In 2018, Saudi Arabia was the third-highest spender in the world on defense with an outlay of over $67 billion. In terms of defense spending as a percentage of GDP, the kingdom stood in top position having allocated 8.8 percent of its GDP to defense. But, despite the government dedicating over 30 percent of its annual budget expenditure to defense, and notwithstanding the access to some of the most modern and sophisticated surveillance and defense equipment in the world, the Houthi rebels, a rag-tag militia from across the border in Yemen, were able to carry out attacks that significantly damaged Saudi oil production last week.
Saturday’s drone attacks on the Abqaiq oil processing plant and the AlKhurais oilfield poses a new and serious threat to Saudi oil infrastructure and to global oil supplies. The attacks reportedly took down nearly half of Saudi Arabia’s total production of 10.3 million barrels per day, or around 5 percent of the world’s oil supply.
The Houthi rebels who have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition supported by the US and other Western allies, have in recent months repeatedly challenged Saudi air defenses with drones that each reportedly cost less than $15,000 to assemble. It is true that most of the earlier drone attacks did not cause significant damage, with many of them either failing to reach their intended targets, or being intercepted by Saudi air defenses.
However, the fact that using relatively cheap and unsophisticated technology, the Houthi rebels were able to mount a successful attack, leads to questions about the effectiveness of expensive and cutting-edge radars and other defense equipment in place across the kingdom to thwart exactly such offensive manoeuvres.
Houthis have in the past managed to disable the sophisticated US-made Patriotic missile batteries brought in specifically to protect the kingdom from missiles. By flying drones into the radar arrays supporting the missile shield and disabling them, the Houthis were able to fire missiles into the kingdom without interception. In March of last year, at least five missiles fired by the Patriot batteries failed to stop a barrage of rockets targeting Riyadh and its environs.
In May of this year, the Houthis were able to launch drone attacks targeting the kingdom’s East-West Pipeline, and last month media reports emerged that Houthi drones had attacked the Shaybah oil field lying to the southeast of the kingdom and close to the border with the UAE.
The ground-based, radar-guided Patriot missiles have been controversial since shortly after its introduction in 1984 with its performance falling far-short of expectations. Despite repeated upgrades in hardware and technology, the Patriots missed many of its targets during the 1991 Gulf War and during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Patriot crews mistakenly shot down two allied warplanes, killing three crew members.
