Middle East Arms Imports Expected to Remain Robust.

• Author: Harper, Jon

The Middle East arms market continues to grow as multiple conflicts persist in the region.

Concerns about Iran, militant groups and the ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen have helped prime the pump for additional military expenditures by U.S. allies, analysts noted.

"Most of the region's countries are engaged in armed conflict, either within their territory against non-state actors or in another state's territory," said a report published earlier this year by Forecast International, "2017 Global Defense Spending Snapshot."

Nations are continuing "a decades-long weapons buying spree financed by petro dollars," the report added.

Arms imports in the region increased 103 percent in the 2013 to 2017 timeframe relative to the previous five-year period, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks global military spending trends. The Middle East was home to four of the top 10 and eight of the top 20 arms importers during that time period, according to SIPRI data.

Aircraft and missile defense are two of the biggest spending categories, noted Doug Berenson, managing director for aerospace and defense at Avascent.

"Those are certainly the high-end systems that probably account for the most headline value and certainly most of the economic value as well," he said. "That is not the totality of what they are buying, certainly, but those... are the most conspicuous categories driving their spending habits."

Last year, the State Department approved a proposed $2 billion sale of Patriot missile defense systems to the United Arab Emirates, and a proposed $15 billion sale of terminal high-altitude area defense systems and supporting equipment to Saudi Arabia.

In March, the Defense Department announced that Boeing had been awarded a $1.2 billion contract for 28F/A-18 Super Hornets for the government of Kuwait. Last fall, Bahrain signed on to buy 16 upgraded F-16 Fighting Falcons from Lockheed Martin at an estimated cost of $2.3 billion.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are planning to buy dozens of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, and the United Arab Emirates is looking at options to bolster its fighter fleet.

The upcoming Saudi and UAE fighter purchases are "very important deals that are some of the biggest outstanding fighter requirements in the world," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal Group.

Israel, the United States' closest ally in the region, is a major buyer of Lockheed Martin's F-35 joint strike...