It’s the biggest open-air arms bazaar in the world, with the most futuristic weapons — from sixth-generation fighter jets and supersonic cruise missiles to drones whose brains are packed with artificial intelligence microchips — all on full display in the heart of the Middle East.
The weeklong International Defense Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) and the Naval Defense and Maritime Security Exhibition (NAVDEX) simultaneously kick off Monday in the United Arab Emirates city of Abu Dhabi, and it won’t just be top U.S., European and Middle Eastern defense firms showing off — all the major Chinese and Russian firms will be there as well.
“This is the largest exposition of cutting-edge tech in defense and security in the Middle East,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Kevin M. Donegan, former U.S. Fifth Fleet Commander and a former director of operations for the Pentagon’s Central Command.
“It’s important,” said Mr. Donegan, “because nations spend a lot of money on defense, and they want the most cutting-edge tech, and this exposition brings not just Western defense offerings, but China and other countries’ weaponry. This is the expo where you have all the major players from all the major nations — adversaries or allies — laying their newest stuff out there.”
A total of 1,565 firms from 65 countries are exhibiting, according to the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC), which organizes IDEX in collaboration with the UAE Defense Ministry and the government of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
In addition to defense industrial stalwarts like the United Kingdom, France and South Korea, seven countries — Qatar, Ethiopia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Cyprus — are exhibiting for the first time. There will be 41 different national pavilions, with the UAE’s as the largest, featuring EDGE Group, the Emirati advanced technology and defense conglomerate comprising more than a dozen companies.
The U.S. pavilion will be dominated by the so-called American “primes,” including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics. Also represented will be BAE Systems and L3 Harris, the latter of which just had its new counter-radar “Viper Shield” complete its first flight test in a U.S. Air Force single-seat Block 70 F-16 fighter jet.
L3 Harris recently introduced its “AMORPHOUS,” which the company describes as software featuring a “single-user interface to operate thousands of autonomous assets simultaneously.”
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, which recently won a $1.45 billion Pentagon contract to test hypersonic missiles, will also be there. So will the slate of newer major players on the U.S. defense industrial scene, such as Anduril and Shield AI, a company that is promoting its planned “Hivemind,” an AI pilot designed to “enable swarms of drones and aircraft to operate autonomously without GPS.”
Other U.S. outfits include Aerovironment, a top U.S. military drone supplier that makes solar-powered aircraft, and AM General, a firm perhaps best known for manufacturing the Humvee. AM General says it will display its “next-generation joint light tactical vehicle” (JLTV A2) — a combat-ready jeep with unmatched “hybridization” and “noise-reduction” capabilities.
An eye on China and Russia
All of the American firms will be watched closely — and risk being overshadowed — by a slew of Chinese defense companies in attendance, including North China Industries Corp. (NORINCO), the main supplier of weaponry and equipment for the People’s Liberation Army.
IDEX takes place every other year in Abu Dhabi, and NORINCO made an eye-opening splash at the 2023 event by displaying air-to-surface missiles and a multiple-launch rocket system, among other weapons.
Speculation has surged over what the Chinese will display this time around. At an airshow in November, Beijing unveiled its newest stealth jet fighter, the J-35, which U.S. officials say was built with the help of stolen American military technology.
Russia has its own pavilion, with more than a dozen weapons companies represented. The Kremlin-owned Rosoboronexport says a centerpiece of its display will be the T-90MS tank, featuring “the most advanced technologies” and drawing from “the combat experience of countering the entire range of modern anti-tank weapons,” including strike drones, “first-person view” (FPV) drones and anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs).
Israel also has its own pavilion, and roughly a dozen Ukrainian firms also are presenting at IDEX, including FlyTech Ukraine ARES, a leading drone producer that claims to have a “team of experts striving to revolutionize the modern technological industry with cutting-edge unmanned solutions.”
Danny Sebright, president of the U.S.-UAE Business Council, describes the gathering as “unique in that it gathers defense, aerospace and cyber companies from so many corners of the world, bringing together not just the big U.S. primes but also their global competitors, and importantly small and medium enterprise companies which are offering unique innovation.”
“The forum most importantly has become a critical event for meeting the military customer — not just from the U.A.E., but from around the world,” Mr. Sebright told The Washington Times.
For the host nation, he added, “IDEX provides an important backdrop for the U.A.E. to showcase the strength and breadth of their local capabilities.”
Fusing AI and drones
The emergence of AI applications across various weapons systems will be a major theme at the expo, according to Bilal Saab, who heads the Washington, D.C., office of Trends Research & Advisory, a leading UAE think tank and official “Knowledge Partner” of IDEX and NAVDEX 2025.
“From a technical standpoint, perhaps the most prominent trend among the many vendors from many different countries attending IDEX will be the attempt to show how they are moving toward integrating artificial intelligence into their autonomous systems — drones, unmanned surface vehicles and so forth,” said Mr. Saab.
Mr. Donegan, meanwhile, said a major theme will be the fact that new defense technologies are already being used in active conflicts — from Ukraine to the Mideast — and are transforming the global military stage in real-time.
Ukrainian forces have decimated the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet with armed, unmanned boats known as surface drones. Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have used such drones to attack commercial ships, while Iran is selling various drone packages to Russia, whose own forces are also using drones in Ukraine.
“If you go back just a few years, people used to talk about drones, but they’d never been used to the scope and scale they are right now in current conflicts,” said Mr. Donegan. “When this tech gets into the hands of operators who understand how to quickly evolve it and put it into the field, it can change the face of war and defense as we know it, particularly with regard to the effectiveness or weakness of traditional defense capabilities.”
“At the same time,” he said, “we saw more conventional Western [equipment] do very well against the best Russia has to offer when Israel took out the most sophisticated Russian missile systems in Iran.”
Geopolitical undertones
There is a geopolitical aspect of IDEX that intersects with the national security interests of Washington’s partners in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are watching for signs of how the Trump administration may shift U.S. military relations in the region.
For Arab partners specifically, said Mr. Saab, “the hope is twofold: on a strategic level, obtain a formal defense pact with the United States. But if that is not in the cards, acquire technologies and platforms, including the F35 fighter jet, that were no-gos with previous administrations.”
Mr. Sebright offered a similar assessment: “Top of mind at this gathering for many executives will be the second Trump administration and its impact on key regional relationships and defense sales,” he said. “In my view, the UAE will continue to look to the United States to procure critical military systems and equipment, including weapons, vehicles, and fighter jets. However, future cooperation will largely be dependent on knowledge-sharing and transfer of technology to empower and expand local production capability in this sector.”
Mr. Donegan emphasized how the timing of IDEX is particularly relevant because the Middle East has changed so dramatically over the past year, with Israel’s military actions against Iran and its allies Hezbollah and Hamas and the collapse of the Syrian President Bashar Assad’s pro-Iran regime in December.
“Iran is weakened now, with Hezbollah decimated and with Syria no longer Tehran’s ally, Iran’s leadership is more exposed than they’ve ever been,” he said. “They’ve lost a lot of their ability to retaliate and that presents an opportunity for a regional security dynamics shift — an opportunity that just wasn’t there the last time IDEX was held in 2023.”
“This is not to say the situation is any less complex,” Mr. Donegan said. “But at a moment when a new U.S. administration is reshaping American policy toward the Middle East, the opportunity is there to move toward more cohesive U.S.-Arab security constructs, because the landscape is so changed from where it was two years ago.”
“But the situation remains complex because the future of Gaza remains undefined,” he added, citing President Trump’s recent proposal that the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip be relocated to other Arab nations and the enclave redeveloped.
“The Saudis have been very clear that they won’t accept a normalization with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Mr. Donegan said.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.