{"id":3314,"date":"2019-02-19T09:21:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T09:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=3314"},"modified":"2019-03-12T02:44:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T02:44:21","slug":"uae-announces-new-international-weapons-deals-as-middle-east-military-spending-soars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2019\/02\/19\/uae-announces-new-international-weapons-deals-as-middle-east-military-spending-soars\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE announces new international weapons deals as Middle East military spending soars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ABU DHABI \u2014 The United Arab Emirates<\/a> announced roughly $1.35 billion in defense deals with local and international companies on the opening day of IDEX 2019, the International Defence Exhibition and Conference, in Abu Dhabi<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the 33 deals announced Sunday, 18 were domestic and 15 were with foreign firms, the latter accounting for just under $1.1 billion of the total, an IDEX spokesperson said during a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American companies took the greatest share of foreign sales, at about $490 million. Led by Raytheon<\/a>, Lockheed Martin<\/a> and Hesco, the deals will provide missiles, new radar systems capabilities and defensive shelters for the UAE military, respectively. Others notching sales to the country included France\u2019s Thales<\/a>, Australian firm EOS Defense<\/a> and Germany\u2019s Rheinmetall Electronics.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deals with 18 domestic firms highlight the small Gulf country\u2019s investment in developing its own defense manufacturing industry as part of a drive to diversify its economy away from oil.Soaring regional defense spending<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purchases come at a time when defense spending is soaring in the Middle East. A report from IHS Jane\u2019s published Friday revealed an increase in arms expenditures in the Gulf from $82.3 billion in 2013 to $103 billion in 2019. And it\u2019s showing no signs of stopping \u2014 IHS forecast spending will hit $110.8 billion in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the drop in oil prices<\/a> from 2014 to 2016 delayed many procurement projects, \u201cdefense was generally protected from the worst of the spending cuts due to regional security concerns and budgets are now growing again,\u201d Charles Forrester, senior defense industry analyst IHS Jane\u2019s, wrote in the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heavy spending is no surprise given the ramp-up in political tensions over the last few years between regional rivals Saudi Arabia<\/a> \u2014 along with its Gulf allies the UAE and Bahrain<\/a>, among others \u2014 and Iran<\/a>. The Saudi-led blockade against Qatar<\/a> has also spiked arms procurement, as the latter\u2019s resulting re-armament made it the world\u2019s eighth-largest weapons importer in 2018, IHS said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Middle East is the world\u2019s top arms-importing region, according to the analytics firm, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the global defense market. American companies make up 50 percent of the exports that go there.Middle Eastern \u2018arms race\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ian Bremmer, founder of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, says it\u2019s nothing short of a regional arms race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there is an arms race happening in the Middle East,\u201d Bremmer told CNBC at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday. \u201cThe Saudis of course are spending the most on their defense, but the UAE is ramping up as well, the Iranians are ramping up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a slowdown in growth forecast for the entire Middle East and North Africa region, thanks in part to lower oil prices, that spending will come under pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut still, the defense contractors should be happy in this environment, that\u2019s true all over the world,\u201d Bremmer said. \u201cAnd, in an environment where there are so many big challenges, it\u2019s a little sad to see just how many countries are working to ramp up their defense spend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UAE is a top regional ally to the U.S. in the fight against terrorist organizations, and has been credited by Pentagon officials for its role in combating Al Qaeda in Yemen. More recently, however, it has come under increased criticism for its role in Yemen\u2019s civil war, where a Saudi and UAE-led offensive coalition has been described by the UN as being responsible for most of the at least 10,000 civilian deaths in the country since 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABU DHABI \u2014 The United Arab Emirates announced roughly $1.35 billion in defense deals with local and international companies on the opening day of IDEX 2019, the International Defence Exhibition and Conference, in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Of the 33 deals announced Sunday, 18 were domestic and 15 were with foreign firms, the latter accounting for just under $1.1 billion of the total, an… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[210],"class_list":["post-3314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-www-cnbc-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3315,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions\/3315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}