Leading arms manufacturers are attending a weapons demonstration in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, hoping to seal deals with militaries across the Middle East.
At the opening, the UAE revealed that it had signed $ 1.36bn in local and foreign military contracts to hand over everything to its forces from South African drones to Serbian artillery.
While the figure surpasses the opening announcement of the 2019 show, defense experts expect a drop in arms spending this year as oil prices fall and global recession pushes budgets in the Gulf region.
Fleet officers walk past a fighter built by Alfattan in the UAE [Kamran Jebreili/AP]
The biennial trade fair, the International Defense Exhibition and Conference, is Abu Dhabi’s first major personal event since the onset of the coronavirus – a testament to the importance to the city of tight movement restrictions. in recent months.
The 70,000 attendees and 900 exhibitors rely on the largest military expo in the Middle East to buy and sell the latest products, from armored vehicles to ballistic missiles.
Emirati top officials, including Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, were in attendance Sunday, traveling between displays of rifles, rockets and bombs.
But with a hand sanitizer as ubiquitous as sterile drone displays, the effects of the pandemic were visible. There were no major national pavilions, including the United States, the world’s largest arms exporter.
Large American companies turned but maintained a low profile. Representatives of Lockheed Martin who were standing next to models of F-35 stealth fighters were tightly tied amid a Biden administration investigation into several foreign arms sales initiated by former President Donald Trump, citing introduced a major $ 23bn transfer of the F-35s to the UAE.
Fighting drone from Etmad, Emirati company, on display at IDEX [Kamran Jebreili/AP]
Israel’s COVID-19 restrictions also barred entry to the expo, which would be the first time after normalizing relations with the UAE last year.
But scores of other countries were in attendance, noting how many have increased arms exports in the region. Armed flows in the Middle East have risen 61 percent over the past five years, according to a recent report from the Stockholm International Peace Study Institute, amid proxy wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen.
China, which has the world’s largest arms manufacturing industry, has introduced passers-by with long-range ballistic missiles known as the “Fire Dragon”.
At state-owned Norinco, business manager Luo Haopeng said China had increased its floor this year. Beyond his company “serving” Emirati ground forces, it refused to explain its intentions in the Middle East, where China has sold armed drones to Iraq, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
‘Suicide Drone’
At the Russian pavilion, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected a wide range of Kalashnikov assault rifles.
Not far away, the Polish WB Group showed clever sales videos of their “suicide drone” falling from great heights to blow up armed vehicles. Azerbaijan had expressed interest in the system during the border dispute with Armenia last year, communications director Marta Lazewska said, when Turkish drones helped turn the tide in favor.
A light-weight armored vehicle called Sahm assembled in the UAE was on display [Kamran Jebreili/AP]
At the pavilion for Saudi Arabia, which has been named the world’s largest arms importer over the past five years, officials were trying to promote the kingdom as a defending giant. crop under “Vision 2030”.
The program, pushed by de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aims to break the country’s import slavery, turn its economy away from oil, and cut more than half its military spending. local production.
Despite the radar and U.S. Patriot missile batteries, Saudi Arabia has been threatened by a cross-border attack by Iranian-linked Houthi rebels that launched bomb drones into a plane vacant at Awe Airport in the country. southwest.
A Saudi-led military coalition has been at war with the Houthis since 2015, after the rebels ousted the Saudi-backed government from the capital, Sanaa. The conflict has created what the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
“The threats are clearly recent,” said Walid Abukhaled, CEO of the Saudi Arabian Military Industries Company, a property company that owns the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
“You have drones coming from invading countries … Some missiles are fired now and then.”
‘Flex his muscles’
Routine attacks and rising tensions by Iran could help fuel arms spending in the region even as defense intelligence provider IHS Janes expects such costs in the Gulf to fall 9.4 percent to $ 90.6bn in 2021 – as a result of the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.
“We have returned to the beginning of 2020 where Iran is once again in serious danger,” said Charles Forrester, Janes’ senior analyst, referring to a series of growing events that crushed the U.S. and Iran to the brink of the last war. year.
“If Iran enters a major rearmament program or starts mobilizing its muscles, that’s where missile defense systems and air defense systems will come in,” he said. “As we’ve seen, a very simple system can attack you.”