{"id":201963,"date":"2025-12-24T18:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/201963\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T18:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:21:07","slug":"middle-east-missiles-large-contracts-and-space-ambitions-2025-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/201963\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East missiles, large contracts and space ambitions: 2025 review"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last 12 months have been as busy as ever in the Middle East. Throughout the year, strikes were traded between several countries: Israel <\/a>and Iran, the US<\/a> and Iran<\/a>, Iran and Qatar, and Israel and Qatar,<\/a> to name a few.<\/p>\n

And despite a ceasefire signed in late 2024<\/a>, tensions between Israel and Lebanon<\/a> have remained fragile. While 2025 saw the first talks between the neighboring rivals in 40 years, the peacekeeper mission on the borders was renewed for a final time, with the mandate to end by 2027<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Early in the year, Iran inked a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership<\/a> with Russia, securing their cooperation in defense, counter-terrorism and more. Then, when Israel and Iran began trading blows, experts began to wonder<\/a> how the strikes could impact Iran\u2019s support to Russia in the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

[This article is one of many in a series<\/a> in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2025 and look forward to what 2026 may hold.]<\/p>\n

As for me, this year saw the debut of the Middle East Defense Digest<\/a>, a monthly video show that I host that dives into strategic shifts in the region.<\/p>\n

Trust me when I say this region is full of surprises, and that\u2019s just the beginning. Here are my top five stories from the region in 2025.<\/p>\n

1. Turkey\u2019s $1.5B Steel Dome hub envisioned as Europe\u2019s largest air defense facility<\/a><\/p>\n

With increased interest from the Middle East and specifically Gulf states in air and missile defense systems, Turkey is highlighting its indigenous platform \u201cSteel Dome\u201d with a $1.5 billion investment expected to be the single largest defense industry investment.<\/p>\n

Celik Kubbe, the Turkish name for Steel Dome, is a layered, integrated, interconnected radar and air defense system, which Turkey plans to use not only to protect its own airspace but to also export to the Middle East and Europe.<\/p>\n

The air defense system secured its first deal worth $1.9 billion with the Turkish<\/a> armed forces, and the deliveries are expected to take place between 2027 and 2032.<\/p>\n

2. Saudis could buy up to 200 CCA drones, in addition to MQ-9s, GA\u2019s Alexander says<\/a><\/p>\n

In an exclusive on-camera interview, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems President David Alexander told Breaking Defense in November that the company could soon ink its biggest export potential deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including up to 200 collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) and 130 MQ-9Bs.<\/p>\n

As per the agreement under discussion, Saudi Arabia will localize production of CCA subsystems in the Kingdom. If both deals of CCA and the F-35 are fulfilled and KSA receives both systems, the Kingdom\u2019s air force will be highly equipped with fifth-generation manned and unmanned combat aircraft for manned-unmanned teaming.<\/p>\n

Other than the potential deal with Saudi Arabia, Alexander said the long-paused offer for MQ-9Bs for the United Arab Emirates is still on the table and some hurdles to completing it have been removed, though he didn\u2019t give a timeline for any future signing.<\/p>\n

3. In a first, Egypt conducts military drills with China, signaling closer ties<\/a><\/p>\n

Egypt\u2019s defense procurement from Russia has always been intriguing, but recently the ties are warming up with China too. In April Cairo and Beijing launched the first military drills between their air forces dubbed as \u201cEagles of Civilization 2025\u201d\u00a0in Egypt\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n

The exercise featured a number of Egyptian and Chinese fighter jets flying alongside the pyramids and sharing combat concepts in practical scenes.<\/p>\n

Additionally, in Egypt\u2019s defense expo late this year Chinese firms inked a number of agreements for defense coproduction with Egypt, including an agreement with state-owned Norinco<\/a> to localize unmanned aerial vehicle production in Egypt.<\/p>\n

4. Emirati consortium to launch first satellite of Sirb constellation by late 2026, early 2027: Exec<\/a><\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates\u2019 ambitions go beyond dominating the air and out into space. Led by UAE\u2019s space agency, Emirati firms are collaborating to launch a satellite constellation dubbed Sirb to be the first nationally built program, according to a senior industry official who spoke to Breaking Defense in March.<\/p>\n

The companies include: FADA, an EDGE Group subsidiary, Singapore\u2019s ST Engineering, Italy\u2019s Metasensing and UAE\u2019s TII (Technology Innovation Institute), and Emirati Space 42. <\/p>\n

The project is expected to eventually put three UAE-made synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites into low Earth orbit for data collection and analysis.<\/p>\n

5. Middle East defense industry flexes its muscles with nine firms in SIPRI\u2019s Top 100<\/a><\/p>\n

As conflicts in the Middle East prove disastrous for some countries, on the defense technology and production side, the calculations are different. In 2025, the highest-ever number of nine regional firms were listed in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute top 100 arms producers list.<\/p>\n

The nine firms are spread between Turkey (five firms), Israel (three) and the United Arab Emirates (one) for a total of approximately $31 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2024.<\/p>\n

For the first time the Turkish firms had five entries in the list, marking the intense focus on defense production and boosting the firms capabilities to fulfill not only Ankara\u2019s needs, but also the appetite of export customers around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last 12 months have been as busy as ever in the Middle East. Throughout the year, strikes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45640,4754,113675,5543,7727,42,3347,47,113676,113677,22649,43,1823,113678,40,38,41,39,1582,79,112832],"class_list":["post-201963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-air-force","tag-army","tag-collaborative-combat-aircraft","tag-egypt","tag-global","tag-headlines","tag-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia","tag-middle-east","tag-military-drills","tag-mq-9","tag-navy","tag-news","tag-qatar","tag-steel-dome","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-turkey","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-year-in-review-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201963","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=201963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}