Since
the brutal murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post
contributor Jamal Khashoggi last October, Congress has increasingly
pressured the Trump administration to stop backing the Saudi
Arabia-led coalition fighting in Yemen and halt U.S. arms sales to
Riyadh. In response, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that
if the U.S. does not sell weapons to the Saudis, they will turn to
U.S. adversaries to supply their arsenals.
“I
don’t like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion
into the United States,” Trump told reporters in October,
referring to a collection of intent letters signed with the Saudis in
the early months of his presidency. “You know what they are
going to do? They’re going to take that money and spend it in
Russia or China or someplace else.”
But a
highly classified document produced by the French Directorate of
Military Intelligence shows that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates are overwhelmingly dependent on Western-produced weapon
systems to wage their devastating war in Yemen.
Many of
the systems listed are only compatible with munitions, spare parts,
and communications systems produced in NATO countries, meaning that
the Saudis and UAE would have to replace large portions of their
arsenals to continue with Russian or Chinese weapons.
“You
can’t just swap out the missiles that are used in U.S. planes for
suddenly using Chinese and Russian missiles,” said Rachel
Stohl, managing director of the Conventional Defense Program at the
Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. “It takes decades to build
your air force. It’s not something you do in one fell swoop.”
Full
report:
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