Patriot missile battery (illustrative)
Patriot missile battery (illustrative)Israel news photo: IDF/Flash 90

The United States on Wednesday authorized a $1.75 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia. The deal will allow the Saudis to upgrade their stock of Patriot air defense missiles, replacing them with PAC-3 missiles. The missiles will be supplied by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, the State Department said.

Congress has 30 days to block the sale, but a State Department spokesperson said that this was unlikely. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is in charge of foreign weapons sales, said the deal would help the Saudis to better defend themselves, replacing earlier-stage Patriots which are now obsolete and suffer from a lack of spare parts.

The Pac-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability)is an advanced version of the Patriot anti-missile defense system. According to Lockheed Martin, the PAC-3 is “a small, highly agile, kinetic kill interceptor for defense against tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and air-breathing threats. The PAC-3 missile destroys its targets by direct, body-to-body impact.” Israel has already tested PAC-3 missiles, and the US has also sold them to the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan and Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia is considered vulnerable to – and a key ally in the fight against – the Islamic State (IS). In a statement last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that “Arab nations play a critical role in a coalition, the leading role really across all lines of effort: military support, humanitarian aid, our work to stop the flow of illegal funds” to IS. Kerry was speaking after a meeting in Saudi Arabia in which 10 Arab countries - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including rich rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar – agreed to work together to fight the Sunni militants that have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The Middle East has been galvanized since June when Islamic State fighters, already in control of much of Syria, swept through northern Iraq, seizing cities, slaughtering prisoners, and proclaiming a "caliphate" that would rule over all Muslims.