Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is considering the purchase of 54 Rafale fighter jets from French manufacturer Dassault Aviation SA, military sources revealed this week.
Riyadh has been the top export customer for the Eurofighter in the past, but Germany suspended approvals for weapons sales to the oil-rich state after the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Because of the numerous complaints and malfunctions that plague their deals, Rafale aircraft have a poor reputation in the global arms market.
Take the recent agreement with Egypt, for instance, which involved the delivery of thirty aircraft. According to French media, the provided aircraft experienced multiple technical issues that rendered it incapable of being used in combat.
According to a previous investigation by the Mediapart French website, it is likely that these technical issues were the cause of the 2019 accident that killed Egyptian pilot Mahdi El-Shazly. The victim's relatives confirmed that the incident was actually related to the crash of a Rafale plane, in which their son was on board.
The Rafale scandals do not end there, as in 2018, its name was connected to the biggest embezzlement and waste of public funds that India has experienced. With the assumption of power, Narendra Modi renegotiated a contract that had connected his nation to the French Rafale factory in exchange for 126 aircraft, giving a close ally. The first contract stipulated that the products must be manufactured in India, but only 36 were produced, all in France, at a cost three times higher than what the Indian authorities would have paid if produced there.
In a follow-up investigation, Mediapart discovered that two French companies—Dassault, which produces the Rafale aircraft, and Thales, which designs and builds electrical systems and offers services to the aviation, defense, transportation, and security markets—were also involved in this scandal. Thales paid a bribe totaling 2.4 million euros to an intermediary in exchange for lucrative IT contracts that helped the intermediary secure the right to manufacture Rafale aircraft for India. While the two French companies registered this as “gifts to customers,” the French anti-corruption agency decided not to report this suspicious deal to the courts.
Reliable sources revealed that Saudi Arabia is the fifth-largest military spender worldwide, spending some $75 billion last year. Supposedly, this puts Riyadh above the UK, Germany, and France.
Saudi Arabia's military spending in 2022 increased by 16%, reaching an estimated $75 billion, the largest since 2018, the sources clarified.
In 2022, Riyadh spent an estimated $75bn on its military, according to the sources, up from the $48bn it spent in 2021. This was more than seven percent of the country's gross domestic product.
Saudi Arabia was last ranked in the top three military spenders in 2020.
Saudi military spending exceeded in 5 years the spending in the education and health sectors, estimated at $273 billion, representing 20.9% of government spending in total.
The Saudi government allocated 17.7% of its 2021 budget for military spending, estimated nearly $46.7 billion, down from the $48bn it spent in 2020.
Since 2016, Saudi Arabia has intensified its military spending, which includes non-military security institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Interior.
Saudi Arabia has spent a fortune buying arms from the US to prosecute a war that has killed almost a quarter of a million people — the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe in our lifetime.
However, no real achievement was reported, as Saudi Arabia failed to stop Houthi attacks on the Kingdom.
Within the last 10 years, Saudi Arabia has turned itself into the world’s largest buyer of weapons on the world market. Ten years ago, they were buying 90% less than they are today.
The US and UK are the kingdom’s top suppliers. With purchases of astonishingly expensive weapons like helicopters, tanks, and guided missiles, nearly all of its foreign-made weapons (by value) come from these two countries.
The ramp up has been significant since their March 2015 intervention in the Yemen civil war. 17% of arms acquired by the country since 1952 have come in the last three years, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
MBS has signed a number of arms deals totaling billions of dollars since taking office, completely disregarding record-breaking unemployment and poverty rates.
MBS's large arms purchases are aimed at whitewashing his poor human rights record, especially after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country's consulate in Istanbul.
