After years of hesitation, Washington has finally moved to sell Saudi Arabia the F-35, its most advanced stealth fighter, ending a saga that has dragged on for years amid concerns over transferring the aircraft to a West Asian power may dilute Israel’s aerial dominance vis-a-vis its neighbours. The US State Department cleared the potential Foreign Military Sale of up to 48 F-35A Lightning II jets to Riyadh, in a deal valued at USD 24.3 billion, notified to Congress on Thursday.The package goes well beyond the aircraft itself. It includes 49 Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines, one per aircraft plus a spare, alongside secure communications and navigation systems, cryptographic equipment, electronic warfare support, spare parts, simulators, training and extensive logistics support. The State Department said the sale would strengthen the defences of a major non-NATO ally and improve interoperability with US, regional and NATO forces, while explicitly stating it would not alter the existing military balance in the region, a clear nod to longstanding Israeli objections, since Israel remains the only Middle Eastern nation currently operating the F-35.The deal was cleared just days after Yemen’s Houthi movement claimed to have shot down a Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 over Marib governorate on September 16. Video released by the group showed wreckage bearing a Saudi flag insignia, and if confirmed, this would mark only the second time a US-built F-15 has been downed by hostile fire, and possibly the fifth Strike Eagle lost in the region this year alone. Riyadh has not officially confirmed the loss.That vulnerability underlines exactly why Saudi Arabia has pushed so hard for the F-35. Unlike the ageing F-15 fleet, heavily exposed to increasingly sophisticated Houthi air defences cobbled together from repurposed air-to-air missiles and Iranian-derived systems, the F-35’s stealth characteristics are designed to evade precisely this kind of threat environment.The approval also follows a string of other major Saudi arms purchases this year, including a 5 billion dollar bomb deal, a 750 million dollar tank engine package, and a USD 1.96 billion precision-guidance kit agreement, signalling Riyadh’s broader rearmament push amid an increasingly volatile regional security picture.While the sale still requires congressional approval and no contract has yet been signed, its approval marks a genuine shift in longstanding US policy, one that had kept its most advanced stealth fighter out of Gulf Arab hands for years, until mounting battlefield losses appear to have tipped the calculus toward finally saying yes.The UAE was also seeking to procure the F-35 and this effort went back to 2020 deal. This deal was signed alongside the Abraham Accords, when Washington agreed to sell Abu Dhabi up to 50 F-35s as part of a broader USD 23 billion package that also included armed drones and other advanced munitions. The agreement was seen as a reward for the UAE’s normalisation of ties with Israel. Negotiations stalled repeatedly, and the deal was formally suspended in late 2021 after the UAE itself paused talks over what it called unacceptable conditions and sovereignty restrictions attached to the sale. With the F-35 deal in limbo, the UAE pivoted instead to France, signing a landmark deal for 80 Rafale fighters in December 2021, a purchase worth around 19 billion dollars, its largest-ever defence acquisition.
