How Trump’s Saudi F-35 Deal Could Alter MidEast Balance of Power
President Trump’s Loading deal to allow the sale of F-35 advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia has the potential to alter the military balance of power in the Middle East. The package of fifth-generation stealth fighters has prompted concerns among Israeli and some U.S. officials as it risks toppling Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge (QME), a regional superiority that Congress committed to maintain in a 2008 law.
On Tuesday, Trump tried to assuage these worries during his meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House. “Israel’s aware, and they’re going to be very happy,” the president told reporters, regarding concerns about the F-35 sales, praising both Saudi Arabia and Israel as great allies of the U.S.
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“All other things being equal, it’s relative strength vis a vis not just Israel but all other regional states will grow and, as a purely technical matter, the balance of military power will change in the Kingdom’s favor,” said John Hannah, a former national security adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney and a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy.
“In the event of a Saudi-Iran clash, that’s probably a good thing. In the event something were to happen to MBS [Mohammed bin Salman], or another Arab Spring erupts and there’s a sudden unfavorable political discontinuity in the Saudi political system, the existence of a fleet of F-35s a few minutes flight time from Israel could become deeply problematic,” Hannah said, adding that the odds of that happening are “low,” but the “consequences for the U.S., Israel, and the region would be huge and therefore need to be thought through very carefully.”
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Read the full article in The Hill.