Extract of World Air Forces - 2013
Iran - Combat Aircraft
F-4D/E/RF-4E - 28
F-5E - 20
F-5F - 10
F-6 - 18
F-7 - 17
F-14 - 26
MiG-29 - 16
Mirage F1 - 5
Su-24 - 27
Looking at the above 2013 Iranian fighter numbers, from a homeland defence perspective for the GCC countries, they would be more capable of spanking the Iranians in any air battle. Many in GCC have air forces that are technologically more advanced than Iran; and from a control of the air perspective (over their own territorial air space in the respective GCC countries) against Iranian fighters. But unfortunately, that is not the issue.
The issue for GCC countries: What, if Iran acts against GCC interests again? In particular, by attacking shipping via missiles and mines. OR if Iran does something else, like staging and conducting deniable actions like supporting various terrorist spectaculars in GCC countries?
ISS said:
Extract from the Military Balance 2010 (from page 238 to 239)
...Iran has already fielded a Shahab-3 missile with the one-tonne payload capacity and 1.2m airframe diameter necessary to carry a nuclear warhead. Its 1,300km range encompasses Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The Shahab-3 also formed the first stage of the twostage rocket Iran used to launch its first satellite into low-earth orbit in February 2009. Perhaps more worrying was the November 2008 test firing of a new medium- range ballistic missile, the solid-fuelled Sajjil. Though its range and payload are similar to the Shahab, the faster launch time of a solid-fuelled rocket of this type reduces vulnerability to pre-emptive strikes. Iran also reported successful firings of Shahab and Sajjil missiles at the end of the Great Prophet IV exercise conducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in September 2009. But Tehran must also contend with home-grown security threats: six commanders of the IRGC (including the deputy commander of the IRGC ground forces) were killed in an 18 October attack in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, which killed 43 in total.
The Jundullah terrorist group, which has promoted a brand of Sunni radicalism in the tribal region through abductions and executions of police and military officers, claimed responsibility. Earlier in the year, the Basij paramilitary force, which is effectively under IRGC control, was heavily employed against demonstrators during protests over the announced victory, in the presidential election, of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...
From page 251 onwards
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ACTIVE 523,000 (Army 350,000 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 125,000 Navy 18,000 Air 30,000) Paramilitary 40,000
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Army 130,000; 220,000 conscript (total 350,000)
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Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Ground
Forces 100,000+
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Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Naval Forces 20,000+ (incl 5,000 Marines)
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Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force
Controls Iran’s strategic missile force.
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Air Force 30,000 (incl 12,000 Air Defence)
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Navy 18,000
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The issue at hand is really, escalation options for the GCC. In that respect, their force structures have important gaps in capabilities that restrict their escalation options
viz-viz Iran (especially if the escalation plan does not have full American participation). It is not in question that the various Arab regimes hate the regime in power in Iran and have set up the
Peninsula Shield Force (led by Saudi Arabia), in the past. The issue at hand is both sides lack good options for escalation.
When Robert Gates visited Riyadh in August 2007, he got an earful from Saudi King Abdullah, who urged “a full-scale military attack on Iranian military targets, not just the nuclear sites.” This Saudi view point was reported in cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, wherein Saudi King Abdullah urged the US to attack Iran, “cut off the head of the snake” and halt its nuclear program. “As far as I was concerned, he was asking the United States to send its sons and daughters into a war with Iran in order to protect the Saudi position in the Gulf and the region, as if we were mercenaries,”
said Robert Gates. So as you can see, the Americans only want sanctions against Iran and not war.
Do the GCC states require that level of technology, presumably as a counter to Iran?
I must qualify that we cannot see the GCC as a single block; given their differences and their need to be competitive within the GCC.
Having said that, there are gaps in air power capabilities (in the
four air power roles) that each GCC country would like to address. IMO, the most significant of which is gaps in their individual
ISR capability for control of their littoral waters and the adjacent SLOC. The 1988, Operation Praying Mantis, comes to mind, on options available to GCC states. This includes using Apache helicopters against swarming small boat threats by the IRGC. Apache operators in GCC countries include Saudi Arabia with 12 (and 70 more on order), UAE with 30, Kuwait with 16, and Egypt with 36; but the Iranians seemed to have learnt from that prior unequal encounter with the US Navy.
Extract of World Air Forces - 2013
UAE - Combat Aircraft
F-16E - 54
F-16F* - 24
Mirage 2000EAD/RAD - 16
Mirage 2000-9/EAD/RAD - 33
Mirage 2000DAD* - 2
Mirage 2000-9DAD* - 13
*Two seaters/Operation Conversion Unit
With regard to the above discussion, I can understand UAE's interest in the F-35 for three of the four roles of air power (namely, control of the air, attack and ISR). If the Americans were to offer the F-35 to UAE, it might have the potential to scuttle the current
French attempt to sell the Rafale to UAE. On the other hand, it could just be UAE 'indirectly' telling France that there are other options and keeping the French on their toes. In this case, I have no firm views on the matter.
The GCC states already have sizable fleets of advanced 4G aircraft e.g Typhoon, Eagle, Viper, etc. well exceeding any potential adversary.
Yes, they have acquired the fighter platforms and have trained hard to ensure that these can perform as expected. However, platform competence by itself is not enough to assert control of the sea by GCC countries. I suspect that they will want and need extensive external help from external parties with naval warfare and expeditionary capabilities (eg. US, UK, France and the usual Western suspects), given that the Iranians also operate a number of miniature submarines.
Simply put, I don't know enough about GCC countries to discuss their level of competence at combined arms warfare, collectively, nor shall I attempt it; as I am liable to do the discussion gross injustice.
OTOH, any sale of F-35s may be perceived as altering the strategic balance vis-a-vis Israel.
This will not be a simple discussion (the scope of discussion is too wide, as currently framed) and I would like to keep away from such a broad topic due of my lack of knowledge on certain specific details of each and every country. Gur Laish, writing on "
Israel and the F-35" in Strategic Assessment, Volume 13 No. 4 (January 2011), raised a couple of interesting points (see the extract below quoted from pages 14-15) but they do not answer your query in detail.
Gur Laish said:
Maintaining the Qualitative Edge
Russia’s renewed production and sale of high quality weapons, sales by countries in the Far East, and the economic situation in the United States and Europe makes the American (and European) need to sell advanced weapons to states in the region that are not direct enemies of Israel, e.g., Saudi Arabia, more acute than ever. In order to compete with other weapons manufacturers, the Americans must sell the most innovative systems, as with, for example, the recently publicized arms deal to sell and upgrade F-15s to Saudi Arabia. Such weapons deals affect the region both directly and indirectly: directly, in that the very sale of these weapons to the Saudis makes it easier to sell similar weapons to other countries; indirectly, because weapons such as these in Saudi hands spark an arms race among its enemies and motivates them to attain the same weapons. It also legitimizes sales, so that at the end of the process, the entire region is armed with better weapons than before.
However, maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge over the region’s armed forces of enemies and non-enemies is an important component of Israel’s security concept, and the United States is even obligated to this principle by law. When weapons that are identical and at times even superior to what Israel has are sold to other actors in the region, this challenges Israel’s qualitative edge, and the only way to maintain the gap in quality in the air is by purchasing and operating the next generation of weapon systems. Maintaining the qualitative advantage has strategic significance for deterrence and may have concrete effects in a confrontation. The regional arms race forces Israel to equip itself with the next generation of weapon systems...
<snip>
Perhaps you might want to keep a lookout for some other think tank discussions, or we can see if any other member would chime in with more details.
