Saudi $60 Billion Arms Deal Fueled By Elite Fears & Greed
September 13th, 2010
I have tracked a certain path of Saudi and other Gulf state elite fears and American greed. This is a bit long but if you follow it you will come out with more information than you probably want to know, but here it is, read it an think.
This is from the Wall Street Journal
"Saudi Arms Deal Advances
White House to Notify Congress Soon of $60 Billion Package, Largest Ever for U.S.
By ADAM ENTOUS
Monday, September 13, 2010 As of 8:42 AM EDT
The Obama administration is set to notify Congress of plans to offer advanced aircraft to Saudi Arabia worth up to $60 billion, the largest U.S. arms deal ever, and is in talks with the kingdom about potential naval and missile-defense upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more.
In a notification to Congress, expected to be submitted this week or next, the administration will authorize the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three types of helicopters—70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds, officials said.
On top of the $60 billion package of fighter jets and helicopters, U.S. officials are discussing a potential $30 billion package to upgrade Saudi Arabia's naval forces. An official described these as "discreet, bilateral conversations" in which no agreement has yet been reached. That deal could include littoral combat ships, surface vessels intended for operations close to shore, the official said.
Talks are also underway to expand Saudi Arabia's ballistic-missile defenses. The U.S. is encouraging the Saudis to buy systems known as THAAD—Terminal High Altitude Defense—and to upgrade its Patriot missiles to reduce the threat from Iranian rockets. U.S. officials said it was unclear how much this package would be worth.
Pro-Israel lawmakers have voiced concerns in the past about arms sales to Saudi Arabia that they say may undercut Israel's military edge and provide support to a government with a poor human rights record.
Boeing Co., which makes the F-15s, the Apaches and the Little Birds, believes the Saudi package would directly or indirectly support 77,000 jobs across 44 states. It is unclear how many jobs, if any, would be supported by the Saudi purchase of Black Hawks, made by Sikorsky. Production levels are already high at Sikorsky, which is owned by United Technologies Co."
This is the link to the story if you want to read the rest of it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704621204575488361149625050.html?mod=WSJ_World_LeadStory
This is from Aljazeera
"US pushing $60bn Saudi arms deal
The largest ever US deal to sell advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia is expected to support at least 75,000 US jobs.
The Obama administration sees the sale as part of a broader policy aimed at supporting "Arab allies against Iran," and is expected to notify the US congress about these plans in the upcoming weeks, the report said.
The Israelis were expected to buy a more advanced fighter jet, the F-35, and should receive them around the same time the Saudis are expected to start getting the F-15s, the report said.
The F-35 is designed to avoid detection by radar and could play a role in any Israeli effort to knock out what it regards as a threat posed by Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
Last month, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, approved the purchase of 20 F-35 warplanes from the US, in a deal worth almost $3bn."
Balance of article here.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/20109137124379527.html
Saudi Arabia is worried about Al Qaeda aided attacks on the regime from the south in Yemen and from Shiite rebellion aided by Iran in the north. Resistance to the oppressive regime has waxed and waned. The support of the US military machine has been crucial in maintaining the Saudi royal family in power. What is a rich Saudi prince to do but to arm to the teeth and buy more weapons from the USA. How long though can they pay an army to stay loyal to such a blatantly superfluous elite?
This is from an article about Shiite resistance to Saudi state in Real Clear World
"March 18, 2009
Saudi Arabia's Shiites Stand Up
By Mai Yamani
Some 2,000 Shiite pilgrims gathered near the mosque that houses the prophet's tomb for the commemoration of Muhammad's death, an act of worship that the ruling Saudi Wahhabi sect considers heretical and idolatrous. Thus, the religious police of the Committee for the Preservation of Virtue and the Prohibition of Vice, armed with sticks and backed by police firing into the air, tried to disperse the pilgrims. The pilgrims resisted. Three pilgrims died and hundreds were injured in the ensuing stampede. A number of pilgrims remain in detention, among them 15 teenage boys.
The Shiites are a special case, constituting 75 percent of the population in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia's main oil-producing region, and identifying far more strongly with Shiites across the border in Iraq than with the Saudi state. Indeed, the empowerment of Iraq's long-suppressed Shiites has raised expectations among Saudi Arabia's Shiites that they, too, can gain first-class status.
From the regime's point of view, however, Shiite Iran is now the most serious security threat. The Saudi authorities perceived the Shiite demonstrations as an assertion of Iranian policy, as they coincided precisely with Iran's celebration of the 30th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution. Suppression of the Shiites is thus a part of Riyadh's strategy to counter Iran's bid for regional hegemony.
But this thinking is tremendously shortsighted. Only by transforming Saudi Arabia's currently monolithic Saudi/Wahhabi national identity into a more inclusive one will Saudi Arabia become a model that is attractive to its minorities. Today, the disempowered Shiites are forced to seek political connections and backing from the region's wider Shiite political movements to compensate for the discrimination they face at home.
For the full article
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/03/saudi_arabias_shiites_stand_up.html
Article on Yemen
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100107/REVIEW/701079992/1008
Article From Socialist perspective
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/saud-j21.shtml
So what does Obama do? He supports the corrupt regimes and doesn't even consider the rights of the oppressed people. Where do they turn? Socialism seems to have been temporarily suppressed and discredited in much of the Middle East, so they go to the radical right, Al Qaeda for the Sunni's and Iran for the Shiites.
What of Anarchist and Communist resistance in the Middle East? Most of it is focused on Israel and the occupation of Palestinian lands at least as far as the west is concerned. Much of the overt resistance is in Israel where western style conditions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy prevail and allows for more public displays of symbolic resistance. But there has been a socialist movement in the Middle East that has survived the demise of the Soviet Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communist_parties_in_the_Middle_East
http://www.google.com/search?q=Communists+in+Middle+East&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=Socialism+in+Middle+East&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivdf&source=univ&tbs=vid:1&tbo=u&ei=7MeOTM_3H4ScsQPjsambCw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=7&sqi=2&ved=0CD8QqwQwBg&fp=ab5cdb1806fef4a
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/40839
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws/61/emac.html
Iran the seeming target of much of the American buildup in the Middle East has a puny military capacity. It's air force is mostly made up of 1970's vintage US planes that it has managed to keep flying. Its army while fairly large has few tanks or advanced armaments. Its navy consists mostly of patrol boats. In other words, Iran poses little or no threat to the US or Israel and its main threat to Saudi Arabia is in motivating the Shiite population to revolt.
This is an excerpt from an article in Foreign Policy
More hype about Iran?
Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 12:15 PM
The Military Balance, published annually by the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London:
GDP: United States — 13.8 trillion
Iran –$ 359 billion (U.S. GDP is roughly 38 times greater than Iran's)
Defense spending (2008):
U.S. — $692 billion
Iran — $9.6 billion (U.S. defense budget is over 70 times larger than Iran)
Military personnel:
U.S.–1,580,255 active; 864,547 reserves (very well trained)
Iran– 525,000 active; 350,000 reserves (poorly trained)
Combat aircraft:
U.S. — 4,090 (includes USAF, USN, USMC and reserves)
Iran — 312 (serviceability questionable)
Main battle tanks:
U.S. — 6,251 (Army + Marine Corps)
Iran — 1,613 (serviceability questionable)
Navy:
U.S. — 11 aircraft carriers, 99 principal surface combatants, 71 submarines, 160 patrol boats, plus large auxiliary fleet
Iran — 6 principal surface combatants, 10 submarines, 146 patrol boats
Nuclear weapons:
U.S. — 2,702 deployed, >6,000 in reserve
Iran — Zero"
More here
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/20/more_hype_about_iran
http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Military_Power_of_Iran.pdf
The Kuwaiti elites in particular are feeling vulnerable and seem determined in their belief that they need to encourage the western powers, i.e. the US and or Israel to strike at Iran. This might be CIA disinformation, or simply conservative elites in Oil rich states worried about their money tree getting taken from them by dissatisfied workers supported by Iran.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4592.htm
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/09/01/Gulf-Arabs-see-Iran-terror-cell-threat/UPI-51951283362218/
This is from McClatchy Newspapers
"Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010
By Maggie Bridgeman | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The United States is currently the world biggest weapons supplier — holding 30 per cent of the market — but the Obama administration has begun modifying export control regulations in hopes of enlarging the U.S. market share, according to U.S. officials.
President Barack Obama already has taken the first steps by tucking new language into the Iran sanctions bill signed in early July. His aides are now compiling the "munitions list," which regulates the sale of military items.
The administration's stated reason for the changes is to simplify the sale of weapons to U.S. allies, but potential spinoffs include generating business for the U.S. defense industry, creating jobs and contributing to Obama's drive to double U.S. exports by 2015.
Critics say the reforms are being rushed and warn that the expedited procedures could allow weapons technology to fall into the wrong hands.
India, which currently is seeking 126 fighter-jets worth over $10 billion, 10 large transport aircraft worth $6 billion, and other multi-billion dollar defense sales, could be among the possible beneficiaries. Allies seeking advanced U.S. weaponry and equipment, who now often buy elsewhere due to the cumbersome U.S. approval process, would draw immediate benefit from the reforms, U.S. officials said.
Obama first called for the reforms in August 2009, then referred to them in his Jan. 27 State of the Union address as an element toward doubling exports by 2015.
The administration hopes that by streamlining the process, allies will be able to receive more weapons and technology faster, making their equipment more compatible with that of the United States, and making it easier to complete joint operations.
"It spells the difference between U.S. forces going it alone or having allies who are able to operate in the lethal battle space with U.S. military forces," said former Bush administration arms regulator Amb. Lincoln Bloomfield Jr.
Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., represents a district with aerospace and other manufacturers, and said reform is needed for the survival of U.S. manufacturing.""
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/29/98337/obama-seeks-to-expand-arms-exports.html#ixzz0zSCnF0yc
World Military Spending from Global Issues
"Summarizing some key details from chapter 5 of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)'s 2010 Year Book on Armaments, Disarmament and International Security for 2008:
* World military expenditure in 2009 is estimated to have reached $1.531 trillion in current dollars;
* This represents a 6 per cent increase in real terms since 2008 and a 49 per cent increase since 2000;
* This corresponds to 2.7 per cent of world gross domestic product (GDP), or approximately $225 for each person in the world;
* The USA with its massive spending budget, is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its military expenditure now accounts for just under half of the world total, at 46.5% of the world total;
SIPRI has commented in the past on the increasing concentration of military expenditure, i.e. that a small number of countries spend the largest sums. This trend carries on into 2009 spending. For example,
* The 15 countries with the highest spending account for over 82% of the total;
* The USA is responsible for 46.5 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the China (6.6% of world share), France (4.2%), UK (3.8%), and Russia (3.5%):"
For more info
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
From Reuters
"U.S. arms sales could hit $50 billion next year
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
Tue Jul 20, 2010 4:59am EDT
FARNBOROUGH, England (Reuters) - U.S. arms sales will be little changed in fiscal 2010 but could surge by nearly one-third to $50 billion next year, the Pentagon's chief arms seller told Reuters in an interview.
The U.S. government arms sales for the current year, which ends September 30, are likely to be close to $37.8 billion, said Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, director of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
Sales in the last fiscal year totaled $38.1 billion.
Wieringa, who says he is looking forward to driving his two Corvettes and a jet ski when he retires at the end of the month, had forecast last October at the Dubai air show that weapons sales could reach a record $50 billion this year. Now, he believes that figure is more likely to be hit next year.
"A lot of countries have built up cash reserves and they intend to continue buying," Wieringa said.
The Pentagon agency, which overseas major foreign arms sales, is likely to notify Congress of a large number of arms sales over the next few months, said Wieringa, who oversees 12,995 different arms sales involving 218 countries and retires with total of $300 billion of requests still open.
One deal that has already been included in the Pentagon's accounting of weapons sales is a big sale of Lockheed Martin Corp fighter jets to Israel, which was first approved by the Pentagon in September 2008.
Wieringa said the U.S. government is days away from signing an agreement with Lockheed for an initial purchase of 19 warplanes, with options to buy a total of 75 planes , said Wieringa.
The sale to Israel would be the first foreign military sale of the new warplane to a foreign country outside of the eight partner nations that are helping to develop the plane.
Wieringa has traveled extensively to various countries, logging over 300,000 miles in air travel, with eight separate visits India, a key emerging defense market.
Over the past decade, U.S. arms sales have grown from $8 billion, and they are likely to continue growing in coming years, Wieringa said, noting that a recent major review of defense programs has emphasized the need for greater security cooperation with countries around the world.
Sales to Afghanistan alone totaled nearly $20 billion for fiscal years 2009 through 2011.
Among the biggest potential arms deals on the table now are huge fighter jet competitions in India and Brazil, various modernization programs for Saudi Arabia, and continuing support for arms sales to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon.
Wieringa welcomed a drive by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other departments to reform cumbersome U.S. export laws, saying he had often heard complaints about existing rules.
U.S. defense contractors often complain that U.S. export rules hinder their competitiveness overseas.
Wieringa has worked hard to expand training and staffing for U.S. military and civilian workers involved in global arms sales, boosting his agency's budget from $373 million in fiscal 2007 to an estimated $850 million in the fiscal 2012 budget being drafted now.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)"
"US Trade Deficit Narrows in July
Published: 9/9/2010 10:24:43 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, AFP
The US trade deficit dropped more than expected in July as exports reached their highest level in two years, boosting hopes for the US economic recovery.
The trade deficit dropped to 42.8 billion dollars in July, a 14 percent decline from the previous month's revised figure of 49.8 billion dollars — its highest level in 20 months, the Department of Commerce said. The total July exports rose 1.8 percent to 153.3 billion dollars from June to its highest level since August 2008 on the back of strong sales of aircraft, industrial machinery, computers and telecommunications equipment, it said. Imports fell 2.1 percent to 196.1 billion dollars in July from the previous month. The July deficit beat most analysts' expectations of 47.3 billion dollars. Traditionally, increasing US imports are seen as heralding greater demand from American consumers, who play a critical role in fueling local and global growth. The US trade deficit with China also fell to 25.92 billion dollars from 26.15 billion dollars in June as lawmakers increasingly call for steps against what they see as unfair trade practices by China."
This is from Wikipedia
"The economy of the United States is the world's largest national economy. Its nominal GDP was estimated to be $14.3 trillion in 2009, approximately a quarter of nominal global GDP. Its GDP at purchasing power parity was also the largest in the world, approximately a fifth of global GDP at purchasing power parity. The U.S. economy also maintains a very high level of output per capita. In 2009, it was estimated to have a per capita GDP (PPP) of $46,381, the 6th highest in the world."
More info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
According to the US Census Bureau the USA exported $1.57 Trillion dollars worth of goods & services in 2009.
Arms sales in the last fiscal year totaled $38.1 billion. A very small part of the total US economic output. Arms are only a drop in the bucket in terms of the total US economy and US exports. What they do represent is a large element in destabilizing the world. The Middle East and South Asia are two areas where war could break out or already has.
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/2009pr/final_revisions/
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