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Making Sense of Air Defence Investment Profiles in Western Asia - A Snaphsot
With threat horizons expanding in the Middle East, Saudi military planners have lately been seeking upgrades to their air defence networks. Contracts investigated in 2009 put the US-built Patriot PAC-3 missile as the frontrunner in efforts to upgrade hardware. Tipartite competition But Saudi Arabia’s traditional arms suppliers of France, the UK and the US now face competition from a new Russian combined arms offer that could include Russia's advanced S-400 missile defence system, which has an effective maximum range of 400 km (250 miles). Moscow had previously been in talks with Tehran concerning the S-300 missile system in a deal worth about $750m to $1bn, for 5 battalions of the S-300 system, which is the proven forerunner of the S-400. However, concerns over the deal were voiced by western nations and Israel in early 2010. "The Saudis would rather this weapon system not be sold to Iran or Syria," which is another possible buyer, said Theodore Karasik,
'At Home and Abroad', India's Air Defence Planners Saddle Up to the SAM Procurement Challenge
India faces unique air security challenges. It suffers from a quasi-belligerent, nuclear-armed neighbour at its border and an increasingly outdated Cold War air-defence system. Consequently, the last fifteen years have seen efforts by the Indian Ministry of Defence to either purchase upgraded systems or, increasingly, internally develop their own. SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems can be mounted on a number of delivery platforms at sea and on the ground. Moving on from legacy solutions The bulk of India’s Cold-War era SAM systems are of the OSA-AKM [SA-8 Gecko] and ZRK-BD MR/LR-SAM type, which are rapidly being surpassed by modern offerings from suppliers such as France and Israel. The Ministry of Defence has also partnered with both countries to co-develop a replacement system, taking advantage of India’s growing technical knowledge-base. Three systems under development are of interest. The first of these is Akash, a replacement for old SA-3 systems in

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India's Defence Spending and Military Modernization
Read this exclusive report by the CSIS on India's defence budget, why it is spending more on military modernization and the areas defence suppliers needs to be aware of to do business with India's Armed Forces.