Phoenix 24
Arms deals now map influence, not borders.
Riyadh, February 2026.
Italy closed the World Defense Show in Riyadh with a pair of announcements that read less like exhibition theatre and more like an operational commitment. Wass Submarine Systems, a Fincantieri subsidiary, secured what was described as the largest contract in its history, agreeing to supply MU90 lightweight anti submarine torpedoes to the Royal Saudi Naval Forces for about 200 million euros. Leonardo, in parallel, said it will deliver four C-27J maritime patrol aircraft to Saudi Arabia, with deliveries beginning in 2029. The pattern is clear: maritime security is becoming the organizing principle that ties European industry, Gulf procurement, and wider regional risk into one transaction.
The torpedo contract matters because it is not a headline number, it is a timeline that locks in dependence. The MU90 is a mature anti submarine weapon used by surface ships as well as aircraft and helicopters, and it already sits in the inventories of Italy’s navy and multiple other countries. In procurement terms, that installed base reduces uncertainty for the buyer while increasing interoperability options if coalition operations ever become necessary. For the supplier, it creates a long sustainment corridor that extends beyond the initial delivery window, because training, spares, upgrades, and integration support become recurring revenue. Even when contracts are framed as single purchases, the real asset is the lifecycle.
Leonardo’s C-27J announcement adds a different layer to the same maritime story: surveillance and targeting, not only strike. The aircraft configuration is positioned for maritime reconnaissance, with sensors designed to detect surface targets and submarines, and the platform can be equipped with torpedoes and anti ship missiles. Saudi Arabia is presented as the first customer for the maritime patrol variant, after having purchased C-27J models in 2025 configured for missions such as firefighting and medical evacuation. That mix signals a doctrine trend in which a single airframe family is expected to cover both civil contingency and security operations. A multi role platform is also politically easier to defend at home, because it can be narrated as national resilience, not only militarization.
The operational backdrop is the water geography that dictates Gulf security psychology. Maritime patrol aircraft and anti submarine weapons are investments in persistent uncertainty, because they assume contested movement in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and connected approaches. Regional threats are often framed through attacks on commercial shipping and the risk of disruption at sea, including pressure points linked to Iran aligned forces and the Yemen theatre. In that context, “maritime domain awareness” becomes a procurement umbrella that justifies sensors, aircraft, weapons, and command systems in one coherent package. The deal is therefore a response to a security environment that blends state competition with irregular risk.
For Italy, the Riyadh outcomes are also a signal about industrial posture, and not only about exports. The contract is tied to production and management from Livorno, which turns a Gulf procurement decision into a factory schedule and a labor story back in Europe. That link is politically relevant because European defense industries are being asked to scale, modernize, and prove that they can deliver on time in a more demanding strategic cycle. When a company can label a contract as the largest in its history, it suggests a step change in industrial confidence and a move toward larger, longer, more complex commitments. In a rearmament era, the difference between aspiration and capability is measured in delivery calendars.
Saudi Arabia’s side of the equation is not merely about buying equipment, it is about building a posture that supports a broader national strategy. The World Defense Show has been promoted as part of the Kingdom’s push to develop its military industries sector, and official tallies described roughly 60 defense deals signed at the event with a combined value around 33 billion Saudi riyals. Such figures function as a political performance of modernization, but they also reveal a procurement model that seeks variety, leverage, and technology transfer options. A large exhibition is an auction of influence as much as it is a market of products, because it allows the buyer to compare suppliers, test willingness, and extract partnership narratives. In that sense, Riyadh is positioning itself as a convening platform where security demand is translated into industrial bargaining power.
The Euronews reporting also placed the Italian announcements inside a trend line of rising Italian military exports to Saudi Arabia, citing figures above 458 million euros across the 2023 and 2024 period, based on a parliamentary annual report. That contextualizes the new contracts as acceleration, not anomaly, and it narrows the debate to sustainability and oversight rather than surprise. It also intersects with international arms transfer analysis that ranks Saudi Arabia among the world’s top importers and places the United States as the leading exporter into the Middle East over the 2020 to 2024 period. Those rankings matter because they highlight the structural competition: European firms are not replacing American dominance, but they are gaining terrain in niches where procurement logic favors diversification. The result is a marketplace in which influence is increasingly modular, attached to specific capabilities rather than exclusive alliances.
What makes this episode strategically interesting is how it links industrial policy to regional volatility without needing a grand ideological narrative. Italy’s defense minister publicly described relations between Rome and Riyadh as excellent, and the article noted that regional politics, including developments around the United States and Iran, sit in the background of these ties. That is the contemporary operating model: procurement becomes a diplomacy language that can express alignment without demanding total political convergence. It is also a way to manage uncertainty, because contracts create predictable channels even when geopolitics shifts. The silence that matters here is that no one needs to announce a new bloc for a bloc like relationship to emerge in practice.
Riyadh’s record contract is therefore not simply an Italian export success story, and it is not merely a Saudi shopping list. It is a micro demonstration of how maritime insecurity, defense industrial scaling, and partner diversification are reshaping the security economy across regions. If this pattern continues, the most consequential outcomes will not be the exhibition totals, but the way supply chains, training regimes, and sustainment dependencies get woven across Europe and the Gulf. In a system where deterrence is increasingly about readiness and persistence, the dull details of maintenance and delivery often matter more than the spectacular optics of a show floor. The contract is record breaking, but the real record is the speed at which maritime risk is turning into long term industrial architecture.
Phoenix24: claridad en la zona gris. / Phoenix24: clarity in the grey zone.