[13] A Ministry of Defense was created in 1943; a military school founded in Taif, and the United Kingdom began efforts to try to build a professional force.

Continued enlargement came to a halt in the late 1950s due to internal Saudi power struggles (including two plots by senior officers) and geo-political concerns, namely the Free Officers Revolution in Egypt followed by a brutal Baathist coup in Iraq, wherein expanded post-colonial Arab armies overthrew the domestic monarchies they had sworn allegiance to in 1952 and 1958, respectively.

When the Yom-Kippur War broke out in 1973, Saudi Arabia used "Oil as a weapon", to aid the Arab cause;[14] this strategy significantly influenced world opinion against Israel though to what extent is remains unclear.

[15][16][17] Following these successes, the Saudis would pursue only limited increased support for their armed forces in the wake of the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979.

In the 1980s Saudi Arabia became a major source of financial but not military assistance, for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan,[18] and the regime of Saddam Hussein in its war against Revolutionary Iran.

[21] King Abdullah increasingly moved towards comprehensive military reform following what he considered a failed response by Saudi forces to Houthi incursions in 2009.

[22] In the early 2010s, after almost 20 years of relatively modest increases in military spending, the Saudi government embarked an unprecedented expansion of the Kingdom's armed forces.

[25] It is believed the continued high level expansion of the Saudi Armed Forces was a response to not only short term threats (including incursions by Yemeni rebels and the rise of ISIS) but long term regional strategic concerns, namely the increasing strength of Iran and the uncertain future of America's role in the region.

[27] The armed forces are mainly the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, which also oversees the construction of civilian airports as well as military bases, and meteorology departments.

Its modern, high-technology arsenal makes Saudi Arabia among the world's most densely armed nations, with its military equipment being supplied primarily by the United States, France, and Britain.

[31] On 20 October 2010, U.S. State Department notified Congress of its intention to make the biggest arms sale in American history—an estimated $60.5 billion purchase by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

[35] Canada recently won a contract worth at least US$10 billion to supply the Saudi Arabian army with armored military vehicles.

[28] The army's main equipment consists of a combination of French- and U.S.-made armored vehicles: 315 M–1A2 Abrams, 290 AMX–30, and 450 M60A3 main battle tanks; 300 reconnaissance vehicles; 570+ AMX–10P and 400 M–2 Bradley armored infantry fighting vehicles; 3,000+ M113 and 100 Al-Fahd armored personnel carriers, produced in Saudi Arabia; 200+ towed artillery pieces; 110 self-propelled artillery pieces; 60 multiple rocket launchers; 400 mortars; 10 surface-to-surface missiles; about 2,000 antitank guided weapons; about 200 rocket launchers; 450 recoilless launchers; 12 attack helicopters; 50+ transport helicopters; and 1,000 surface-to-air missiles.

There was a 1996 report that construction of a military city at Jizan, orientated toward Yemen, had begun with Defense Minister Prince Sultan pouring the first concrete on 8 May 1996.

[37] The Library of Congress Country Study for Saudi Arabia, issued in 1992, noted that "[t]he army has been chronically under strength, in the case of some units by an estimated 30 to 50 percent.

These shortages have been aggravated by a relaxed policy that permitted considerable absenteeism and by a serious problem of retaining experienced technicians and non-commissioned officers.

A conventional high-explosive warhead (2150 kg) variant of the DongFeng 3A Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile was developed for an export order to Saudi Arabia in 1987.

Probably it is separate branch officially called Strategic Missile Forces (guessing by its website URL http://www.smf.gov.sa/ Archived 15 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine).

It certainly has one advanced Al-Watah ballistic missile base (found on the satellite images) in the rocky central part of Saudi Arabia, some 200 km south-west of the capital city Riyadh.

According to a report from the Global Affairs Canada, a record-breaking amount of military hardware was sold to Saudi Arabia in 2019, despite its poor human rights record.

[59] Following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a nonbinding resolution was passed in the European Parliament on 25 October 2018, urging EU countries to impose an EU-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia.

"[61] The Al-Fahd Infantry fighting vehicle and the Al-Faris 8–400 armored personnel carrier, used by Saudi land forces, were manufactured by the Abdallah Al Faris Company for Heavy Industries, based in Dammam.