By deploying F-15 strike aircraft to a northwestern airbase in March 2003 and holding large combined-arms exercises near the Gulf of Aqaba in mid-October, Saudi Arabia has indicated its desire to act more freely in asserting its territorial sovereignty vis-à-vis Israel. These actions -- which Washington and Riyadh might previously have attempted to restrain -- are visible symptoms of the scaling back of U.S.-Saudi military-to-military ties. Although Riyadh's decision to alter longstanding tacit agreements regarding the posture of Saudi forces will not significantly affect the regional military balance, such a move may make Washington more reluctant to offer future arms sales and military support to the kingdom.
Background
In 1978, Carter administration plans to sell ninety-one F-15C/D strike aircraft to Saudi Arabia sparked a bitter debate. In May of that year, the sale was approved by Congress in a narrow 54-to-44 vote, and only after Riyadh accepted restrictions that limited its ability to deploy the aircraft against Israel. Specifically, the aircraft were not to be equipped with conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), preventing them from carrying extra fuel and a full weapons load simultaneously. Riyadh also agreed to refrain from basing the aircraft at the northwestern Tabuk airbase, some 150 kilometers from Israel. In 1992, sales of seventy-two even more advanced F-15S aircraft were placed under the same restrictions; in addition, the tactical early warning suite carried by these aircraft was downgraded to reduce its potential effectiveness against Israeli missiles.
The record of implementation for these restrictions, however, is poor. In 1981, the first shipment of F-15C/Ds to Saudi Arabia did in fact include a small number of CFTs. That same year witnessed the controversial sale of AWACS command and control aircraft to Riyadh, which Congress authorized by an even narrower 52-to-48 vote. In the mid-1990s, the Saudi F-15S fleet was further augmented by sales of special CFTs with weapons hardpoints, allowing the aircraft to carry more weapons at longer ranges. Therefore, when the kingdom deployed fifty F-15Ss to Tabuk airbase in March 2003, it neutralized the final safeguard of Israel's strategic depth and contravened a restriction that had been placed on F-15 sales since 1978.
