For example, Saudi Arabia has reportedly been working on a $4 billion deal with Russia for 100 attack helicopters, 150 tanks, 20 surface-to-air missile systems and several hundred infantry combat vehicles. From England, the Kingdom is also hoping to buy six dozen Eurofighter Typhoon jets for $9 billion.

Years ago, a watershed. Gulf countries haven’t always stockpiled war-making gear. The UAE started to renovate its defense system more than a decade ago – as did many other GCC states – after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. It took fewer than 48 hours for Iraq to route Kuwait’s army, and when the US came to the rescue five months later, many GCC members pitched in by sending modest naval, air and ground forces.

Once the US-led forces had beaten Saddam’s army back, Kuwait’s government wasted no time on the rebound. It bought a fleet of 40 F-18 Hornet fighter jets and attack helicopters to beef up its air defenses; hundreds of Abrams tanks to strengthen its ground forces; and Patriot missiles to reinforce its anti-missile system.

“The first Gulf war really put the GCC countries on their hind legs,” says Yiftah Shapir, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. “It was the very first time an Arab country was overwhelmed by another country. And the memory’s still vivid, there’s no doubt about that.”
The UAE, which had no defense relationship with the US to speak of until then, began looking for closer cooperation with Washington. In the summer of 1994, the two countries signed a bilateral defense pact. Abu Dhabi began buying, and it hasn’t looked back since.

Over the last five years, US arms sales to the UAE have included ship-to-air missiles, Black Hawk assault helicopters and anti-tank missiles. The largest and most well publicized deal was for 80 F-16 fighter jets worth $8 billion. The first shipment of 10 jets, which were flown home by UAE pilots trained at the Air National Guard base in Tucson, Arizona, arrived in 2005. (Now the UAE is hunting for European-made Mirage fighter jets.)

Part of the reason arms sales in the region are proliferating has to do with American foreign policy. The US, which exports vastly more weapons than any other country, sold the Middle East more than half its arms acquisitions between 1999 and 2006. Saudi Arabia and the UAE got nearly as much Congress-approved American military hardware during that period as did Israel, which has long been considered Washington’s top priority when it comes to sending sophisticated American-made armaments overseas.

The GCC is also trying to get its fledgling regional defense industry off the ground so it doesn’t have to depend so much on imports (from the US, or from other top arms producers like Britain, France and Russia). Saudi Arabia has been trying for years to make marketable weapons, without much luck. The UAE, by comparison, has made a lot of headway.

One example is the Abu Dhabi Ship Building Company, which was founded in 1995 and underwent a big expansion in 2002. It manufactures vessels for GCC navies and coast guards. Early in 2007, a firm called Caracal International became the UAE’s first small-arms producer when it won contracts to supply pistols for the country’s police and armed forces. Less than a year later, two other companies announced a joint venture to build the UAE’s first munitions plant in Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Military City. If everything goes according to plan, the Al Burkan Munitions Factory should start pumping out bombs for the Air Force in 2009, and munitions for the Navy and Army by 2010.

“They are working very hard on an indigenous military industry, and I think they are succeeding,” Shapir says. “Their naval industry is considerable. It’s going to become a strong player, not only in the region.”

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