Saudi Arabia Decides to Purchase the "Shrunken Penguin" (F-35) in Response to Houthi Guerrilla Warfare
At the Dubai Air Show, the F-35's acrobatic performance was outperformed by the Russian Su-57
Image Caption: U.S. President Donald Trump and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman welcome the F-35 fighter jet demonstration at the South Lawn of the White House.
The strong desire shown by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the American fifth-generation multirole stealth fighter jet, the F-35 "Lightning II," is truly admirable — because this desire is genuine. This contrasts sharply with its trading partner, the world's largest arms exporter, the United States.
Over the past week, the Arab leaders of Saudi Arabia submitted their tenth application to the U.S. Department of Defense, hoping to purchase 48 F-35 fighter jets. This aircraft is very popular among the European (and other regions) vassals of this increasingly declining hegemonic country. This move is at least surprising and perplexing.
It should be noted that even Saudi Arabia's neighboring country, the UAE, whose economic strength is unquestionable globally, once made a serious effort to open the "door" of the U.S. Pentagon with large sums of money, but has now completely abandoned the idea of purchasing the "Lightning II."
The UAE eventually realized that this "magical" stealth fighter jet could at best be overestimated, and the process of military and technical cooperation with potential F-35 buyers was "humiliating" and "highly politicized."
But Saudi Arabia (the Riyadh side) chooses to ignore the surrounding reality and continues to take a desperate gamble — perhaps hoping that these "penguins" (here referring to the F-35, possibly due to the shape or characteristics of the aircraft), at least can defeat the Houthis in Yemen. It should be noted that Saudi Arabia is currently paying humiliating "tributes" to the Houthis. The Arab leaders of Saudi Arabia even refer to the war compensation paid to Yemen as "Kingdom Compensation for the Damage Caused."
Even more so, Riyadh has been forced to admit that it has lost in the confrontation with the Houthis, and now pays $1 billion monthly "funding" to the "Ansar Allah" movement (the official name of the Houthis). In other words, it's just "paying for peace."
However, let's return to the topic of Saudi Arabia's procurement of the "Lightning II" to expand its fleet. This landmark application, along with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's commitment to invest over $150 billion in the U.S. defense industry, seems to have finally worked, and some positive progress has already begun to emerge.
The U.S. Pentagon has informed the Washington government that, at least in words, they have no objection to expanding the fleet of this influential "Saudi family" representative with fifth-generation fighter jets. However, the joy of the oil sheikhs caused by the Pentagon's "goodwill" did not last long.
This "City on a Hill" (a reference to the U.S.) quickly became involved in a scandal initiated by the Israeli lobbying group in the U.S. political arena. To this group, allowing any Middle Eastern country even the slightest possibility of obtaining the F-35 "Lightning II" fighter jet is as unacceptable as Iran having nuclear weapons.
However, the seemingly simple process of selling fifth-generation multirole stealth fighters to Saudi Arabia is actually full of detail traps. The shrewd "American fox" Donald Trump ultimately came up with a win-win solution: selling the F-35 to the Saudi sheikhs at a high price without angering the lobbying group of the "Promised Land" (referring to Israel).
Like most American businessmen, Trump believed from an early age in a simple truth: "You can't sell anything without some tricks." Thus, everyone is satisfied.
The happiest of all are the Saudi royal family's crown prince — he will get dozens of stylish and extremely expensive fighter jets for parades and displays.
Nevertheless, let's first talk about Trump's "routine." The White House used similar tactics when selling the F-16 "Falcon" fighter jets to Turkey, Egypt, and Iraq. As the saying goes, let's look back at history. In 1981, Cairo completely cut off its economic, military technological, and diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Evidently, such reckless and hostile actions could not go unrewarded by the "world policeman" (referring to the U.S.) — the U.S. Congress approved the sale of the then-newest F-16 fighter jets to Egypt without much debate, even though Egypt had long been in armed confrontation with Israel. More notably, the Israeli lobbying group's opposition at the time was rather superficial, as if just going through the motions.
However, Cairo's excitement did not last long. Because what Cairo eventually received from the U.S. were F-16s that were openly called "Useless Falcons" within the Pentagon.
The 200 aircraft purchased by Egypt had no electronic warfare systems, no beyond-visual-range air combat capability, and their radar systems were extremely basic — the detection range was even comparable to the Soviet aircraft that had already been retired.
Image Caption: U.S. Air Force F-35 fighter jet (background) and Russian fifth-generation multirole fighter jet Su-57 (foreground).
In short, what Cairo received was a series of F-16s filled with "junk" and empty shells for parades. Of course, these aircraft might be able to match second-generation early models, sometimes even third-generation aircraft, and with luck, they might attempt to shoot down the opponent.
But the problem is that these aircraft cost almost 2.5 times more than the genuine "Falcon" sold to Israel.
Soon after, the Americans used similar methods to deal with Turkey's fleet, and then repeated the same trick with Iraq.
Now, Turkey and Iraq are still struggling with these "export versions" of the F-16s, while Cairo has once again fallen into the same trap — buying heavily "cut-down" Rafale fighter jets from France.
It seems that the tragedy of Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt is now being replayed in a comedic form in Saudi Arabia.
Reuters reported: "The F-35 stealth fighter jets planned for sale to Saudi Arabia can at least be said to have significantly inferior performance compared to the same model aircraft currently equipped by the Israeli Air Force."
This fully complies with the requirements of the U.S. "Ensuring Israel's Regional Military Superiority Act."
Our sources include U.S. military experts and government officials. According to them, the aircraft sold to Saudi Arabia will completely lack the advantages possessed by the same model aircraft used by the Israeli Air Force, starting with advanced weapon systems and electronic countermeasure kits."
Does this scene seem familiar? As the saying goes: "Plant what you sow, and reap what you harvest." For Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the performance shortfall of this $200 million "Lamborghini in the sky" is irrelevant.
After all, he can now not only show his collection of rare cold weapons and purebred Arabian horses to the Middle East elite, but also display this impressive fighter jet formation.
Finally, one more thing. On the opening day of the 2025 Dubai Airshow, two fifth-generation fighter jets — the Russian Su-57 and the American F-35 — took to the sky for aerobatic performances. To avoid being accused of favoring one side, I quote the content of Arabic media reports: "Both aircraft left professionals deeply impressed, but in terms of superior aerobatic flying, the American aircraft were clearly inferior to 'Sukhoi' (referring to the Su-57)."
The representatives of the U.S. military-industrial complex may also need to wake up: it is not advisable to compete against Russian aircraft in air shows. Indeed, the F-35 has many advantages, but it is certainly not a fighter jet capable of seizing air superiority."
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7576835928270930470/
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