the enormous military expansion was signaled this past week by gen. Hussein al-qubail, the chief of staff. Because of “surrounding circumstances,” he said, the saudis would spend more to achieve “the highest degree of combat readiness.”
overseeing the arms buildup will be a new defense minister, prince salman bin abdul-aziz, described by saudis as a strong manager during his many years as governor of riyadh. This contrasts with what foreign analysts say was the loose discipline (and occasional corruption scandals) under his predecessor, prince sultan, who died in october after 48 years as defense minister.
Saudi sources provided an unofficial summary of the defense buildup. The army will add 125,000 to its estimated current force of 150,000; the national guard will grow by 125,000 from an estimated 100,000; the navy will spend more than $30 billion buying new ships and sea-skimming missiles; the air force will add 450 to 500 planes; and the ministry of interior is boosting its police and special forces by about 60,000. The saudis are also developing their own version of the u.s. Joint special operations command.
The doubling of ground forces is partly a domestic employment project, but it’s also a signal of saudi confidence.
The saudi shopping list is a bonanza for u.s. And european arms merchants. That’s especially true of the air force procurement, with the saudis planning to buy 72 “eurofighters” from eads and 84 new f-15s from boeing. The rationale is containing iran, whose nuclear ambitions the saudis strongly oppose. But riyadh has an instant deterrent ready, too, in the form of the pakistani nuclear arsenal that the saudis are widely believed to have helped finance.
Big weapons purchases have been a saudi penchant for decades. More interesting, in some ways, is their quiet effort to provide support to friendly regimes to keep the region from blowing itself up in this period of instability. The saudis have budgeted $4 billion this year to help egypt, $1.4 billion for jordan, and $500 million annually over the next decade for bahrain and oman. They will doubtless pump money, as well, to syria, yemen and lebanon once the smoke clears in those volatile countries.