Page 10 - ADT FEBRUARY - MARCH 2021 Online Magazine

the writing on the wall. During the company’s “No, no, no. Look, peace is not going to break out in the Middle
2020 fourth quarter earnings call in January, East anytime soon.”
Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told
investors and reporters that the company A Virtual Goldmine [ REPORT ]
anticipated that the Biden administration would U.S. arms sales to countries in the region spiked substantially during
temporarily block the sale of 7,500 of the com- the Yemen war, with sales of military aircraft worth US$58.223
pany's Paveway bombs to Saudi Arabia. The billion alone taking place between 2015-2020. The total value
US$500 million deal had been rushed through of missiles and munitions sold by U.S. companies to militaries in
by Trump in the final months of his term. the region during the period amounted to US$25 billion. The U.S.
also exported naval systems valued at US$25.6 billion during the
five-year period from 2015. Another weapon category that was in
“IF YOU THINK ABOUT PATRIOT demand is air Defense and related systems; the total value of the
AND SOME OF THE OTHER deals signed from 2015 to 2020 amounted to US$29.1 billion.
DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS, WE HAVE NO
ISSUES WITH GETTING LICENSES,” According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(SIPRI), arms import by countries in the Middle East jumped 61
Greg Hayes, Raytheon’s chief executive. per cent between 2010–14 and 2015–19. Imports by countries in
“BUT OFFENSIVE WEAPONS ARE the region accounted for 35 per cent of total global arms imports
A LITTLE BIT MORE DIFFICULT. over the past five years. Between 2000 and 2019, the U.S. has
AND SO, AS WE GO FORWARD, supplied 44.9 per cent of the arms imported by Middle Eastern
WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO states, with the next largest suppliers Russia, France and the UK
supplying 19.3 percent, 11.4 percent and 5.8 percent of the Middle
IS WE WILL WORK WITH THE East’s arms imports, respectively.
[DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE]. WE’LL
TRY AND DO THESE THROUGH According to figures provided by the UK Department for International
FOREIGN MILITARY SALES AS Trade on defence sales, Middle East militaries invested US$289bn
on defence procurement between 2010 and 2019, with US$66bn
OPPOSED THROUGH DIRECT being spent on buying UK-made arms. Saudi Arabia, the biggest
FOREIGN SALES TO MAKE SURE importer of arms, purchased US$116bn worth of arms, with Qatar
WE’VE GOT ALIGNMENT WITH THE in third place after India with US$57bn worth of contracts signed
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND in the past decade. Five of the top ten importers were from the
region, with UAE, Egypt and Kuwait also finding a place on the list.
THE ADMINISTRATION BEFORE WE
BOOK ANY OF THESE.” Thirst for Weapons
In the 2015-2019, Saudi Arabia accounted for 12 percent of global
U.S. defence firms are likely to feel the impact arms imports in the five-year period, with its imports of major arms
of the foreign policy changes announced by going up by 130 percent. Despite Saudi Arabia’s military intervention
the Biden administration, at least in the short in Yemen, the U.S. was the biggest exporter of arms to Saudi Arabia
term, but industry analysts do not expect to in the last five years; 73 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports
see a big decline in weapons sales to coun- in the period came from the U.S. Over the last two decades, the
tries in the Middle East. Hayes himself is not U.S. has sold 60.6 percent of the total weapons that the country
too concerned by the changing of the guard. has imported.
Replying to a question by a stock analyst if the
cancellation is a sign of fewer weapons sales to The military involvement of the UAE in Libya and Yemen over the
Middle Eastern countries in the future, he said, past five years did not stop the U.S. and other countries from sell-

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