The United States will sell Saudi Arabia four of its most modern warships with which to confront the Pasdaran in the Persian Gulf.
The sale, totaling the massive sum of $11.25 billion, will encompass a special design based on the new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) that Lockheed Martin is now building for the US Navy.
The sale is the first of a newly-built American warship to a foreign country in many years. Most warships sold by the United States are decades-old and are sold when the US Navy drops them from its inventory. The last major sale of new warships was believed to be destroyers built for the Shah. That deal was canceled by the revolutionary government in 1979.
The LCS sale to the Saudis will pose a challenge for the maritime arm of Iran’s Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard), not for the Iranian Navy. The Pasdar maritime arm is assigned exclusively to the Persian Gulf while the Iranian Navy operates exclusively outside the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast lies entirely on the Persian Gulf.
The LCS was designed by the US Navy with Iran and the Persian Gulf very much in mind. The concept recognizes that many future threats are spawning in regions with shallow waters, where the ability to operate near-to-shore and even in rivers is vital. Historically, the US Navy has viewed itself as a deep-sea service, although both the Civil War and the Vietnam War saw it develop riverine forces.
The LCS concept requires the ability to counter growing “asymmetric” threats like coastal mines, quiet diesel submarines, global piracy, and terrorists (or Pasdaran) on small fast attack boats. It also requires intelligence gathering and scouting and some ground combat support capabilities.
The LCS ships will replace current frigates and mine clearance vessels in the US Navy.
The ships displace about 3,500 tons, which is small for the US Navy, but twice as large as the largest ship in the Iranian Navy.
There is no one LCS design. For example, some LCS ships are monohulls and others are trimarans. It isn’t known what kind Saudi Arabia will take.
