Reuben F. Johnson

Several Gulf Arab states hope to procure low-radar cross-section (RCS) “stealthy” aircraft to bolster their defense posture. But the source of the airplanes remains a difficult question.
For decades Gulf states sourced military aircraft from both U.S. and European OEMs. The countries made a conscious decision to diversify their supplier base so that an embargo from one supplier or the other would not leave them defenseless.
The nations in the region have had a long-running uneasy and at times combative relationship with Israel, but that doesn’t explain today’s reasons for adding new hardware.&nbsp; The United Arab Emirates and most of its neighbors regard Iran as their most dangerous and existential threat.&nbsp; An all-out invasion of Israel on October 7 by Hamas, the governing entity in the Gaza Strip, has added a new dimension to the equation.
<h2>Upsetting Negotiations</h2>
At the time of the attack Israel had normalized relations with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan under the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords, and the Jewish state had nearly reached a similar three-party agreement with Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The pact would have formalized mutual recognition between Israel and Riyadh, as well as a security, defense, and economic partnership.
Part of the proposed arrangement included a path for Saudi Arabia to acquire the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter.&nbsp; However, many worry that the Hamas incursion will derail the Saudi rapprochement with Israel, effectively putting discussions of a closer Saudi-U.S. military relationship—to include the F-35 buy—on hold.
To date, Washington has cleared only Israel to receive the stealthy jet.&nbsp;But pursuant to one of the codicils of the Accords, the UAE entered protracted negotiations with the U.S. to become the second F-35 customer in the region.&nbsp;But a sale of 80 aircraft has foundered over issues of Abu Dhabi’s ties with the People’s Republic of China, specifically the UAE’s Huawei-designed 5G network that could lead to Beijing learning technical details of the aircraft.
At this year’s IDEX show in Abu Dhabi, Stanley Brown, the U.S. DoD principal deputy assistant secretary for the bureau of political-military affairs, told media representatives that Washington remained committed to consummating the UAE F-35 sale.&nbsp;Even if the two nations could reach an agreement, the fighter jets wouldn’t arrive in the UAE for “several years in the future.”
<h2>Alternate Options</h2>
If Arab nations aim to increase their chances of penetrating Iran’s air defense network, &nbsp;they will need a stealthy aircraft to do so.&nbsp;However, options remain limited outside of the F-35.
The closest alternative to the U.S. jet is the Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) KF-21 Boromae, a twin-engine fighter that externally appears to be in the mold of the F-35’s blended-body design. However, the problem with that aircraft remains, as one of the company’s consultants told AIN, the South Korean armed forces wouldn’t likely release it for sale to a third country before it enters service with its own air force.
China’s Shenyang FC-31/J-35 fighter, also an F-35-type design powered with two Chinese-design Guizhou WS-13 engines, stands as another remote possibility.&nbsp;That aircraft has not yet proven itself viable and hasn’t officially joined the inventory of China’s PLAAF or PLAN AF.&nbsp; Additionally, acquiring a Chinese aircraft would only exacerbate the objections the U.S. has voiced about both Saudi and UAE ties with Beijing.
At the IDEX show and almost one year after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian industry entered discussions with a consortium of Middle Eastern nations and proposed “joint design and manufacture of cutting-edge high-tech products,” including a fifth-generation fighter based on the Su-75 Checkmate light tactical aircraft, said Rosoboronexport (ROE) director general Alexander Mikheev.
<h2>Russian Connection</h2>
ROE serves as the Russian state-run arms export monopoly under the leadership of long-time Vladimir Putin ally and confidant Viktor Chemezov, general director of Russian defense conglomerate Rostec. “Middle East countries are Russia’s traditional and important partners,” Mikheev said. “Rosoboronexport is implementing a lot of military-technical cooperation projects in the region.”
Off-and-on interest by Gulf states in joint military projects with Moscow date from as far back as 2017, but such options do not appear serious today. Post-invasion embargoes by the U.S. and the EU have crippled Russian industry’s capacity to produce almost any of its most modern weapon systems.
The Su-75 “Checkmate” is a single-engine lightweight fighter aircraft derived from the Su-57 twin-engine next-generation fighter.&nbsp; The aircraft appeared in a prototype/mock-up form at the 2021 Dubai Air Show, but since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, embargoes on the import of Western electronic components have created a crippling effect on fighter jet production.
According to a Russian industry expert who spoke with AIN, the airplane’s manufacturer, United Aircraft, can build only five or six Su-57s per year. “That is hardly the kind of production scale that can be offered to an export customer nation,” he concluded. z

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