[9] 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.

When the Yom-Kippur War broke out in 1973, Saudi Arabia used "Oil as a weapon", to aid the Arab cause;[10] this strategy significantly influenced world opinion against Israel though to what extent is remains unclear.

In the 1980s Saudi Arabia became a major source of financial but not military assistance, for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan,[14] and the regime of Saddam Hussein in its war against Revolutionary Iran.

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

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

[23] 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.

[27] 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.

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

[24] 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.

[33] 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.

Its primary role is monitoring and defending the Saudi territorial waters against military or economic intrusion, and participating in international naval alliances.

[35][36] It has its HQ in Riyadh,[a] where there is also an elaborate underground command facility that co-ordinates Arabian Kingdom's advanced "Peace Shield" radar and air defense system, with an estimated 40,000 active duty military personnel in 2015.

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.

But RSSMF 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.

Its modern existence, however, is attributable to it being effectively Abdullah's private army since the 1960s and, unlike the rest of the armed forces, is independent of the Ministry of Defense.

[45] The Royal Guards report directly to the king and for security reasons maintain a separate communications network from the regular Army.

The new state security agency is headed by intelligence chief Abdul Aziz bin Mohammed Al-Howairini, who holds the rank of a minister.

[24] However, 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.