President Trump made clear earlier in the week during his meeting with the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman that US arms sales to the Saudis are a top priority. Already, the State Department has announced another $1 billion in arms sales to the Saudis.
The sales are going to include 6,600 TOW 2B missiles, at a cost of about $670 million, with the rest of the contract coming in the form of various parts for US-made vehicles previously sold to the Saudi military.
The State Department justified the sales as an attempt to help the Saudis build up their military to “maintain stability.” Such sales need to be endorsed by State and Defense officials as having some US national security component, though this is trivial since the administration’s goals are so tied to increasing arms sales.
Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of US arms, but sales have been increasingly resisted in Congress because of the massive number of civilians killed in the airstrikes against Yemen. Historically, the Saudis have been able to get these sales approved, but the votes have in recent years gotten closer and closer.
1. the State Department is the diplomatic section of the US government, is it not??
2. “maintain stability.” according to the “stable genius” POTUS, I suppose.
It is better to collect one billion dollars from Saudi as protection money.Why bother about producing arms etc.Give a part the money to would be manufacturer and affair can be closed.
Ive trained with saudi soldiers while in the US army, their officers come here to train. Compared to other nations they are the most incompetent , due to being selected for loyalty and not actual soldier skills. Most of the Saudi army is paid american mercs and maintainers.
In the run-up to Desert Storm, I was one of two Marines asked to train an incipient “Saudi Arabian Marine Corps” on the 81mm mortar, because we were the only two who remembered how to use the old Vietnam-era mortar, which was what they had.
These were a bunch of scared 17-year-old rich kids who had been “cadets” at the Saudi “naval academy” until … well, as the one who was telling me about it put it, “until Saddam.” So I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on them. But when it finally came time for them to drop a round down the tube, to a man every one of them took off running as soon as he let go of it. The only thing they seemed to be able to do in any kind of organized fashion was pray at the designated times.
One of the things about Saudi Arabia is that, anecdotally, most Saudis seem to be either royals, or rich merchant types, or Bedouin — none of whom seem very inclined to modern military discipline (although if we believe TE Lawrence, the Bedouin are fearsome fighters after their own fashion). Everybody there who isn’t either rich or a nomad is a migrant worker from some other country.
At least that’s the impression I got. But of course I was out in the boonies for the most part. The only urban area I spent any time in was Dammam/Dhahran/Al-Khobar, and that was maybe half a day. So I may not have an accurate picture of society there.