Mr. Exclamation mark, we do have the right to maintain our own fighter jets and Al Salam Saudi Company is regularly doing this. Adding maintinace provision in any contract is not equivelent of exlusivity. It means that no warranty will apply if the maintiance wasn't provided by the manafacturer for a certain period of time. There is also a reason for the World's powers not to use ballistic missles but rather use fighter jets. Iran got North Korean missles to suplement its military b/c of sanctions.
There is a difference between countries that produce their own fighters vs countries that can't even maintain their own!!!
And the difference is quite clear all you have to do is go compare your military with countries that spend as much as KSA does on it's military!
KSA spend more than Russia, India, France, Germany, U.K., Japan... Yet your military doesn't come close to theirs in any aspect! And if Saudi Arabia every does anything that's truly against U.S. interests you will be cannibalizing your air force just as Iran did in the 80's & that my friend is NOT POWER!
And when the U.S. wants to attack a country they don't lead with fighter jet. They lob cruse missiles, then they send it their stealth bombers & some times the other way around & only after the path is clear they send in their fighter jet. And usually by that point it doesn't much matter what type of fighter jets they send!
And U.S. uses cruise missiles because they are lighter & smaller for the range they can travel so their ships can carry more of them and because cruise missiles are easier to intercept for well protected targets they 1st send stealth aircraft to take out the Air Defense equipment then the cruse missiles come flying in! So you see, having a bunch of fighter jets by themselves does not give you power!
Take a look at your struggle against Yamen a small country right off your southern boarder with no real weapons of any kind! What exactly do you think your air force can do to Iran?
And yes Iran kicked off it's missile program by purchasing ballistic missiles from Libya & North Korea SO WHAT? Many countries were buying missiles long before Iran ever was yet where is Iran today?
North Korea does NOT possess Solid Fueled missiles equivalent to Iran's and when it comes to liquid fueled their missile program is more focused on range than accuracy where as Iran shifted it's focus to accuracy once it reached the desired range but the North Koreas don't need to because they have Nukes!