Almasirah:How A U.S. Arms Embargo Could Impact Saudi Arabia's Air Force, Forbes

How A U.S. Arms Embargo Could Impact Saudi Arabia's Air Force, Forbes

News - World: American media continued to talk about Washington’s anger with Saudi Arabia over the Opec+ decision to cut oil production.

Forbes magazine said Thursday that it has resulted in renewed calls and proposed legislation for at least a temporary ban on American arms sales to the kingdom.

Bicameral legislation put forth by Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representative Ro Khanna proposes an immediate pause to all arms sales to Riyadh. It also calls for "a one-year halt to all direct commercial sales and foreign military sales and munitions" that "includes a halt to sales of spare and repair parts, support services, and logistical as well as program support."

The officials point out that the vast majority of Saudi armaments are American-built. An embargo, they argue, would, therefore, hugely impact the Saudi military and it would take years for Riyadh to reduce its reliance on U.S. military technology, parts and support, according to the magazine.

"They cannot move further towards Russia and China in the near term," Khanna told PBS. "They — it would take almost 10 years for them to be able to get the weapons that we provide, just because of interoperability of these weapons, and, literally, the air force would be grounded to a halt tomorrow if they didn't have American technicians."

"Without U.S. assistance to service its air force, Saudi Arabia's entire fleet would be grounded within months, since foreign weapons systems are generally not interchangeable with U.S. systems and cannot be substituted for them," Blumenthal argued in a recent article for Foreign Affairs.

The report referred to the combat aircraft that represent the backbone of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) and said: The premier aircraft and backbone of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) is undoubtedly its large fleet of modern F-15 fighter bombers.

When Saudi Arabia intervened in the Yemen conflict and began its bombing campaign in early 2015, it immediately experienced problems. In some instances, Saudi ground radios couldn’t communicate with the jets and Saudi fighter pilots had to fly low enough to receive their targets via cellphone! The United States also provided inflight refueling for Saudi jets during that war and later billed Riyadh for that critical service.

Forbes continues: “while anecdotal, incidents like these suggest that the RSAF would immediately face serious issues if the U.S. pulled its support. However, aside from F-15s, the Saudis also operate a sizable fleet of non-American Eurofighter Typhoons and older Panavia Tornados.”

However, the report added that consequently, the imposition of an American arms embargo doesn't necessarily mean the entire RSAF would quickly become grounded, although its capabilities would undoubtedly become markedly reduced. And Riyadh would probably have alternatives other than Russia and China for fighters if the U.S. halted arms sales indefinitely. For example, France might welcome the prospect of Riyadh buying Dassault Rafales.

The writer explained that "Saudi Arabia could always follow the UAE (United Arab Emirates) example and purchase different types of weapons systems from different suppliers," Nicholas Heras, director of strategy and innovation at the New Line Institute, told him.

Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, concurs with Blumenthal and Khanna's shared assertion that it would take years for Riyadh to adequately replace its American hardware, especially advanced jets.

“It takes years to train pilots in specific equipment (two years on an F-16, for example), as well as new hardware from other countries that can come with language barriers that militaries have to adapt to,” Lee said. "In addition, it will take pilots years to get used to the new equipment (flying a very different F-16 than a Rafale or Eurofighter), which wastes years of pilot experience on American systems."

On the other hand, Washington will react very differently if Riyadh turns to Moscow or Beijing for its military hardware.

The report concluded by saying that if Riyadh did pivot towards China, the U.S. would be more likely to escalate to the use of its CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions against Saudi Arabia.

#US #Saudi_Arabia #Arms Sale About 1 year