Russian Arms Sales in the Middle East

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Russia recently announced the lifting of its 2010 ban on the sale to Iran of five S-300 PMU-1anti-aircraft missile systems. Iran had ordered them in 2007, but Russia halted the sale under international pressure.

Israel fears Iran could supply the missile defense systems to Syria or Hezbollah, diluting Israel’s ability to defend itself.

In the past, the Soviet Union was a major arms supplier to the “anti-imperialist” Arab nations, especially Egypt and Syria, from the mid-1950s onward.

Beginning in 1955, the Egyptian armed forces depended heavily on the Soviet Union, which provided Egypt with grants and loans to pay for equipment, training, and the services of large numbers of military advisers. In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union began furnishing up-to-date MiG-21 fighter aircraft and T-54 tanks.

The overall amount of Soviet military aid to Egypt between the Sinai War of 1956 and the 1967 Six-Day War has been estimated at $1.5 billion.

By the early 1970s, the number of Soviet personnel in Egypt had risen to nearly 20,000. They participated in operational decisions and served at the battalion and sometimes even company levels.

However, following the death of Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1970, Anwar Sadat, his successor, expelled Soviet advisers two years later.

The years following the 1973 Yom Kippur War saw Cairo lessen its dependence on East bloc arms and today most of its supplies come from the United States and other western countries.

Syria, however, under both Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, continued to rely heavily on Soviet, and now Russian, military weapons. After the June 1967 War, Soviet military aid to Syria grew substantially and the Soviets established a sizable military presence there.

The Congressional Research Service noted in 2008 that Soviet military sales to Syria in the 1970s and 1980s were so extensive that they accounted for 90 per cent of all military arms exports from the Soviet Union, making the Soviet Union the main supplier of arms for Syria.

Russia remained Syria’s main arms supplier after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Moscow absolved Syria of $9.8 billion of its $13.4 billion debt in exchange for making Tartus a permanent Russian naval base in the Mediterranean.

Between 2000 and 2010, when Syria was subject to a European Union arms embargo, Russia and other states shipped at least $2.2 billion worth of arms and munitions to Damascus. Currently, 10 per cent of Russian global arms shipments head to Syria, and contracts are worth about $1.5 billion.

Syria in the past few years has obtained modern anti-tank and anti-air missile systems, including MiG fighter jets, tactical missile systems, and submarines.

Will Iran and Russia now develop a similar relationship? Recent sanctions against Russia may have driven the two countries closer together and the S-300 deal may be an effective way for Moscow to retaliate against the West.