Why the Saudis Want the F-15

To Saudi Arabia, the sale of the F-15, the most sophisticated jet fighter in the U.S. arsenal, is a test -not merely of Washington's intent to be evenhanded in the Middle East but, specifically, of whether America is prepared to be a reliable friend. As Crown Prince Fahd explains it, the Saudis' relationship with the U.S. involves a basic tradeoff: oil for security. They are prepared to hold down oil prices, expand their productive capacity and help protect the dollar -all of which are vital to the U.S. and its Western allies. In return, they want security.

They need it. Saudi Arabia is a country one-fourth the size of the U.S., with a population somewhere between 5 million and 9 million (estimates vary wildly). Its oil reserves, far and away the world's largest, are virtually unprotected from potential enemies. To the north are the leftist Iraqis, equipped by the Soviet Union; to the south is Marxist South Yemen; to the east is powerful Iran.

The Saudis realize that with so small a population they cannot possibly build an army large enough to defend their vast frontiers. (Indeed, simply to begin developing their country, they have imported a foreign labor force of about one million.) Their only hope for defense, they believe, lies in acquiring modern weapons, like the F-15, that require limited manpower. The Saudis believe they need a military force capable of holding out against attack for at least two or three days -just long enough for a powerful friend to come to their aid. They want that friend to be the U.S., and thus they regard the proposed sale of 60 F-15s, which two U.S. Administrations have supported, as a barometer of that friendship.

The government of Premier Menachem Begin has argued that any F-15s sold to Saudi Arabia would inevitably be used against Israel in the event of war. The Saudis have assured Washington that this is not true -and there is good reason to believe them. Ground maintenance for the F-15s would be handled mostly by American technicians. Thus it would be very difficult to transfer the F-15s to other Arab states. The Saudis also insist they have no intention of basing the planes at their Tabuk airbase, which is only 125 miles from the Israeli port of Eilat. One reason is that the Saudis do not want the planes, which cost $16 million apiece, to be unnecessarily vulnerable to Israeli attack. (During the October War of 1973, the Saudis moved most of their combat planes away from bases near Israel.)

U.S. military authorities emphasize that the F-15, which is armed with air-to-air missiles, is essentially an air-defense system. While 60 planes would give Saudi Arabia a credible air defense, they would provide only a marginal threat to Israel, which will have at least 40 F-15s of its own by 1982 as well as 75 of the more maneuverable F-16s.

To operate offensively, Saudi Arabia's F-15s would have to be equipped with multiple-ejection racks from which bombs and air-to-ground rockets could be launched. The Saudis have not asked to buy any such racks, and the U.S. has insisted that it will not sell them any. The Israelis say the racks could easily be purchased elsewhere -a view Pentagon officials dispute. In any case, if Washington ever decided that the Saudis were misusing the planes, the U.S. could cut off the supply of spare parts.

Perhaps the most important argument for selling the planes to the Saudis is that such a transaction would not alter the essential military fact of the Middle East: Israel's overwhelming superiority. If the Israeli lobby in Washington should succeed in quashing the deal, it could be a severe blow to U.S. national interest. The Saudis have made it clear that they would not only be angry and disappointed but would take their business elsewhere. France, for example, would be only too glad to sell them its own latest jet fighters, the Mirages F-1 and 2000, with few or no strings attached.

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