The $400 billion deal between KSA and the US: An expert's clarification

[The SC]

You pay them hundreds of billions of dollars and in return you get:Weapons you do not need and can barely use,weapons that depend upon the west for their logistics and maintenance support,and without which they are virtually useless.As for the best...well,last time I looked the israelis still got better gear than the arabs,indeed that seemed to be a part of us regional foreign policy,oh and the israelis got it all for free of course......unlike the arabs.
As for tot,these days thats sort of become a popular "buzzword",but I`ve noticed that even when it has been supplied its usually been with caveats ie only some of the technology has been supplied leaving important gaps that have to be filled the old fashioned way.
Ultimately what the saudis/gulfies are really spending their money on is political support,and of course of even more vital importance the expectation of us/western military support ie desert storm......if it should ever be needed,that is.

The GCC gets the original weapons from the US..Usrael modifies its weapons with other US made in Usrael components.. As for political support, you should know that most military deals in the world have political as well as military ends..
The GCC countries buy only the weapons they need and can use.. you are showing some ignorance here when you say "weapons they do not need and can't use", on what facts do you base your assumptions?
Logistics, spare parts and training!? ask any weapons' buyers and you might understand a thing or two..but in the Saudi case in particular, most of it is minimised and localised..but not yet for new weapons like THAAD for example or the coming P-8s Poseidon, these are new on the market and need a lot of training, support and spare parts..
Most of your assumptions are biased and baseless..Reality is that the GCC is quite capable of defending itself against any regional power.. and the truth is that they know that siding somehow with the US saves the region a lot of trouble, in two ways, regional rivalry and the US interventions..

 

[Sineva]

The GCC gets the original weapons from the US..Usrael modifies its weapons with other US made in Usrael components.. As for political support, you should know that most military deals in the world have political as well as military ends..
The GCC countries buy only the weapons they need and can use.. you are showing some ignorance here when you say "weapons they do not need and can't use", on what facts do you base your assumptions?
Logistics, spare parts and training!? ask any weapons' buyers and you might understand a thing or two..but in the Saudi case in particular, most of it is minimised and localised..but not yet for new weapons like THAAD for example or the coming P-8s Poseidon, these are new on the market and need a lot of training, support and spare parts..
Most of your assumptions are biased and baseless..Reality is that the GCC is quite capable of defending itself against any regional power.. and the truth is that they know that siding somehow with the US saves the region a lot of trouble, in two ways, regional rivalry and the US interventions..

The gcc could not even defeat the REMNANT of the poorest military in the region,the yemeni,who were allied with a militia!!!,and this was despite squandering collectively hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars on weapons they didnt need and obviously couldnt use.Saudi alone was the 4th largest spender[2016] on weapons,and the 2nd largest importer of weapons[2015/16],which for a country its size is frankly insane,throw in the spending of the rest of the gulfies and it gets positively bat sh!t fvcking crazy.We`ve seen this same pattern with virtually all the arab regimes,especially the ones with lots of money to spend.Its almost like watching kids in a candy or toy store buying whatever takes their fancy......except of course these arent toys or candy and should never be bought as tho they were.
Yet despite that totally insane level of spending,the amount of money spent on localised production does not exceed 5% of what is spent in total on weapons,logistics and maintenance.
Saudi may have some very ambitious plans to eventually localise production of spares,and perhaps even whole weapons systems,but it is a very,very long way from achieving this dream,probably a couple of decades at least.
Theres a very good report on the whole subject,its israeli,but dont let that put you off as it is very well referenced and has no political axes to grind,tho from what I hear these days israel and saudi are well on the way to being the best of buds anyway[lol!]
https://www.idc.ac.il/en/research/ips/2018/Documents/ShaulShaySAMI22.4.18.pdf

 

[The SC]

The gcc could not even defeat the REMNANT of the poorest military in the region,the yemeni,who were allied with a militia!!!,and this was despite squandering collectively hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars on weapons they didnt need and obviously couldnt use.Saudi alone was the 4th largest spender[2016] on weapons,and the 2nd largest importer of weapons[2015/16],which for a country its size is frankly insane,throw in the spending of the rest of the gulfies and it gets positively bat sh!t fvcking crazy.We`ve seen this same pattern with virtually all the arab regimes,especially the ones with lots of money to spend.Its almost like watching kids in a candy or toy store buying whatever takes their fancy......except of course these arent toys or candy and should never be bought as tho they were.
Yet despite that totally insane level of spending,the amount of money spent on localised production does not exceed 5% of what is spent in total on weapons,logistics and maintenance.
Saudi may have some very ambitious plans to eventually localise production of spares,and perhaps even whole weapons systems,but it is a very,very long way from achieving this dream,probably a couple of decades at least.
Theres a very good report on the whole subject,its israeli,but dont let that put you off as it is very well referenced and has no political axes to grind,tho from what I hear these days israel and saudi are well on the way to being the best of buds anyway[lol!]
https://www.idc.ac.il/en/research/ips/2018/Documents/ShaulShaySAMI22.4.18.pdf

That it the poor Yemeni people under which the rebels hide..So what do you want to do, kill everyone, and say I won.. it does not work like that.. read something about Afghanistan and you will learn a thing or two..

How do you know about the amount spent on localisation.. no one really knows, but there is $400 billion going towards that for both Military and civilian technologies..and what most do not know is that R&D is quite advanced in KSA as well as the whole heavy industries' infrastructure is in place with the ecosystems for absorbing new technologies including the human resources with technical abilities needed .. so in shade of all this you should understand why it will take only a decade for KSA to localise more than 50% of its military needs..
And BTW that Usraeli report is nothing but a compilation of Saudi news I have opened threads on everyone of them here on PDF..

 

[Sineva]

That it the poor Yemeni people under which the rebels hide..So what do you want to do, kill everyone, and say I won.. it does not work like that.. read something about Afghanistan and you will learn a thing or two..

LOL!.thats pretty funny considering how indiscriminate gulfie airpower was in its targeting and bombing of civilians,and I`d hardly compare the gulfie military performance in yemen to natos occupation of afghanistan.

And BTW that Usraeli report is nothing but a compilation of Saudi news I have opened threads on everyone of them here on PDF..

Excellent,in that case then you know that I`m right!

 

[The SC]

LOL!.thats pretty funny considering how indiscriminate gulfie airpower was in its targeting and bombing of civilians,and I`d hardly compare the gulfie military performance in yemen to natos occupation of afghanistan.


Excellent,in that case then you know that I`m right!

That comment on targeting civilians is very biased, it happened once or twice in Yemen and a thousand times in Afghanistan..Also if you have no idea about the geography of Yemen compared to Afghanistan, you better look it up before commenting..
As far as if you are right, obviously not.. those are articles from Saudi and international news that insist on the 2030 date.. while the Usraeli PDF adds the compiler's opinion which is wrong, considering that KSA has already made significant progress in all fields in a very short time.. With today's spread of scientific information on the net and the arrival of supercomputers, 3D printing, Engineering software, and materials' analysis through computers, allow faster paced developments than 20 or 30 years ago; so what took 20 years to do before, takes 2 years now with advanced R&D and qualified human resources like what Saudi Arabia has plenty of..coming from the best universities of the US, UK, Canada, South Korea, Europe, Japan and some even in Russia and other places..While highly qualified technicians come from many countries as well as locals, just like they do in the Western countries.. So now you might understand why that Usraeli article(PDF) is biased and wrong in its summary, opinion and comments..

Example of how fast the technology is nowadays:

After the completion of the first villa using modern construction techniques in Riyadh.. Dammam witnesses the first delivery to a citizen of a villa of two floors completed in (48 hours) two days!