Saudi Arabia's Military Shopping Spree -- Joshua Keating, Foreign PolicyThom Shanker reports on a new Congressional Research Service reports which finds that U.S. arms sales reached a record high of $66.3 billion last year, more than three quarters of the total global arms market. About half of that comes from sales to Saudi Arabia:
A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels. These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanes and complex missile defense systems.[...]
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My Comment: After the fall of their ally Mubarak in Egypt, Iranian threats, the ongoing Syrian civil war, and the possibility of an "Arab Spring" in Saudi Arabia itself .... couple this with no confidence in the U.S. .... if I was the Saudi King I would probably be doing the same thing.