Saudi Arabia’s military shopping spree

Thom Shanker reports on a new Congressional Research Service reports which finds that U.S. arms sales reached a record high of $66.3 billion last year, more than three quarters of the total global arms market. About half of that comes from sales to Saudi Arabia: 

A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels. These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanes and complex missile defense systems.[…]

The agreements with Saudi Arabia included the purchase of 84 advanced F-15 fighters, a variety of ammunition, missiles and logistics support, and upgrades of 70 of the F-15 fighters in the current fleet.

Sales to Saudi Arabia last year also included dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, all contributing to a total Saudi weapons deal from the United States of $33.4 billion, according to the study.

As Robert Farley points out, this purchase is several times the size of Iran’s entire defense budget. Put it another way, that purchase alone would give Saudi Arabia the world’s 11th highest military spending. Given that the Kingdom’s total spending in 2011 was just $48.5 billion according to SIPRI, the purchase was a pretty significant upgrade.