Arabia and the five other countries formed a new organization this month called the Gulf Council for Cooperation.
Crown Prince Fahd described the purpose of the council as being to foster ''greater unity among the Gulf countries for the welfare of the peoples of this region.'' But while he stressed economic coordination, many Arab and Western diplomats believe that the nations will work to integrate their military abilities and establish air-defense links.
Western analysts question, however, how effectively the Gulf countries can coordinate their defense systems in view of the differences among their weaponry and the diverse sources of supply. Saudi Arabia, for example, has bought tanks and antiaircraft missiles from both France and the United States over the last year and has expressed interest in acquiring West German and Austrian tanks and other armored vehicles.
According to the International Peace Research Institute of Stockholm, Middle Eastern military spending is running at more than $40 billion a year, out of a world total of $500 billion. The biggest defense allocations are made by Saudi Arabia, with a outlay estimated at $20.7 billion last year, according to the London-based Institute for Strategic Studies.
On a per-capita basis, military spending in the Gulf region is the world's highest. Saudi Arabia spends $2,400 per person, the United Arab Emirates $2,100, Qatar $1,700, Kuwait $1,200 and Oman $1,060. The world's next-highest per-capita military spenders, according to the Stockholm institute, are the United States and Libya, at about $600 each.
Western and Arab analysts here say that one danger in such arms purchases is that they will inevitably strengthen the hand of the military forces in each country, a development that could pose problems for theior regimes.
The Saudis, however, have sought to guard against the possibility of a military takeover. More than 60 of the country's 5,000 royal princes hold high positions in the armed forces. Military personnel are given good salaries, free housing and excellent health care. Army units are dispersed around the country, which is one-third the size of the United States. Besides the Saudi Army, consisting of 45,000 men, there is a 12,000-man national guard, drawn mainly from Bedouin tribes loyal to the royal family. And the royal family is also protected by the three battalions of the Royal Guard Regiment.
American military advisers, of whom there are more than 1,000 in Saudi Arabia - a figure that does not include the 600 personnel associated with the four electronic surveillance planes lent to the Saudis because of the Iraqi-Iranian war -are involved in the training of Saudi forces. American advisers are likely to increase when 62 F-15 tactical jet fighters ordered by the Saudis arrive next year. The Islamic Factor
Still another factor that area specialists think the Reagan Administration should weigh is the continuing conflict between modernization trends and the tenets of fundamentalist Moslems.
Modernization is perceived by some Moslem leaders as inimical to Islam and as the harbinger of what they regard as decadent practices common in the West. The band of religious fanatics that seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, in November 1979 objected to the Westernization of Saudi Arabia.
In a recent interview Dr. Mahmoud Saraf, the Saudi Deputy Minister for Higher Education and an Islamic scholar, characterized that incident as isolated. Nevertheless, it serves as a reminder to some Saudis of what could happen if those in charge of development do not heed religious sensitivities.
In an apparent attempt to prevent a recurrence, King Khalid holds frequent consultations with Saudi religious leaders.The religious police strictly enforce laws banning the consumption of liquor and force shops to close during the prayer hours.
Another source of internal tension in Gulf countries that could affect their stability is the large number of foreign nationals who live in them. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, there are more than two million such workers, out of a population of 7.5 million.
In Kuwait, there are 300,000 Palestinians, representing a third of the total population. How much of a danger are the Palestinians? One view is that they are an ever-present pool of manpower available to Palestinian extremists for possible moves to damage oilfields. But Western diplomats here say that many Palestinians have benefited too much from the general economic boom in the Gulf to engage in radical activities.
