Royal Saudi Air Force F-35
President Trump said 18 November 2025 "I will say that we will be doing that, we'll be selling F-35s, yeah," the day before he was set to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House. Trump said the Saudis "want to buy" them, and they've "been a great ally." The 18 November 2025 White House summit between President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman represented a pivotal moment in Middle Eastern strategic realignment, with the potential sale of forty-eight F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters to Saudi Arabia emerging as the central bargaining chip in negotiations over the kingdom's accession to the Abraham Accords. The meeting, which includes a formal Oval Office session, black-tie state dinner, and follow-on investment summit on November 19, comes amid competing pressures from Israeli demands for normalization conditionality, Pentagon intelligence warnings about Chinese espionage risks, and Saudi insistence on a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood. The multibillion-dollar fighter deal, which cleared initial Defense Department reviews in early November, would make Saudi Arabia the first Arab nation to operate America's most advanced combat aircraft, fundamentally altering regional military balance while potentially advancing Trump's signature foreign policy achievement from his first term.
The White House Summit and Diplomatic Context
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to Washington marks his first trip to the United States capital since March 2018, arriving during what administration officials characterize as a warming period in bilateral relations following Trump's May 2025 visit to Riyadh. The elaborate reception underscores the Trump administration's prioritization of Saudi engagement, with the president describing the gathering as more than a meeting but rather an event to honor Saudi Arabia. The timing appears strategically calculated to capitalize on what Trump perceives as fundamental shifts in Middle Eastern power dynamics, particularly the weakening of Iranian proxy forces in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen following two years of sustained conflict, as well as damage to Iran's nuclear program from joint United States-Israeli strikes conducted in June 2025.
The summit agenda encompasses defense cooperation, technology partnerships particularly in artificial intelligence and semiconductor sectors, and economic agreements building upon the $142 billion memoranda of intent signed during Trump's May visit. However, the centerpiece negotiations revolve around Saudi Arabia's potential accession to the Abraham Accords, the normalization framework Trump brokered during his first term that established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in 2020. Trump expressed optimism aboard Air Force One on November 15, stating his hope that Saudi Arabia would join the accords fairly shortly, though administration officials speaking anonymously indicated that near-term Saudi participation appears improbable despite restrained confidence that agreement might emerge during Trump's second term.
The diplomatic complexities center on irreconcilable positions regarding Palestinian statehood. Saudi Arabia maintains that normalization with Israel requires guaranteed Palestinian state establishment, a condition King Salman has articulated as non-negotiable. While Crown Prince Mohammed has reportedly signaled potential flexibility beyond his father's stance, he continues to demand a credible, irreversible, and time-bound pathway to Palestinian statehood. This directly conflicts with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fierce rejection of any Palestinian state commitment, a position that became more entrenched following Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and triggered the subsequent Gaza conflict. Administration officials suggested that optimal outcomes from the November 18 discussions would involve Saudi recognition of Trump's twenty-point Gaza peace plan as providing the foundation for Palestinian statehood, coupled with public commitment to considering Abraham Accords membership, though such positioning risks provoking Israeli anger and withdrawal of cooperation.
The F-35 Fighter Deal: Specifications and Strategic Significance
Saudi Arabia's request for forty-eight F-35A Lightning II aircraft represents a quantum leap in the kingdom's air combat capabilities and would fundamentally reshape regional military balance. The F-35A, Lockheed Martin's conventional takeoff and landing variant, entered operational service with the United States Air Force in 2015 following development that began in the mid-1990s. The aircraft belongs to the exclusive fifth-generation fighter class, characterized by stealth characteristics, advanced sensor fusion, and network-centric warfare capabilities that distinguish it from all fourth-generation platforms currently in regional service.
The F-35A's combat effectiveness derives from integration of multiple advanced subsystems into a cohesive operational platform. The aircraft employs carefully engineered shaping combined with radar-absorbent composite materials to achieve extremely low radar cross-section, allowing penetration of defended airspace that would prove lethal to conventional fighters. The AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array radar provides simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting while maintaining low probability of intercept characteristics. A Distributed Aperture System comprising six infrared cameras provides spherical situational awareness, detecting and tracking aircraft and missiles in all directions simultaneously. The electro-optical targeting system, integrated into the fuselage rather than carried in external pods, enables precise target identification and weapons delivery while preserving stealth characteristics.
Perhaps the F-35's most significant advancement lies in its sensor fusion architecture, which automatically correlates data from onboard sensors, datalinks, and off-board sources to present pilots with a synthesized tactical picture rather than requiring manual interpretation of individual sensor feeds. This transforms the aircraft into what defense analysts describe as an airborne intelligence engine, capable of detecting, identifying, and sharing threat information across networked forces. The Pratt and Whitney F135 engine produces over 40,000 pounds of thrust, incorporating classified heat signature management technologies critical to the aircraft's stealth envelope while providing sufficient power for future directed-energy weapon integration.
For the Royal Saudi Air Force, whose current backbone consists of advanced F-15SA strike fighters acquired through Foreign Military Sales and Eurofighter Typhoons obtained from the European consortium, F-35 acquisition would add genuine first-night-of-war capability designed to survive against modern integrated air defense systems. The aircraft's two internal weapons bays accommodate air-to-air missiles and precision-guided munitions in low-observable configuration, while external pylons can carry additional ordnance when stealth is less critical, pushing total payload capacity beyond eight tons. The unit cost ranges between $80 million and $101.5 million depending on variant and configuration, suggesting the total package value including aircraft, training systems, maintenance infrastructure, and initial logistics support would likely exceed $10 billion to $15 billion.
Operationally, Saudi F-35s would transform Riyadh's ability to conduct strikes against Iranian strategic targets, including ballistic missile launch complexes, nuclear-related infrastructure, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval facilities around the Persian Gulf, and command nodes. The aircraft's stealth characteristics would enable penetration of Iranian airspace without telegraphing approach on legacy radar networks, while mission data files tailored to Iranian order of battle would allow automatic threat recognition and prioritization. Additionally, the F-35's ability to detect low-flying cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, then share tracks via secure datalinks, would significantly strengthen Saudi defenses against the kind of drone and missile attacks launched from Yemen and Iraq in recent years.
Pentagon Intelligence Assessment: Chinese Espionage Concerns
The proposed F-35 sale confronts substantial opposition within the United States intelligence community, crystallized in a classified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that warns China could acquire the aircraft's sensitive technologies through Saudi Arabia's extensive security and economic partnerships with Beijing. The intelligence report, portions of which leaked to the New York Times on November 13, 2025, outlines scenarios whereby Chinese access to F-35 technology could occur not through overt technology transfer but through more subtle pathways including embedded technicians in joint industrial projects, exploitation of vulnerable digital infrastructure, and intelligence collection against Saudi telecommunications networks and air bases.
The intelligence concerns center on specific F-35 subsystems whose compromise would directly benefit Chinese military aviation programs. Stealth coating formulations and application techniques remain among the most closely guarded secrets in American aerospace, with the specific materials and manufacturing processes that give the F-35 its radar cross-section advantage representing decades of research investment. Chinese engineers working on the Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-35 programs require precisely this kind of detailed understanding of how to achieve and maintain very low radar signatures across multiple frequency bands. Similarly, the F-35's electronic warfare architecture, which enables the aircraft to detect, identify, and counter enemy radars and communications while minimizing its own electromagnetic signature, represents technology China seeks for its own fifth-generation platforms.
Perhaps most concerning from the Defense Intelligence Agency perspective are mission data libraries and the Multifunction Advanced Datalink system. Mission data files contain detailed electromagnetic signatures of threat radars and communications systems, along with optimal countermeasure techniques, essentially providing a roadmap of how to defeat specific air defense systems. If Chinese intelligence gained access to F-35 mission data configured for operations against Russian-designed surface-to-air missile systems widely deployed throughout Asia, it would significantly enhance People's Liberation Army understanding of both the threat systems and American electronic warfare techniques. The Multifunction Advanced Datalink, meanwhile, enables secure high-bandwidth communication between F-35s and other platforms, and any Chinese breakthrough in understanding this system's encryption or waveform characteristics could compromise American and allied tactical communications across multiple theaters.
The intelligence assessment grounds these concerns in Saudi Arabia's deepening ties with China across multiple domains. Riyadh purchased Chinese DF-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the 1980s and more recently acquired DF-21 systems, with satellite imagery suggesting Chinese technical assistance for Saudi solid-fuel missile production at facilities near al-Dawadmi. Chinese-manufactured Wing Loong and CH-4 armed unmanned aerial vehicles already serve in Saudi military operations, filling capability gaps Washington proved unwilling to address. China ranks among the largest purchasers of Saudi crude oil, and President Xi Jinping's December 2022 visit to Riyadh produced thirty-four agreements valued at approximately $30 billion spanning cloud services, digital infrastructure, transportation, and construction sectors.
Particularly problematic from the American intelligence perspective are Saudi partnerships with Huawei Technologies on cloud computing and data center projects. Similar concerns about Huawei-managed 5G networks near F-35 operating bases contributed directly to the United Arab Emirates suspending its own F-35 purchase negotiations in 2021, after American officials warned that Chinese telecommunications equipment could enable passive collection of aircraft electromagnetic signatures, maintenance procedures, and operational patterns. More recently, United States intelligence alleged that an Emirati artificial intelligence firm's cooperation with Huawei helped China improve the range of its PL-15 and PL-17 long-range air-to-air missiles, weapons specifically designed to challenge American and allied fighters in Indo-Pacific scenarios. Defense analysts cite this case as demonstrating how dual-use technology partnerships can inadvertently feed into Chinese military advancement, suggesting similar risks would exist with Saudi Arabia given Vision 2030's explicit goal of localizing fifty percent of defense spending through joint ventures and technology partnerships.
However, some defense officials and analysts question whether the intelligence assessment overstates risks given that China has already obtained substantial F-35 information through cyber espionage. The 2014 conviction of aerospace executive Su Bin revealed that Chinese hackers stole tens of thousands of documents related to the F-22 Raptor and F-35 programs, including details on stealth coatings, avionics architecture, and manufacturing processes. Additionally, the People's Liberation Army has actively recruited American and allied F-35 pilots to gather operational insights, suggesting Beijing already possesses significant understanding of the aircraft's capabilities and limitations. Critics of the intelligence assessment argue that marginal additional Chinese access through Saudi channels would provide little beyond what Beijing has already acquired through extensive cyber operations, though defenders counter that even incremental intelligence gains could help China refine countermeasures or improve its own programs.
Israeli Position: Qualitative Military Edge and Normalization Conditionality
Israel's approach to the proposed Saudi F-35 sale reflects careful calibration between preserving military advantage and advancing strategic realignment with Sunni Arab states against shared Iranian threats. Israeli officials informed the Trump administration that Jerusalem does not oppose F-35 sales to Saudi Arabia in principle, but insists any transfer must be conditioned on Saudi normalization with Israel and formal accession to the Abraham Accords. This position contrasts sharply with Israel's vehement opposition to potential Turkish F-35 acquisition, which Jerusalem views as an unacceptable security risk given President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly hostile rhetoric toward the Jewish state.
The Israeli position stems from concerns about maintaining qualitative military edge, a longstanding security doctrine that has framed United States arms transfers to the Middle East for decades and received formal Congressional codification in 2008 legislation. The concept holds that Israel must possess the capability to defeat any credible conventional military threat from regional actors without incurring prohibitive damage or casualties, essentially ensuring decisive superiority against any combination of potential adversaries. Israel currently operates forty-five F-35I Adir fighters, with thirty additional aircraft on order, making it the only Middle Eastern nation with fifth-generation combat aircraft and the first country outside the United States to receive the platform when initial deliveries commenced in December 2017.
Israeli military officials emphasize that F-35 flight time from Saudi territory to Israeli airspace measures in minutes rather than hours, fundamentally altering threat calculations if relations deteriorate or if the Saudi government fell to hostile forces. One Israeli official noted that it takes minutes for an F-35 to fly from Saudi Arabia to Israel, adding that Jerusalem would likely demand strict geographic restrictions preventing Saudi F-35s from deployment at western kingdom air bases near Israeli borders. The concern extends beyond immediate military balance to encompass scenarios where internal Saudi instability or regime change could place advanced American fighters in hands of extremist elements, a risk Israeli defense planners consider unlikely but not impossible given regional volatility.
Nevertheless, Israeli officials indicated they view Saudi F-35 acquisition within the context of Abraham Accords normalization as qualitatively different from other potential regional transfers. A second Israeli official stated that unlike F-35 supply to Turkey which Israel strongly opposes, Jerusalem is less concerned about such weapons systems in Saudi Arabia if part of regional security cooperation under the Abraham Accords framework, similar to arrangements with the United Arab Emirates. This suggests Israeli acceptance that normalization would create sufficient strategic alignment and intelligence sharing mechanisms to mitigate risks associated with Saudi fifth-generation fighter capability.
The Israeli position received articulation from Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, who characterized normalization with Saudi Arabia as Israel's top national interest that would change the Middle East for generations, while simultaneously insisting any agreement must uphold principles vital to Israel without recognizing a Palestinian state that would endanger security. Zohar argued that Israel operating as a security superpower together with Gulf powers represents the great nightmare of Israel's enemies, suggesting Jerusalem views potential Saudi partnership as worth the qualitative military edge considerations if conditioned properly. However, this position places Israeli officials at odds with much of the political right, including settler leaders and far-right coalition members who vehemently oppose any Palestinian statehood pathway as part of normalization negotiations.
Israeli lobbying efforts apparently intensified following reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth planned to approve the F-35 sale before interagency review, prompting Israeli officials to press their case directly to the Trump administration. One Israeli official characterized providing F-35s to Saudi Arabia without securing normalization as a mistake and counterproductive, warning that unconditional arms sales would forfeit leverage for achieving the broader strategic realignment Trump seeks. Israeli media reporting suggested that Netanyahu appears willing to accept erosion of qualitative military edge in exchange for removing prospects of Palestinian statehood from negotiation tables, though this characterization remains disputed and may oversimplify Jerusalem's complex positioning.
Saudi Strategic Calculations and Regional Implications
Saudi Arabia's pursuit of F-35 acquisition reflects broader modernization efforts aimed at establishing the kingdom as the preeminent military power in the Arabian Peninsula and broader Middle East. The Royal Saudi Air Force currently operates a mixed fleet that includes eighty-four F-15SA strike fighters acquired through a $29.4 billion Foreign Military Sales package announced in 2010, along with seventy-two Eurofighter Typhoons obtained from the European consortium. While these fourth-generation platforms provide substantial air superiority and strike capabilities, they lack the stealth characteristics and sensor fusion architecture that define fifth-generation operations. Saudi procurement strategy also encompasses substantial Chinese and European systems, including the Chinese-manufactured Wing Loong II and CH-4 armed unmanned aerial vehicles that have seen combat employment in Yemen operations.
The kingdom's interest in F-35s intensified following observation of Israeli combat employment against Iranian and proxy targets, including strikes that reportedly employed stealth fighters to penetrate Syrian air defenses and the June 2025 attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Saudi defense planners assess that F-35 capability would provide decisive advantages in potential conflict with Iran, enabling strike packages to approach high-value targets without early warning that would allow dispersal or increased alert postures. Additionally, the F-35's advanced sensors and networking capabilities align with Saudi efforts to develop integrated air and missile defense architecture capable of countering the cruise missile and unmanned aerial vehicle threats that have repeatedly penetrated kingdom airspace from Yemeni and Iraqi launch points.
However, Saudi pursuit of normalization with Israel faces substantial domestic and regional political constraints that complicate straightforward transaction of F-35s for diplomatic recognition. The kingdom's population remains broadly sympathetic to Palestinian aspirations, and the Gaza conflict that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians generated widespread anti-Israel sentiment across the Arab and Muslim world. King Salman's explicit linkage of normalization to Palestinian statehood reflects both personal conviction and political calculation about managing domestic opinion, particularly among religious conservatives who view abandonment of Palestinian claims as unacceptable betrayal of Arab and Islamic solidarity.
Crown Prince Mohammed's reported flexibility suggests possible willingness to accept something less than full Palestinian statehood in exchange for normalization, perhaps accepting a time-bound pathway or interim arrangements rather than immediate state establishment. However, the crown prince's public positioning continues to demand credible, irreversible, and time-bound commitments from Israel, language that Netanyahu has categorically rejected. The October 13, 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh peace conference, where Trump brokered a Gaza ceasefire, apparently included American pressure on Saudi Arabia to move toward normalization, with Trump subsequently telephoning bin Salman to express expectation of diplomatic progress. One senior United States official characterized the administration message bluntly, stating that Washington did all the things Riyadh requested and now expects reciprocal movement on normalization.
Regional implications of Saudi F-35 acquisition extend beyond bilateral Saudi-Israeli dynamics to encompass broader strategic competition with Iran and Turkey. Iranian officials would likely interpret Saudi fifth-generation fighter capability as further evidence of Washington's construction of an anti-Iranian alliance structure, potentially accelerating Tehran's own military modernization efforts and deepening security cooperation with Russia and China. Turkey's concurrent lobbying for return to the F-35 program, after expulsion in 2019 following acquisition of Russian S-400 air defense systems, creates additional complexity. Turkish F-35 acquisition would profoundly concern Israel given Erdogan's hostile rhetoric, while Turkish exclusion while Saudi Arabia receives the aircraft could damage NATO solidarity and push Ankara further toward alternative security partnerships.
Historical Precedents and Political Obstacles
The proposed Saudi F-35 sale recalls previous controversies over advanced American weapons transfers to Arab states, particularly the 1981 sale of five E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and the 1986 sale of F-15 fighters to Saudi Arabia. Both transactions generated intense Congressional opposition based on concerns about Israeli qualitative military edge, with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Congressional supporters mounting sustained campaigns to block or condition the sales. In each case, the Reagan administration prevailed but only after agreeing to restrictions that included American personnel operating sensitive systems, geographic deployment limitations, and compensatory arms packages to Israel. The F-15 sale eventually proceeded with Saudi crews flying the aircraft but key systems remaining under effective American control for extended periods.
More directly relevant precedent comes from the F-35 sale to the United Arab Emirates negotiated during Trump's first term as part of the Abraham Accords normalization in 2020. That agreement called for fifty F-35A aircraft, eighteen MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, and advanced munitions in a package valued at approximately $23 billion. However, the deal stalled during the Biden administration after Abu Dhabi refused American demands to remove Huawei telecommunications equipment from proximity to planned F-35 operating bases, with United States intelligence officials warning that Chinese-manufactured 5G infrastructure could enable passive collection of aircraft signatures and operational patterns. The UAE ultimately suspended negotiations rather than accept these conditions, instead ordering eighty Dassault Rafale fighters from France in late 2021, demonstrating that regional partners will pursue alternative suppliers when American conditions become unacceptable.
The current Saudi request confronts a political environment complicated by Crown Prince Mohammed's role in journalist Jamal Khashoggi's October 2018 murder in Istanbul, an incident that generated sustained Congressional opposition to Saudi Arabia and arms transfers to the kingdom. Although Trump maintained close relations with Mohammed bin Salman during his first term and again prioritized Saudi engagement upon returning to office in January 2025, substantial Congressional skepticism persists. The Defense Intelligence Agency assessment warning of Chinese espionage risks provides additional ammunition for Congressional opponents who could invoke qualitative military edge concerns, technology security imperatives, or human rights considerations to delay or block the sale.
Legislative mechanisms provide multiple avenues for Congressional intervention in major arms sales. The Arms Export Control Act requires the executive branch to formally notify Congress of proposed Foreign Military Sales exceeding specified thresholds, triggering a review period during which legislators can introduce joint resolutions of disapproval. While such resolutions require Presidential signature or veto override to take legal effect, making them difficult to enact in practice, the notification and review process creates opportunities for Congressional pressure and public debate that can complicate administration diplomacy. Additionally, annual defense authorization and appropriations legislation provides vehicles for restrictions on specific sales or conditions requiring certifications about technology security or human rights compliance before transfers proceed.
Alternative Outcomes and Strategic Options
Multiple alternative outcomes remain possible if the F-35 sale proves politically or technically unworkable due to Chinese espionage concerns, Israeli opposition absent normalization, or Congressional resistance. The most straightforward fallback involves expanding Saudi purchases of F-15EX Advanced Eagle fighters, the latest evolution of the F-15 platform that incorporates modern avionics, radar, and weapons systems while lacking stealth characteristics. Boeing designed the F-15EX specifically for Foreign Military Sales customers seeking advanced capability without the technology transfer sensitivities associated with fifth-generation platforms. While the F-15EX cannot match F-35 stealth performance, it offers superior payload capacity, longer range, and lower operating costs, potentially making it attractive for Saudi missions emphasizing air superiority and long-range strike rather than penetration of sophisticated integrated air defenses.
Another option involves a degraded F-35 configuration that restricts Saudi access to the most sensitive subsystems while providing genuine fifth-generation capability. This approach would limit mission data file sophistication, constrain software-defined capabilities, and potentially exclude certain advanced munitions or external systems integration. The United States employed similar approaches with early F-16 exports, providing capable fighters while withholding the most advanced avionics and weapons that equipped American variants. However, this strategy confronts Saudi expectations of receiving frontline capability comparable to other F-35 operators, and Riyadh might reject a noticeably degraded configuration as failing to address operational requirements or justify the high unit costs.
A more intrusive approach would embed permanent United States technical teams within Saudi F-35 squadrons, essentially replicating the arrangement employed for early Saudi E-3 and F-15 operations where American personnel supervised sensitive systems and maintenance procedures. This would provide continuous monitoring to prevent unauthorized technology access while building Saudi expertise over time, though it raises questions about operational sovereignty and creates sustained deployment requirements for American technicians. Some defense officials have reportedly discussed even more coercive options including embedded kill-switch capabilities that would disable mission-critical F-35 systems without American authorization, effectively maintaining United States veto over aircraft employment. However, such arrangements would likely prove unacceptable to Saudi Arabia and could undermine the trust normalization agreements aim to establish.
If F-35 sales remain linked to normalization but normalization proves unachievable in the near term, the November 18 summit might produce interim arrangements that advance normalization processes without final agreement. These could include establishment of direct three-way negotiations between the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on normalization terms, perhaps with agreed timelines for resolving outstanding issues including Palestinian questions and security arrangements. Saudi Arabia might commit to considering Abraham Accords membership contingent on Israeli acceptance of specific Palestinian statehood benchmarks, while Israel could agree to formalized discussions about future territorial arrangements without immediate concessions. Such interim outcomes would allow Trump to claim diplomatic progress while deferring the most difficult decisions to subsequent negotiations.
Alternatively, the summit could produce substantial agreements in other domains while setting aside both F-35 sales and normalization for future consideration. The November 18-19 agenda includes economic and technology partnerships, defense cooperation beyond F-35s, and regional security architecture discussions, any of which could yield significant announcements. Saudi Arabia reportedly seeks a formal United States defense pact similar to the agreement recently concluded with Qatar, whereby Washington would treat armed attacks on the kingdom as threats to American interests and respond with military force. Such a defense treaty would require Senate ratification but would substantially enhance Saudi security without the technology transfer concerns that complicate F-35 sales, potentially satisfying Riyadh's core security objectives even absent fifth-generation fighter acquisition.
Strategic Assessment and Future Trajectory
The convergence of F-35 sale negotiations, Abraham Accords expansion efforts, and the November 18 summit represents an inflection point in Middle Eastern security architecture, with outcomes likely to reverberate across regional alignments for years. Trump's ambition to expand the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia reflects recognition that sustainable regional stability requires Saudi-Israeli strategic partnership against common Iranian threats, while the economic and technological cooperation that normalization would enable could accelerate development across participating states. However, achieving this transformation requires navigating deeply entrenched positions on Palestinian statehood that have defied resolution for decades, while simultaneously managing legitimate security concerns about technology transfer and military balance.
The Israeli position linking F-35 sales to normalization creates an elegant diplomatic structure that aligns military and political objectives, using Saudi desire for fifth-generation capability as leverage to achieve the strategic realignment Trump prioritizes. If successful, this approach would address Israeli qualitative military edge concerns by embedding Saudi F-35 operation within Abraham Accords security cooperation framework, potentially including intelligence sharing, joint exercises, and coordinated planning against Iranian threats that would transform fighter acquisition from military threat into alliance capability. The precedent of United Arab Emirates F-35 inclusion in original Abraham Accords negotiations demonstrates the viability of this model, though the UAE sale's subsequent collapse under the Biden administration illustrates implementation challenges.
However, Palestinian statehood remains the critical obstacle that could prevent agreement regardless of F-35 conditionality. Netanyahu's categorical rejection of Palestinian state commitments reflects both ideological opposition and political calculation about maintaining his governing coalition, which includes far-right parties that view territorial compromise as existential betrayal. Trump's twenty-point Gaza peace plan might provide sufficient ambiguity to bridge positions if Saudi Arabia accepts vague language about pathways and processes rather than demanding concrete statehood timelines, but such compromises risk satisfying neither party while generating domestic opposition in both Jerusalem and Riyadh. The October 7 attacks and subsequent Gaza conflict hardened positions on all sides, making near-term breakthrough unlikely absent dramatic diplomatic creativity or changed circumstances.
Chinese espionage concerns add another dimension that could independently derail F-35 sales regardless of progress on normalization. The Defense Intelligence Agency assessment reflects genuine intelligence community anxiety about protecting stealth and electronic warfare technologies that underpin American military advantage in great power competition. While some analysts dispute whether Saudi Arabia poses materially greater technology transfer risks than other F-35 operators given China's existing cyber espionage successes, the political reality is that leaked intelligence warnings will fuel Congressional opposition and create bureaucratic resistance within the Pentagon. Overcoming these concerns would require either unprecedented security arrangements that Saudi Arabia might reject as infringing sovereignty, or political decisions to accept risks in service of broader strategic objectives.
The November 18 summit's immediate outcomes will likely fall short of comprehensive agreements on either F-35 sales or normalization, instead producing incremental progress in the form of continued negotiations, additional economic agreements, and perhaps preliminary understandings about future security cooperation. Trump's public optimism notwithstanding, the complexity of reconciling competing interests suggests extended negotiations will be required before final resolution. The summit may nevertheless prove significant by establishing direct high-level dialogue channels, building personal relationships between Trump and Mohammed bin Salman that could facilitate future compromises, and demonstrating continued American engagement in Middle Eastern security architecture despite competing priorities in Indo-Pacific and European theaters.
Longer-term trajectory remains highly uncertain and dependent on variables including Iranian behavior, Palestinian political developments, Israeli domestic politics, and American Congressional attitudes toward both Saudi Arabia and Middle East engagement more broadly. If Iran's regional position continues weakening through proxy force degradation and nuclear program setbacks, Saudi threat perceptions might moderate sufficiently to accept less robust American security guarantees without F-35s. Conversely, Iranian military modernization or aggressive regional posture could intensify Saudi determination to acquire fifth-generation capability regardless of normalization progress. Palestinian leadership transitions or unexpected developments in occupied territories could either create openings for diplomatic progress or further entrench opposition, while changes in Israeli government composition following future elections might produce leadership more amenable to territorial compromise.
The fundamental question remains whether the Trump administration possesses diplomatic creativity and political capital to engineer compromises that satisfy minimum requirements of all parties, or whether contradictions between Saudi demands for Palestinian statehood commitments, Israeli rejection of such commitments, and American concerns about technology security prove insurmountable in the near term. The November 18 summit will provide initial indications of whether productive middle ground exists or whether the gap remains too wide to bridge absent changed circumstances. Regardless of immediate outcomes, the negotiations themselves demonstrate the continued centrality of American diplomatic and military engagement in shaping Middle Eastern security architecture, with the F-35 platform serving as both military capability and diplomatic instrument in pursuit of strategic realignment.
The F-35 Fighter Deal: Background
As of 2017 the most significant Saudi air force modernization effort remained unmentioned in public. Saudi Arabia was one of the world's leading military powers. In 2015 Saudi Arabia overtook Russia for third place in military spending, partially due to its engagement in the Yemen conflict and the depreciation of the Russian ruble. The Saudis coveted fifth-generation stealth fighters, the coin of the realm for air combat.
Initiallly it seemed the United States would not sell the F-35 stealth fighter to the Saudis. At some point in the 2020 timeframe, Saudi Arabia will turn to China, which has previously supplied the Suadis with long-range ballistic missiles. China is perfectly willing to sell their J-31 Stealth Fighter, along with no complaints about Saudi human rights practices. China needs Saudi oil, and the Saudis need a major security partner, now that the United States has decided to withdraw from East of Suez.
Initially there were projections that the Saudis might acquire as many as 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. This would have been in line with prior acquisitions of the F-15, even though the Israeli Air Force also operated the F-15. The Israeli F-15s had capabilities that the Saudi F-15s did not, preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME). The US has no committment to preserve a Saudi qualitative military edge. In late 2015, the Obama Administration made numerous statements that Israel would be the only recipient of the F-35 in the region.
The United States had served as the primary arms provider for Saudi Arabia until Britain supplanted it in 1988. Following the Gulf War, however, the United States again emerged as Saudi Arabia’s primary arms supplier. In 1998 US military exports to Saudi Arabia totaled US$4.3 billion, making Saudi Arabia the leading importer of US military goods.
When questioned on what the likely effect of British arms sale to the Saudi Arabia would mean to US marketing efforts, US-Saudi relations and the Middle East military balance, Richard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense answered 13 July 1988:
"In my view there are four principal outcomes resulting from the replacement of the U.S. by other suppliers in major arms transactions with moderate, pro-Western Arab states.
Experience demonstrated time and again that when the US. is unable to respond, other governments are more than ready and able to do so-—whether it be with British Tornado fighter bombers, which Saudi Arabia bought when it could not get additional US F-15 fighters, even without ground attack capability, or the Soviet handheld SA-7 and SA-l4 antiaircraft missiles supplied to certain Gulf states when the US was unwilling to provide portable antiaircraft weapons, such as the Stinger.
If the Saudi government asked to buy the F-35, the question facing the US would not be whether the Saudis would acquire such weapons systems, but from which country they would buy it, and which country would have a dominant position in the Saudi military planning for several decades. While the American technology is superior, the US does not have a monopoly on high technology. Both China and Russia would be eager to take the place of the US as the principal supplier to the Saudi military, a position that had already been seriously eroded in the past decades.
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