Without delving into politics or conspiracy theories, let’s take a look at the state of defense industries and defense cooperation in the Arab world, and try to understand why there is no joint Arab defense project. In fact, I will surprise you when I lead you to the idea that the choice to avoid Arab cooperation in defense is actually a rational decision.
If you are the type of person looking for easy answers, such as saying that Israel and the United States do not want Arabs to cooperate with each other, then this post is not for you. I am here to speak from facts, reality, and reasons far from conspiracy theories and comfortable answers.
In 2024, the Middle East spent $243 billion on defense. Saudi Arabia alone spent $80.3 billion, making it the seventh largest country in the world in terms of defense spending, by the way. And if we add the UAE, Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, and Qatar, we find that the total is nearly $150 billion spent on defense by these countries alone in one year. That's a huge number, isn't it? So where lies the problem?
To understand the existing reality, let's go back to 1982, when the Gulf Cooperation Council decided to create a joint defense force. It was a great and important decision, and without going into political details, the result of this joint force was... zero. It had no impact, technically or militarily, in the region.
In 2014, the Gulf countries again decided to establish a unified intelligence agency with a single command center. But again, the idea failed, and the main reason was that each country did not want to give up part of its sovereignty or its priorities, hegemony, and right to make decisions within the region.
The problem we are talking about here is not military at all; it is economic and institutional. Naturally, everyone would benefit militarily if there were a unified army or a joint defense industry in which we all participate.
But economically, the situation is different. When we look at the issue from an economic perspective, we find that Arab defense cooperation is the worst option for each party individually, even if it is the best for the group as a whole.
This problem is known in economics as the "Collective Action Problem." The idea is simply that there is always a gap between individual short-term interests and collective long-term interests. Each player, when making a completely rational decision without any ill intent, finds that the best option for them is not to commit to cooperation, even if they know for sure that complete cooperation from all parties will lead to a better outcome for everyone.
The problem is that the collective return is distributed to everyone, while each party bears the cost directly and immediately. For example: giving up part of sovereignty, or losing control, or disclosing sensitive information, or participating in decision-making. Therefore, each country enters the game seeing that if it cooperates while others do not cooperate to the same degree, it is the loser. Hence, it chooses to withdraw, delay, or impose conditions that prolong negotiations, and the final result is that everyone loses, even though no one intended to sabotage cooperation.
This is not treachery or weakness; it is simply a cold economic calculation within a game designed to fail unless there are real institutions that break this equation.
By the way, the same issue is currently occurring in defense cooperation within Europe.
We can look at the problem from a different economic perspective.
In any defense project, there are several stages. The first stage occurs before the project even starts, where the political decision-maker meets with military leadership and defense industries. The decision-maker says: "We need to enter into a partnership with that particular country," but the military and defense companies respond with rejection for fear of losing their technical capabilities or sharing sensitive sovereign information.
Then we start the project involving different countries, with Saudi Arabia saying: "I am the most influential," and the UAE stating: "I have the best technology." A dispute then arises over each country's share and scope within the project. Add to that that each country enters the project with different motivations: some want to develop specific technology, some seek to increase sales and achieve profits, and others aspire to technically train their engineers. This diversity of goals makes managing incentives and expectations a complex and extremely difficult process.
But let’s assume the project has indeed started and is underway. Here comes another problem: not the cost of the project itself, but the cost of coordination within it. Defense industries have certain standards, and some countries may operate according to different standards than others, making it a daunting task to unify these standards at the technical and administrative levels. There’s also the cost of monitoring and execution: who ensures that each country implements what it committed to? Who monitors to prevent the leakage of technology or information? Managing all these matters is extremely challenging.
Now we reach another point. A recent study from "PwC" indicates that the disorganized rush in purchasing defense systems in the Gulf countries costs them billions of additional dollars annually due to complicated supply chains and maintenance. This statement is true and important, but it is very superficial because attempting to reduce these costs will cost the countries more than leaving them as they are.
This means that the defense spending of the countries we talked about amounts to about $150 billion a year, but what is spent locally on internal development does not exceed $6 billion. This means that this spending is mainly directed towards imports, and each country has its own supply chains, from different suppliers and companies, leading to increased costs for everyone. However, the cost of avoiding or reducing this increase is extremely difficult.
For example, one might say: instead of each country buying five fighter jets individually, if we all bought a single deal to include fifty fighters for all of us, the price would be lower for everyone, of course. But the problem here is that not all of these countries need the same type of fighter jets, and even if they all need them, each country will often request completely different specifications that suit its specific needs. This, in addition to the political constraints imposed by relations between countries, makes the matter much more complex than just saying: "Let's unite and buy together."
In Europe, the Europeans do not face most of the obstacles that the Gulf or the Arab world suffers from. They have stable institutions, clear laws, and effective accountability mechanisms. Nevertheless, when they attempted to implement a relatively simple joint defense project like the Eurodrone project, the story quickly turned into a harsh failure experience in the economics of cooperation.
The project started among France, Germany, Italy, and Spain – four major industrial countries with strong armies and advanced defense industries. Theoretically, all the perfect conditions were met, but practically, each country entered the project with a mindset of an individual player rather than a united team.
Germany said: "We need a drone that can operate in bad weather and storms for our internal needs."
France responded: "That will make the system heavier and more expensive and not exportable, thus undermining the economic viability of the project."
And this was not a purely technical problem nor even a political disagreement; it was an economic incentive problem; each party tried to maximize its national gains within a project that was supposed to be collective.
The result, as expected by most researchers and specialists: costs spiraled out of control and doubled, timelines were delayed for years, and in the end, France withdrew after finding that the calculations no longer made sense for it. Meanwhile, the project remains halfway completed - not fully realized nor officially canceled.
This is a European example among countries with strong institutions, closely aligned economies, and extensive experience in military cooperation. If this failure occurred in such a powerful and stable environment, the question should not be: "Why can't the Middle East build a joint defense industry?"
But the real question is: "How do we imagine it would be easier for us?"
The problem is that countries view national security as a sovereign issue rather than an economic one, and thus the option for a state to spend more to maintain its sovereignty is considered the rational choice, even if the cost is high.
When the economic equation is calculated rationally, we find that entering into complex cooperation is more expensive than continuing to import ready-made equipment from the United States, France, or Russia. This is because achieving defense cooperation requires starting to resolve a long series of issues, with the very last being determining what needs to be manufactured jointly.
Thus, I will tell you two economic words to keep in mind at all times: organized failure is sometimes more rational than shared success, as long as each party has adapted to the status quo and prefers its stability over the risk of an uncertain shared future.
This is an AI-generated English translation. The original text is in العربية
PhD Researcher in Defense Contracting and Cooperation Policies