The Middle East America Made
The launch of Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes in Yemen marked a major turning point in modern Middle East history. The Saudi intervention, backed by multiple regional powers and seemingly certain to involve ground forces at some point, effectively represents the debut of the Middle East’s new military order, with Saudi Arabia replacing Egypt as the Arab world’s lead interventionist.
The moment was a long time in the making. In the mid 1960s, when another civil war gripped Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt intervened as outside powers but on opposite sides of the conflict. Egypt supported a military government that seized power in a coup, while Saudi Arabia backed an overthrown monarch seeking to regain his throne. Egypt sent some 70,000 troops to fight in Yemen. But Saudi Arabia refused to commit any forces, limiting aid to subsidies. Saudi forces at that time were simply not strong enough to withstand fighting in Yemen, especially against Egyptian troops.
In following years Saudi Arabia, feeling sheepish and vulnerable, undertook a massive military buildup. The kingdom did not want to wind up outclassed militarily by a regional rival again. The Saudi defense budget increased over $2 billion in 1970 and rose steadily from there. Through the next decade the Saudis allocated about 40 percent of their annual revenues to defense and security expenditures. This percentage remained constant as Saudi revenue soared in those years due to high oil prices, bringing the Saudi annual defense budget to around $40 billion by the late 1970s. This pattern of spending continued into the 1980s and beyond, with most Saudi military purchases made in the United States.
The removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 ostensibly offered a reason for Saudi Arabia to reduce its military expenditures and change its general defense posture. The kingdom’s main enemy fell out of the picture, and the United States evinced, at that time, a willingness to deepen its military involvement in the region. In effect America could be counted on to do any fighting Saudi Arabia needed done in the region, at least in those days. But Saudi Arabia saw a longer game and embarked on yet another military spending spree. In the past ten years the Saudi defense budget has tripled.
Saudi Arabia has hardly been alone in undertaking huge military investments. Four of the top five fastest growing defense markets in 2013 were in the Middle East. Military exports to the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the coalition Saudi Arabia now leads in the Yemen intervention, have risen 71 percent in just the last four years. The United States accounts for about 47 percent of the total arms supply to the region according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, making America essentially the enabler of military action by Arab powers.
The motivation for all this military spending by nations in the Arab world is clear. Middle East countries have been expecting turmoil flowing from an ascendant Iran’s increasing ambitions in the region. Iran is certainly on the rise regionally at the moment, and its neighbors are right to brace for conflict. But the staggering amount of arms the United States has poured into the Middle East only worsens matters. Military buildups have heightened tensions and increased the chances of clashes like the one now unfolding in Yemen. No war machine goes long unused. Moreover, the sophisticated nature of much of the U.S. weaponry streaming into the Middle East will make conflicts all the more deadly for the people of the region — while increasingly profitable for American weapons manufacturers.
Originally published by Mark Kukis.
