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Italian air force F-35 fighters prepare for take off during the “Blue Flag” multinational air defence exercise at the Ovda air force base, north of the Israeli city of Eilat, on October 24, 2021. (Photo by JACK GUEZ\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia wants to buy at least 48 of Lockheed Martin\u2019s premier fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II stealth strike fighter aircraft. President Trump has already endorsed a deal during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s visit to the White House this week. While the jets would give Saudi Arabia a potentially game-changing technological edge over Iran, there are concerns in the U.S. and Israel that they could compromise the latter\u2019s qualitative military edge over the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they\u2019d (Israel) like you to get planes of reduced calibre, but as far as I\u2019m concerned, I think they are both (Israel and Saudi Arabia) at a level where they should get top of the line,\u201d Trump remarked<\/a> to the prince during their Tuesday meeting.<\/p>\n Comments like these, and a sale in general, raise questions over the U.S.\u2019 commitment under law to preserve Israel\u2019s qualitative military edge, QME, over the region.<\/p>\n The Israeli Air Force has explicitly objected to any sale, declaring it could erode<\/a> its air superiority over the region, aptly demonstrated during the 12-day June war against Iran. Nevertheless, the current Israeli government reportedly hopes<\/a> that Washington will condition the sale on Riyadh agreeing to normalize relations with Israel. Riyadh consistently refuses to do this without Israel first committing to a clear and credible path toward Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Reuters reported<\/a> on Wednesday that the F-35s Washington sells the kingdom, contrary to Trump\u2019s remark, will be less advanced than the F-35s in Israel\u2019s air force.<\/p>\n Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, has doubts that the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia F-35s with capabilities \u201con par\u201d with Israel\u2019s fleet, given its legal commitment to Israel\u2019s QME.<\/p>\n \u201cSaudi Arabia could potentially be provided with lower capability F-35s, eventually, but only if the Israelis are sufficiently convinced that the Saudis would not pose a threat,\u201d Heras told me. \u201cAnd when the F-35 system is older and an alternate advanced system is available to the Israelis.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis is why the F-16 pathway for Saudi Arabia is appealing to the Americans because advanced F-16s are still highly capable fighters that can serve numerous roles,\u201d he added. \u201cBut they\u2019re not so advanced as to threaten Israel\u2019s QME over Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n After Trump\u2019s visit to Saudi Arabia in May, the White House boasted that it had secured up to $142 billion in arms deals with Riyadh. Fearing that could include F-35s, Senator Lindsey Graham and members of Trump\u2019s National Security Council reportedly<\/a> pushed for selling Saudi Arabia less advanced fourth-generation F-16s instead<\/a>. Riyadh never bought F-16s. As far back as the late 1970s, the kingdom outright rejected them<\/a> as an alternative aircraft to the more advanced F-15s it sought at that time and ultimately received. <\/p>\n Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, noted that ties between Washington and the Saudi crown prince have \u201cnoticeably deepened\u201d since Trump\u2019s return to office. That\u2019s the case even though the Saudi stance on Israel remains unchanged, as it reemphasizes its insistence that Israel first establish a credible path to statehood for the Palestinians before it agrees upon any normalization in relations. <\/p>\n \u201cFrom Washington\u2019s perspective, supplying F-35s would strengthen Saudi Arabia\u2019s deterrence against shared adversaries without posing a threat to Israel, despite the absence of formal normalization,\u201d Khoueiry told me. \u201cAnd, even if QME reasons don\u2019t block the deal, there are other reasons that might.\u201d<\/p>\n These reasons, Khoueiry outlined, include Riyadh\u2019s \u201cinterests in end use requirements\u201d and \u201cusing the deal to leverage better deals and terms from other countries.\u201d The latter isn\u2019t unlike what the UAE did with France in December 2021, when it immediately reached a deal with Paris for 80 advanced 4.5-generation Dassault Rafale F4 multirole fighters after suspending the F-35 deal. Another reason, of course, is pending Congressional approval. <\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. can choose to supply F-35A jets to Saudi Arabia without technically violating its commitment to Israel\u2019s QME by taking either or both of two key approaches,\u201d Khoueiry said.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, Washington could offer Saudi Arabia a downgraded version of the F-35A, by restricting certain weapons, limiting software baselines, among other things, so that the Saudi capability remains meaningfully less advanced than what Israel flies,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n \u201cSecond, the U.S. could make the case that Israel\u2019s unique variant, the F-35I \u2018Adir,\u2019 already has custom Israeli systems, software and integrations that place it above the baseline F-35A the Saudis might receive, thereby fulfilling the legal requirement that Israel maintain a superior qualitative capability.\u201d <\/p>\n In the RANE analyst\u2019s estimation, these paths could \u201chelp satisfy\u201d the QME requirement. However, he noted that both pose \u201cpolitical and technical challenges,\u201d as Congress and Israel would insist on detailed assurances.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael under its current government and regional posture is unlikely to want an equally capable neighbor, especially one that hasn\u2019t normalized ties, unless this package is supposed to be, with Israel\u2019s nod, an incentive for Saudi Arabia starting negotiations to normalize,\u201d Khoueiry said. <\/p>\n Another potential issue raised by Pentagon officials<\/a> ahead of Trump\u2019s meeting with bin Salman concerned potential Chinese espionage of any Saudi F-35s. A central factor in the suspension of the UAE deal for 50 F-35s, agreed at the end of Trump\u2019s first term after the UAE joined the Abraham Accords, was Washington\u2019s opposition to Abu Dhabi allowing Chinese firms to develop<\/a> its 5G infrastructure. The U.S. charged that this could have enabled Beijing to obtain sensitive data related to the capabilities of any F-35s in Emirati service.<\/p>\n A similar outcome may prove less likely with Abu Dhabi\u2019s western neighbor. <\/p>\n \u201cSaudi Arabia wants to do business with China but stay married to the United States,\u201d Heras of the New Lines Institute said.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite China\u2019s increased efforts to become more prominent as an arms dealer in the Middle East, it is not close to replacing the United States,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Saudis want the F-35s because even \u2018lower end\u2019 F-35s are combat-proven aircraft that would give Saudi Arabia its own qualitative military edge against potential adversaries such as Iran in future conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n A finalized Saudi F-35 deal could prompt Qatar and the UAE to also seek F-35s, in Abu Dhabi\u2019s case, for a second time, or equivalent fifth-generation combat aircraft. RANE\u2019s Khoueiry doubts Washington would approve any sales to them in the near term, or would at least \u201cprolong negotiations,\u201d especially with the UAE.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Qatar already \u201cenjoys unprecedented U.S. security guarantees,\u201d including one granted by Trump through executive order<\/a> after Israel\u2019s unprecedented Sept. 9 attack<\/a> targeting Hamas political leaders in Doha. Such guarantees, Khoueiry reasons, give Washington a \u201cstrong argument\u201d that Doha doesn\u2019t need F-35s while under such direct U.S. protection.<\/p>\n \u201cIn contrast, despite strong relations, there is some degree of skepticism in Washington on the UAE due to its expanding defense partnerships with Russia and China and its diversified arms purchases from multiple suppliers like France,\u201d Khoueiry said.<\/p>\n He cited the UAE\u2019s previous request for F-35s as part of the deal that \u201cfell through, given the preconditions\u201d Washington insisted upon. Abu Dhabi used the talks it suspended to get a better deal from France for Rafales.<\/p>\n \u201cThese concerns make it highly improbable that the UAE would secure F-35s anytime soon, even if they ask and despite its normalized ties with Israel,\u201d Khoueiry said.<\/p>\n That could result in a peculiar outcome in which the preeminent Arab Gulf state that first normalized diplomatic relations with Israel doesn\u2019t ultimately acquire any F-35s, while the one that didn\u2019t does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian air force F-35 fighters prepare for take off during the “Blue Flag” multinational air defence exercise at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,89176,89177,89178,42,4716,89179,66318,43,89180,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-145728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-f-35-lightning-ii","tag-f-35a","tag-f-35i-adir","tag-headlines","tag-israeli-air-force","tag-israeli-f-35s","tag-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-news","tag-qualitative-military-edge","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}