Below, Hudson Senior Fellow Can Kasapoğlu offers an overview of the contemporary Middle Eastern strategic agenda.
Executive Summary
Tehran and Moscow agree to establish a drone factory in Russia, and the Iranian Mado Company's potential efforts there bear monitoring.
China seeks to deepen its defense business ties with the United Arab Emirates as it continues to supply important weapon systems to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman reiterates Riyadh’s intention to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran builds a nuclear arsenal of its own.
Germany strikes a deal to acquire the Arrow 3 missile defense system, which was developed by the United States and Israel.
1. Russia and Iran Plan to Develop Drone Factory in Russia
Russia and Iran have agreed to construct a jointly operated drone factory in the Tatarstan region of Russia. According to press sources, by summer 2025 the plant is scheduled to build 6,000 pieces of loitering munitions derived from the Iranian Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 baseline. Russian engineers are hoping to improve the control and swarming features of the current Shahed models. The production rate and capacity of the plant will depend on the availability of foreign sub-systems, which will likely prompt Tehran and Moscow to continue their already extensive smuggling efforts.
Russia’s stumbling invasion of Ukraine has provided Iran with a historic opportunity—an opportunity Tehran has seized by providing Moscow with a generous flow of Shahed loitering munitions. These kamikaze drones are cheap, available in large numbers, and precise—and have provided a much-needed top-up to Russia’s dwindling arsenal. A meticulous review of Russian air attacks in Ukraine indicates that Iranian loitering munitions now comprise nearly 60 percent of Russia’s strike packages. While Ukraine can intercept these munitions, its success in doing so comes at a price. Its military deploys many mobile short-range air defenses, including US-transferred Avengers and German-manufactured Flakpanzer Gepards, to protect population centers. As a result, these same short-range air defenses have been largely absent in Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive, leaving its heavy armor dangerously exposed to Russian tactical aviation.
As cooperation deepens between Moscow and Tehran, the West should closely monitor the activity of the Iranian Mado Company within Russia’s borders. Led in part by Revolutionary Guard General Abdollah Mehrabi, the company’s chief industrial function is to smuggle and copy critical components of disruptive weapons systems. Along with the Shahed Aviation Industries of Iran, Mado is the architect behind the Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 loitering munitions baseline, and it is an active hub for sub-systems smuggling. It is likely to play a role in the new drone factory.
Initial telltale indicators suggest that Iran will seek to produce jet-powered variants of the Shahed loitering munitions family. This development would boost the weapon system’s survivability against air defenses, and the Russian defense technological and industrial base can help Tehran achieve its ambitions.
2. China Seeks to Deepen Defense Ties with the United Arab Emirates
In August 2023, the UAE Ministry of Defense announced that the Chinese and Emirati air forces would conduct joint training exercises, dubbed Falcon Shield. The training ground for these exercises—the Uyghur Autonomous Region—was of symbolic importance to the regime in Beijing, which seeks to lend a veneer of legitimacy to its policies there.
Shortly after these exercises were announced, Chinese Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu met with Ibrahim Nasser Mohamed Al-Alawi, the commander of the UAE Air Force and Air Defense, in an effort to strengthen cooperation between the two countries. This initiative will likely boost China’s already significant presence in the Middle East’s weapons market. Between 2014 and 2018, the Chinese arms industry exported 153 combat drones to 13 nations. This number rose in 2021, with 16 nations purchasing a total of 220 drones. Middle Eastern arms importers, who for decades have been customers of American and other Western suppliers, account for a significant number of these buyers, with Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia among Beijing’s top clients for drone warfare solutions.
This initiative continues years of outreach from Beijing, which wants to sell more than just armed drones. China is especially interested in the manned aircraft market of the Gulf Arab countries.
China entered the UAE’s manned aircraft market in February 2022 by landing a lucrative deal for the L-15 trainer aircraft, a platform that can also serve combat roles. Yet Beijing’s ambitions are not limited to the UAE’s trainer portfolio. At the IDEX 2023 Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi, Chinese defense industries hawked their Y-20 cargo aircraft and FC-31 (J-31) prototype fifth-generation aircraft. Chinese officials believe that the FC-31 can fill a void created by Washington’s reluctance to sell fifth-generation aircraft to the Arab world. Indeed, while the UAE’s air deterrent currently features some high-end assets—such as an advanced variant of the F-16 baseline, the F-16 Block-60, and the French Dassault Rafale—these aircraft are not fifth-generation solutions. At some point, the UAE will seek fifth-generation aircraft, which only a few suppliers can offer. China wants to fill that void.
China also aspires to export large cargo aircraft. In Beijing’s calculus, the China-manufactured Y-20 has a market opportunity in the Gulf, especially since the US defense industry has ceased production of the C-17 Globemaster. Moreover, strains on the Russian defense sector have rendered the Russian Il-76 an unreliable solution.
China’s efforts to expand its footprint in the region have not been well received in Washington. It was a Chinese technology deal that wrecked the Emirates’ quest for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. This deal, had it been consummated, would have made the UAE the first Gulf Arab country to operate fifth-generation aircraft. But when the Emirates signed a 5G infrastructure deal with Huawei, Washington scuttled the deal out of concern that 5G telecommunications networks could compromise the data security of the F-35.
3. Saudi Arabia Will Pursue Nuclear Weapons if Iran Develops One
Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia confirmed that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons capabilities, his country will pursue them, too.
Reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency conclude that Iran has already enriched uranium to a dangerous grade, potentially placing Tehran within weeks of acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities if it decides to pursue them. From Riyadh’s perspective, matching Iran in the nuclear arena is an imperative that informs Saudi Arabia’s strategic calculus. The Saudi royal elite fear that nuclear weapons would transform Iran into the regional hegemon, allowing it to create the Persian Empire redux in the Middle East.
Iranian officials have certainly given Riyadh ample reason to suspect Tehran’s regional ambitions. In the aftermath of the 2019 attack on Saudi Aramco facilities, Ahmad Alamolhoda, a hardliner Iranian cleric with close ties to Ayatollah Khamenei, gave a Friday sermon in Mashhad about the strike. Addressing attempts to identify its perpetrators, he bragged from the pulpit that, whether the strike had come from the north in Iraq or from the south in Yemen, it had come from Iran. This sent the message that Iran was more than just another country; it was a regional power. Tehran’s ability to spread its influence throughout the region has equipped it with a freedom of movement that other regional actors do not enjoy.
Leaders in Riyadh lose sleep over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, but they worry just as much about its military capabilities if fighting does break out. Their unease stems from a concern that Iran holds the advantage in two key dynamics of military theory: escalation dominance and intrawar deterrence.
Escalation dominance refers to the ability to escalate a conflict in ways that will be unfavorable for an adversary. Herman Kahn, Hudson Institute’s founder and a prominent systems theorist and military strategist, visualized this concept with what he termed an “escalation ladder.” The forty-four rungs of Kahn’s theoretical ladder each represented different phases of escalation that a party to a conflict had at its disposal. The steps of the ladder encompassed a broad array of options, from tactical maneuvering within a conventional war near the bottom rung, to catastrophic scenarios near the top involving the destruction of human civilization. The two dozen rungs in the middle of the ladder all involved nuclear warfare of varying levels of severity, from low-yield demonstrations to tactical strikes. To enjoy clear escalation dominance, a state actor has to retain the advantage over its adversary as a conflict intensifies and moves up the ladder.
Intrawar deterrence, a concept closely related to escalation dominance, involves deterring a party to a conflict from crossing certain thresholds of aggression once that conflict has begun. Conventional wisdom suggests that deterrence fails the moment a war begins. Intrawar deterrence, however, posits that the parties to a conflict continue to deter each other from further escalating that conflict—and moving further up the escalation ladder—even after fighting has commenced. Adversaries in war continue to bargain even after the shooting has started.
Saudi strategists fear that Tehran possesses the advantage in both escalation dominance and intrawar deterrence. Iran’s missile and drone warfare capabilities, honed during the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, have made the mullahs even more offense-minded. Riyadh is striving to close the gap by procuring counteroffensive weapons in greater quantities. But no quantity of conventional strategic weapons could provide it with the upper hand against a nuclear-armed Iran.
4. China Continues to Serve as an Arms Supplier to Saudi Arabia
To hedge against the possibility of a nuclear Iran, Riyadh is looking to expand its circle of arms suppliers. For years, the Saudi elite have thought of Pakistan as the best option for acquiring the know-how or materiel to provide the kingdom with a nuclear deterrent of its own. Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has likely held many meetings with Pakistani military leadership to discuss these delicate security matters.
Increasingly, though, China is emerging as a key player in Riyadh’s pursuit of strategic weapons systems and may be assisting it with nuclear weapons delivery technologies as well. Apart from combat drones, the core military relationship between Beijing and Riyadh is built around missiles, which play a critical role in Riyadh’s strategic calculus. To that end, the Saudis have developed a strong ballistic missile arsenal, with many systems suitable for nuclear delivery roles.
Beijing has augmented this arsenal over the past decade. In April 2014, Saudi Arabia revealed that it possessed a supply of Chinese DF-3 ballistic missiles that possess a range of 2,500 kilometers (roughly 1,550 miles) and can carry two tons of combat payload. Reportedly, Riyadh procured these missiles in the late 1980s and had kept them undisclosed since then. The DF-3 possesses a circular error probable (CEP)—a measure of a missile’s precision—of one to four kilometers, making it an inaccurate long-range strike asset. As a result, the DF-3 offers minimal military value unless it is armed with weapons of mass destruction.
Another Chinese asset in Saudi Arabia’s missile deterrent arsenal is the DF-21. This weapon has a range of 1,700 kilometers (roughly 1,050 miles) and, with a CEP of some 300 meters, is more accurate than the DF-3. The DF-21 also comes with a Mach-10 homing speed that makes it difficult to intercept. Some intelligence reports suggest that the Chinese modified the missile’s nosecone prior to delivery to prevent it from carrying nuclear payloads—though willing Saudi engineers could easily undo this modification.
Other intelligence indicates that China’s defense outreach to Saudi Arabia has gone well beyond missile deals. An imagery intelligence assessment of the Al-Watah missile base some 200 kilometers (roughly 120 miles) southwest of Riyadh reveals solid-fuel motor factories there that resemble small-scale versions of similar plants in China. Recent news stories have also reported on leaked intelligence suggesting that Beijing has been helping the kingdom with uranium-based nuclear fuel-cycle technology.
5. Germany Seals Deal for US-Israeli Arrow 3 Missile Defense System
Late last month, Israel and Germany inked a $3.5 billion deal for Berlin to buy the US-Israeli Arrow 3 missile defense system. The deal required Washington’s approval since the US and Israel developed the system together.
Partly in response to Russia’s missile warfare efforts in Ukraine, in summer 2022 Berlin announced the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), designed to build an independent air and missile defense architecture that could protect the continent. ESSI guards the skies using a layered, three-tier network of defenses. The German-manufactured IRIST-T forms the lower tier, while American Patriot systems will guard midrange altitudes. Arrow 3 will keep watch over the high-altitude, long-range tier.
German analysts consider the exoatmospheric interception capability of Arrow 3 the primary factor behind its procurement. In addition, the US-Israeli system is ready for off-the-shelf acquisition, shortening the implementation timeline for ESSI.
While some European countries, most prominently France, have thus far declined to join the initiative, Germany is nonetheless moving forward with ESSI. This demonstrates Berlin’s desire to play a more assertive role in European security—and its willingness to place Israel in a critical supply role.