WASHINGTON — The US State Department today okayed a potential $2.8 billion system logistics and sustainment contract for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including support for Joint Mission Planning Software, cryptographic devices and work on a host of US-made aircraft.
“The proposed sale will improve the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s capability to deter current and future threats by providing sustainment and training support of the Royal Saudi Air Force’s existing platforms and aircraft fleets,” the State Department said in a notification on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency website. Specific aircraft include C-130 transport planes, E-3 surveillance aircraft and Bell helicopters.
The notification said that as wide ranging as the proposed deal is, there is no single prime contractor to carry out the work, but any agreement “may require the assignment of a small number of additional long-term U.S. Government or contractor representatives” to the Kingdom.
As always, final contract figures and dollar amounts are not final until agreements with the American firms are signed, and it’s always possible, though unlikely, that members of Congress could object to the deal.
The Biden administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabian leadership has been an evolving one. Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden called for the Kingdom to be an international “pariah” after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. By 2022, however, relations had warmed considerably, and in recent months, the administration has been doggedly pursuing a historical security agreement with Riyadh, part of a larger push for widespread normalization between Arab nations and Israel. On defense issues, Saudi Arabia has been long seen as a counterweight to Iran in the region.
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In 2023 Saudi Arabia was one of the top five biggest spenders in the world on defense, following the US, China, Russia and India, and was the largest recipient of US arms exports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In a April report, SIPRI said the nation spent an estimated $75.8 billion on defense in 2023, 7.5 percent of its GDP — a layout funded in part recently by “increased demand for non-Russian oil and rising oil prices following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”