Raytheon's small win in UAE underscores the growing tensions in the Middle East & North Africa
08 Feb 2010 8ak/Raytheon PR: Raytheon has bagged US$170 million US air force order for producing AGM-65D and AGM-65G2 infrared-guided Maverick air-to-surface missiles for the United Arab Emirates through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route. “The Maverick family is a best-value solution for the warfighter who needs a direct-attack weapon and the infrared-guided Maverick is ideally suited to counter high-speed manoeuvring sea targets such as swarming boats," said Harry Schulte, vice president of Raytheon Missile System's Air Warfare Systems' product line.
Stratfor recently reported that the U.S. is speeding up arms sales to middle-east countries to be better able to protect themselves against a nuclear Iran. Analysts believe that this is the only way to stop the entire region from going nuclear. Making the area more volatile is the fact stated by U.S. President Obama that large sections of some of these countries like Yemen are not under government control.
The issues are complicated by the large number of nations with their own agendas. Huffington Post had a good overview of the various conflicts that Israel has engaged itself in with its neighbours. Russia continues to grow its arms sales in North Africa with a US$1.8 billion arms sales to Libya.
I have personally worked on the AGM-65 missile. It is a wonderful and capable missile that is easy to maintain and modify. I dont think we need this new missile order however to tell us themiddle east is a dangerous place. Anybody want to take a stab at the common denominator(s) here?
Posted by: Jason Verdugo | 08 February 2010 at 03:14 PM