Why is Saudi Arabia so scared of Iran despite having 3rd biggest military budget in the world? Only USA and China have a bigger defence budget.... It a shame that Saudi Arabia despite its huge military budget and state of the art weapons cant go toe to toe with Iran. A country that has been under sanctions and isolated for 40 years.
Because Saudi have more to lose than Iran, simple as that.
- Only Iranians live in Iran along with some unwanted refugees. While In Saudi, 32 million people live, out of which 14 millions are foreigners.
- Saudi have state of the art infrastructure, Iran not so much comparatively. Damaged to infra will hurt Saudis more than Iranians.
- World is dependent on Saudi oil, Iran is already under sanctions and them being under sanctions benefit Saudis the most because then Saudis sell the most.
- Saudi economy is much more dependent on oil than Iran's and any major war will disrupt their source of income hurting their economy the most. While Iran is already under sanctions so they don't care about 'disruption' in economy.
All in all, status quo suits Saudis the most, or, atleast suited them just fine till the time they started feeling the heat at 'home'. Now, that threat, they need to take care of, at home. Stupidity would be to go full blown war with Iran, because, this is exactly what Iran wants for the reasons mentioned above.