the Saudis recent military endeavors

During Operation Desert Shield the US sent a large troop contingent to Saudi Arabia promising to remove them once the war ended. After the war, the troops remained, helping secure the country.

The Saudis weren't very tolerent of the foreign fighters on their land and now with rivalry with Iran and the fact that Saudi is the main supplier of energy in the world market and not wanting sinful foreign soldiers defending their lands they have shown some recent military endeavors.



First came the deal to buy 72 Eurofighters for over £4 billion pounds while then considering ordering a further 72 (may be 72 Boeing F-15E's instead) boosts their air power to that of the strongest in the region.
That is just air power.
Add older aircraft such as the Panavia Tornadoes onto that that are still in storage as a means of attrition (in case it comes to that).

Now onto the ground forces, the Saudis never had an overly big army, this may change in the mere future as it intends to be able to mount its own powerful regional force, just last year Saudi Arabia and Russia signed a “framework agreement for military cooperation” that opened the way for Saudi Arabia to buy Russian arms.



This means for $2 billion the Saudis will receive the following military hardware:

* 30 Mi-35 attack helicopters
* 120 Mi-17 'Hip' utility helicopters
* 150 T-90S main battle tanks
* 250 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs).
* "several" dozen S-400 missile defense systems

The S-400 is an impressive system (much better than the Patriot that failed to protect the US barracks at Dharan during the Gulf War) that was originally intended for Iran, it seems the Saudis are trying to buy the Russians interest with a much bigger arms contract!