Chapter 3 Military and Security Involvement
3.2.1 Arms sales
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to such actions. Moreover, the spokesman said that China helped Iraq, including the Kurdish region, and will continue to do so “in our own way”. 55
Since then, there was not any indication that China did or did not participated in air strikes on ISIL militants, but China is definitely present in the area and does not intend to run away from the threat. In December 2014 China opened a new Consulate General in the city of Erbil, located at Iraqi Kurdistan, even though this region is at the center of the fighting. 56 A possible explanation to China’s timing in opening a consulate in the area is that in 2014, amidst the fighting, the Kurds started exporting oil independently of Iraq.57
It seems like China is hesitating how to act in the case of ISIL. At some point, China will have to take a stance, and it might already have done so, only clandestinely, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested. It is difficult to imagine can be so involved in Iraq, about which I will discuss in the next chapter, but with remaining neutral towards ISIL. Whatever China’s choice in this matter would be, it would indicate China’s future policy towards the Middle East.
3.2 The US
3.2.1 Arms sales
The US is an arms exporting empire. According to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, the US was the largest arms exporter in the world between the years 2010 to 2014, in total accounting for almost one third of all world deliveries.58
55 Ibid.
56 "China Opens Consulate In Kurdistan, Will Boost Trade Throughout Iraq “, Dinar Insider, February10, 2015, accessed June 22, 2015, https://dinarinsider.com/china-opens-consulate-kurdistan-will-boost-trade-throughout-iraq
57 Emre Peker, “Iraqi Kurdistan Gets Around $100 Million for First Major Oil Export”, The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2014, accessed June 22, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqs-kurdish-region-gets-around-100-million-for-first-major-oil-export-1403521403
58 “The Top 20 Arms Exporters, 2010–2014”, 2015.
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Figure 3: The Top 10 Arms Exporters by Country, (2010-2013): Percent of Global Share.59
Source: SIPRI
The Middle East is a very important market for American arms exports, as Arms imports to Middle Eastern countries increased by 25 per cent between 2005–2009 and 2010–2014. The US enjoyed this increase as 47 percent, almost half of the total arms sales to the region, originate in the US. Russia and the UK are the second and third largest arms suppliers to the region, but together account for less than half the market share of the US (with 12 percent and 10 percent respectively). 60
The US’s two largest markets in the area are Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and that correlates with their ranking as the two largest weapons importers in the region.
Between 2010 and 2014, Saudi Arabia accounted for 23 percent of the arms imports to the Middle East while the UAE accounted for 20 percent. Eight percent of all American arms exports were shipped to the UAE61, or 58 percent of the emirate arms imports, and 35 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports from the US.62
59 “Top 10 Arms Exporters, for the Period 2010-14, Per cent of Global Share “, SIPRI, April, 2015, accessed July 1, 2015, http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/transfers/measuring/copy_of_at-images/top-10-arms-exporters_2010-14/image
60 Ibid.
61 Wezeman and Wezeman, p.p. 7-8.
62 Ibid, p. 4.
US 37%
China 6%
Israel 2%
Others 14%
Ukraine 4%
Italy 4%
Russia 33%
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The Middle East is in need for more weapons because of the ongoing conflicts in the area, some of which the US is a full or partial member of. The Arab countries are not only dependent on the US and its operational assistance in fighting ISIL or the Houthi rebels, but also in supplying the weapons they use for the fighting.63
Figure 4: The 10 largest importers of major weapons and their main suppliers, (2010–
2014).64
Share of international arms imports (%)
Main suppliers (share of importer’s total imports), 2010–14
63 Helen Cooper and Mark Mazzetti, “Sale of U.S. Arms Fuels the Wars of Arab States”, The New York Times, April 18, 2015, accessed June 22, 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/world/middleeast/sale-of-us-arms-fuels-the-wars-of-arab-states.html?_r=0
64 Wezeman and Wezeman, “Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2014”, p. 4.
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The weapons US is supplying to its allies in the area are top notch, usually systems they cannot purchase from other countries. For instance, the US sold Saudi Arabia M-1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, M-2A2 Bradley armored vehicles, F-15E Strike Eagle attack aircrafts and Patriot surface-to-air missiles, which are the most systems the US forces are using as well.65 The UAE is also interested in purchasing high-end weapons systems, and it was able to receive the most sophisticated version of F-16 jet fighter aircrafts, even more sophisticated than the US Air Force’s fleet.66
In other words, not only that China is not nearing the US as an arms sales supplier to the Middle East, it cannot even be considered to be a player. The US is by far the most important arms supplier to the region, way ahead of Russia and the UK that together account for less than half the exports of the US to the region. The arms supplies card, on which the Arab countries of the Gulf reliance is increasing, definitely gives the US an important leverage in the area.