[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: The collision involving a Saudi F-15 apparently
stations at Tabuk serves as a reminder that deployment restrictions on
military systems are an inherently unreliable safeguard when considering the
possible impact of an arms sale to an Arab neighbor on Israel's security.

When the F-15's were originally sold to the Saudis, Israel and those
concerned for Israel's security were assured that the jets would not be
deployed at Tabuk, an air force base located a heart beat from Eilat.

So much for assurances.

For background see Michael Knights of the Washington Institute predicting
back in 2003 that "the F-15s will probably be moved back to their main
operating bases at Dhahran, Khamis Mushayt, Riyadh, and Taif as soon as
political attention to the issue recedes."

Over seven years later....]

French Mirage Aircraft, Saudi F-15 Aircraft Collide during Joint Exercise in
Tabuk Region, Pilots Ejected Safely
http://www.spa.gov.sa/English/search.php?pg=1&s=tabuk&by1=n

Riyadh, Safar 20, 1433, Jan 14, 2012, SPA -- An official source at the
Ministry of Defense said in a statement today that "A joint exercise is
currently held in the northern sector in Tabuk Region between the Royal
Saudi Air Force and the French Air Force. While conducting a scheduled air
engagement exercise today afternoon, a Mirage Aircraft of the French Air
Force and an F-15 Aircraft of the Royal Saudi Air Force collided in air."
"The Saudi pilot and the two French pilots ejected safely, and were taken to
the Northern Sector Command. Investigations are under way to determine the
circumstances of the incident," the source said.
--SPA
23:16 LOCAL TIME 20:16 GMT

Washington Institute PolicyWatch #802
Saudi Saber Rattling
By Michael Knights
October 30, 2003
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=1680

By deploying F-15 strike aircraft to a northwestern airbase in March 2003
and holding large combined-arms exercises near the Gulf of Aqaba in
mid-October, Saudi Arabia has indicated its desire to act more freely in
asserting its territorial sovereignty vis-à-vis Israel. These actions --
which Washington and Riyadh might previously have attempted to restrain --
are visible symptoms of the scaling back of U.S.-Saudi military-to-military
ties. Although Riyadh's decision to alter longstanding tacit agreements
regarding the posture of Saudi forces will not significantly affect the
regional military balance, such a move may make Washington more reluctant to
offer future arms sales and military support to the kingdom.
Background

In 1978, Carter administration plans to sell ninety-one F-15C/D strike
aircraft to Saudi Arabia sparked a bitter debate. In May of that year, the
sale was approved by Congress in a narrow 54-to-44 vote, and only after
Riyadh accepted restrictions that limited its ability to deploy the aircraft
against Israel. Specifically, the aircraft were not to be equipped with
conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), preventing them from carrying extra fuel and a
full weapons load simultaneously. Riyadh also agreed to refrain from basing
the aircraft at the northwestern Tabuk airbase, some 150 kilometers from
Israel. In 1992, sales of seventy-two even more advanced F-15S aircraft were
placed under the same restrictions; in addition, the tactical early warning
suite carried by these aircraft was downgraded to reduce its potential
effectiveness against Israeli missiles.

The record of implementation for these restrictions, however, is poor. In
1981, the first shipment of F-15C/Ds to Saudi Arabia did in fact include a
small number of CFTs. That same year witnessed the controversial sale of
AWACS command and control aircraft to Riyadh, which Congress authorized by
an even narrower 52-to-48 vote. In the mid-1990s, the Saudi F-15S fleet was
further augmented by sales of special CFTs with weapons hardpoints, allowing
the aircraft to carry more weapons at longer ranges. Therefore, when the
kingdom deployed fifty F-15Ss to Tabuk airbase in March 2003, it neutralized
the final safeguard of Israel's strategic depth and contravened a
restriction that had been placed on F-15 sales since 1978.

Saudi Saber Rattling

Ostensibly, the Saudi F-15s were moved to Tabuk in order to provide air
cover for U.S. special forces being launched into Iraq's western desert from
the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia. Given its reliance on Saudi basing,
U.S. Central Command agreed to a temporary move. Since the war, however,
Riyadh has resisted both U.S. and Israeli pressure to remove the aircraft
from Tabuk. In mid-October, the kingdom exacerbated the growing tension by
undertaking a long-planned series of combined-arms exercises in the Red Sea
near the Gulf of Aqaba.

Riyadh's decision to move the F-15s to Tabuk in the first place was a purely
political gesture -- an expression of independence and reclamation of
sovereign territory. Nevertheless, the aircraft are unlikely to remain at
the airbase indefinitely. Although Tabuk has excellent wartime facilities,
it is not a dedicated F-15 base in terms of hardened aircraft shelters,
hangers, and other support infrastructure. Tabuk is also one of the least
hospitable and most remote basing locations in the kingdom. Moreover, the
Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has traditionally preferred to use Saudi
Arabia's own strategic depth to protect its valuable F-15 fleet from the
possibility of Israeli preemptive strikes. As a result, the F-15s will
probably be moved back to their main operating bases at Dhahran, Khamis
Mushayt, Riyadh, and Taif as soon as political attention to the issue
recedes.

Saudi Military Weakness

In response to the Tabuk move, Israeli military officials cited the risk
that an al-Qaeda operative or a rogue Saudi pilot might fly an F-15 into
Israel on a September 11-style suicide mission. This complaint highlights
how little concern there is that the kingdom might one day try to use its
F-15s in a military strike role against Israel. Although the RSAF is
equipped with all the trappings of a long-range strike force (e.g.,
extended-range F-15s, refueling tankers, combat search and rescue forces),
it is not effectively configured for that role. The RSAF is short of F-15
aircrews, and its U.S.-supplied KC-3A refueling tankers are primarily used
to keep its U.S.-built AWACS aircraft airborne as they watch the kingdom's
borders and to allow its fighter aircraft to maintain patrols over the
country's vast expanses. As Israeli director of planning Maj. Gen. Giora
Eliand recently noted, the RSAF would have little chance of repeatedly
penetrating Israeli airspace; any Saudi strike against Israel would likely
be limited to the southern tip of the country.

Despite spending an annual average of $21.2 billion on defense over the past
five years, the Saudi military, including the RSAF, has been in decline
since its peak effectiveness around 1993. Two factors have caused this
decline. First, the kingdom has accumulated a massive, complex force
structure, and sustaining it consumes the vast majority of Saudi defense
expenditures. Defense spending is unlikely to rise sharply, particularly as
internal security receives greater emphasis due to the demonstrated
terrorist threat to the kingdom and the elimination of the external Iraqi
threat. Moreover, the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) and interior
ministry security forces -- estimated by the International Institute for
Strategic Studies to cost $7 billion per year -- each have powerful sponsors
(SANG commander Crown Prince Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Nayef)
who counter the influence of Defense Minister Prince Sultan.

The second cause of the kingdom's military decline is the slow collapse of
U.S.-Saudi military-to-military ties. In the early 1990s, close cooperation
between the two militaries seemed to offer a conduit for advanced defense
planning and force-management support. Yet, as the decade wore on and faith
in a NATO-style U.S.-Saudi relationship declined on both sides, Riyadh
recognized that the burden of building and maintaining advanced conventional
forces capable of deterring northern Gulf aggressors was simply too much for
the kingdom's financial and manpower base to handle. Consequently, most of
the projects outlined in the U.S.-Saudi Joint Security Review -- in which
the ambitious Saudi defense policy of the early 1990s was conceived -- were
never completed. For example, in the five-year plan for 1996-2000, the
kingdom's defense budget was underfunded by an average of 13 percent each
year.

Implications

At a recent meeting with U.S. deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz,
Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense,
raised concerns about the Tabuk deployment, and the issue will also likely
be discussed during the upcoming session of the Joint U.S.-Israel Political
Military Group, to be held in Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, the fallout from
Riyadh's actions may be minimal in terms of Israeli security. It could have
serious effects, however, on future U.S. sales of F-15 support equipment
(and, perhaps, other defense-related items) to the Saudis. Riyadh's
contravention of longstanding agreements could exacerbate anti-Saudi
sentiments in the U.S. legislature and impede future Saudi access to U.S.
arms. The House and Senate International Relations committees will no doubt
note the kingdom's violation of the conditions of past F-15 sales, and could
decide to limit future sales or even curtail support to the existing RSAF
F-15 fleet. Over 1,000 Boeing contract employees are required to support
this fleet, and more than $2.6 billion has been spent on F-15 maintenance
alone since 1993. The seventy-two F-15Ss currently flown by the RSAF
represent the kingdom's airpower mainstay for the next twenty years. Without
U.S. support, this high-maintenance fleet will quickly fall into disrepair,
as the RSAF found out in 2001 when it sharply reduced its spending on
contractor support. The longer Riyadh bases F-15 squadrons at Tabuk, the
more difficult it will be to get future Saudi arms sales through Congress.
Given that it is currently mulling U.S. avionics upgrades on the aging
F-15C/D fleet purchased in 1981, Riyadh may not have long to wait before
finding out the price it will pay for the rare privilege of thumbing its
nose at Israel.

Michael Knights is the Mendelow defense fellow at The Washington Institute.