AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Persian Gulf has always been an attractive and lucrative market for arms sellers. On the side of the arms buyers, Qatar in the recent years has designed one of the region’s most ambitious weapons procurement programs. Qatari leaders have inked vast military deals with regional and international powers. In the past few days, for example, Doha engaged in talks for military partnership boost with the US, Britain, and Turkey.
According to the Qatari Ministry of Defense, as part of a recent agreement with Britain, the two countries will conduct joint military exercises to use Hawk and Voyager aircraft for training on refueling. The Voyager fleet is one of the faces of the British military partnership across the world and Qatar’s AAR Aircraft Services in the next two years would be part of this project.
Shortly after the agreement, the Qatari Ministry of Defense said in a statement that senior US and Qatari military officials met in Doha to discuss expanding military cooperation. Earlier, in December 2020, Qatar signed a military agreement with the US government on maritime cooperation. The small Arab emirate also announced last Tuesday that more Turkish troops have been deployed to a military base in the capital Doha.
In the Qatari armed forces, the air force is a top priority of Doha leaders. Its aircraft number jumped dramatically in 2017 to 96 from 12, and more aircraft are set to be bought.
In 2017. The Qatari air force operated 10 Mirage 2000 fighter jets, made in France. These aircraft were literally nothing compared to the huge and modern Saudi and Emirati fleets of warplanes. The country with three deals of new fighter jets tried to narrow the imbalance with other Persian Gulf monarchies.
In 2017, the country bought 36 F-15QA modernized fighter jets from Boeing worth of $12 billion.
Qatar signed an agreement with Britain in September 2017 for 24 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets in an effort to diversify its air force sources.
In May 2015, Doha signed a $6 billion deal with French aerospace giant Dassault for 24 Rafael fighter jets. As part of the initial deal, another 12 were ordered in 2018, bringing the total to 36. Qatar also intends to purchase another 36 of these jets, and has also expressed interest in purchasing from Russia state-of-the-art long-range S-400 air defenses.
The Qataris also purchased 6 Bayraktar TB2 drones from Turkey. Doha also received two large cadet training ships built in Turkey, as well as a fleet of patrol vessels for its coast guard. It has also signed an agreement with Italy to build a submarine as well as a naval base for its navy.
In ground terms, the Qatari leaders also are resolved to boost their country’s capabilities. They have developed their fleet of combat tanks, buying 62 Leopard 2 super modern German tanks.
Learning lessons from the 3-year blockade
Undoubtedly, the security riddle in the Persian Gulf and the arms race between the Persian Gulf monarchies over the past decade has been the main reason for Qatar's tendency to increase its military might. Relations between the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council member states, especially the two main poles of the council the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Qatar on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Bahrain on the other hand, broke down after the Arab uprisings of 2011, as each of these poles sought to help different factions in the still-unfolding Syrian and Libyan conflicts.
But the turning point in the Qatari interest in improving its military basis was the crisis that hit the Cooperation Council and consequent Saudi, Emirati, Egyptian, and Bahraini all-out ban on Qatar in 2017 and risked a military confrontation. In the beginning of the crisis in June 2017, to Doha’s surprise and despite a protection cover the US committed to provide to the Persian Gulf emirate, Saudi Arabia and the UAE imposed sanctions on Doha and threatened it with military action, apparently with Washington’s green light.
By setting 13 humiliating and offensive conditions for Doha by the blockading sides for any rapprochement, it became clear that there was a substantial fragmentation within the (P) GCC that was unlikely to improve any time soon. Under these circumstances, Doha quietly sought to strengthen its weak military forces and signed a joint military-defense agreement with Ankara.
Under the pact, Turkey was allowed to establish a military base on the Qatari soil, with hundreds of Turkish advisors sent to train the Qatari forces. The work on the military base had started in 2014 following an agreement. Immediate closure of the Turkish base was one of the quartet’s conditions.
Qatar’s pushing forward with the military cooperation with the allied countries to bolster its military power on the one side gives away the fact that the Cooperation Council’s crisis has not been settled totally after AlUla reconciliatory summit in Saudi Arabia on January 4 that ended with an announcement terminating the blockade on Doha. It was in the middle of this détente process, however, that Bahraini-Qatari border tensions resurfaced. Many analysts agree that violation of the Qatari airspace by the Bahraini fighter jets at the time came with the Saudi go ahead. On the other side, this Qatari tendency lays bare the change of views of the Qatari leaders who so far put all their foreign security protection eggs in the basket of military partnership with the Americans.
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