Saudi Arabia has joined the U.S. Department of Defense’s State Partnership Program, marking a new phase in the two countries’ bilateral defense cooperation. The signing ceremony, held in Riyadh on Thursday, brought together Air Force Gen. Steve Nordhaus, chief of the National Guard Bureau; Gen. Fayyad Al-Ruwaili, Saudi Arabia’s chief of general staff; Maj. Gen. Thomas Mancino, Oklahoma’s adjutant general; and Brig. Gen. Lawrence Muennich, Indiana’s adjutant general.
The Pentagon said the agreement integrates Saudi Arabia with the Indiana and Oklahoma National Guards in a trilateral partnership announced last year. The collaboration will launch joint training exchanges in areas such as cybersecurity, disaster response, aviation maintenance, medical support and logistics.
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Commitment to Global Security
“With this signing, the Indiana and the Oklahoma National Guard embark on a journey with the Saudi Arabian armed forces to share expertise, promote mutual understanding and advance our shared commitment to global security,” Nordhaus said in a statement.
Now spanning 115 countries, the State Partnership Program is a DOD program led by the National Guard Bureau that pairs the National Guard of U.S. states and territories with foreign nations to enhance security cooperation. Last year, National Guard units carried out roughly 1,000 engagements under the program, ranging from troop-level exchanges to unit-level training exercises.
US-Saudi Arabia Partnership
The latest agreement follows President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May, where he announced more than $600 billion in Saudi investments across defense and technology. Those commitments included more than $2 billion in U.S. services exports from firms such as Hill International, Jacobs, Parsons and AECOM; and $80 billion in planned technology investments from AMD, DataVolt, Google, Oracle, Salesforce and Uber.
Other defense industry cooperation between Washington and Riyadh this year includes Sierra Nevada Corp.’s $29.7 million U.S. Air Force contract to support the Royal Saudi Air Force’s King Air 350ER fleet. Additionally, the U.S. State Department has approved Saudi Arabia’s proposed $100 million purchase of 2,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems II rockets from BAE Systems.