Chapter 662: In-depth cooperation

Saudi Arabia is located on the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East. Its land area is 2.25 million square kilometers, accounting for about 80% of the total area of ​​the Arabian Peninsula. In terms of land area, it is the real overlord of the Arabian Peninsula.

Saudi Arabia has been a transportation hub between the East and the West since ancient times. It is located in the land of "two oceans, three continents and five seas", connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, connecting the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Its strategic location is extremely important.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia can be said to be the leader of Arab countries, especially in Sunni Arab countries.

It is precisely because Saudi Arabia has an important strategic position, strategic influence and strategic resources that the United States has been trying to win over Saudi Arabia. When it was impossible, the United States also chose to let Aramco gradually nationalize Saudi Arabia, and even let Saudi Arabia hold 100% of Aramco after the 1970s.

However, the United States does not support Saudi Arabia 100%, otherwise the United States would not have chosen Persia to make Persia the overlord of the Gulf region and have the most powerful military force.

The United States does not allow Saudi Arabia to become a military power, because once Saudi Arabia becomes militarily strong, it will inevitably lose control.

China is different. There is no strategic conflict of interest between China and Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, the two sides have great complementarity. China's oil imports show a huge growth trend, and it needs a stable source of imports. Saudi Arabia wants to sell more oil, especially the United States is increasing its oil imports from Latin America, which can make up for the decline in Saudi Arabia's oil supply to the United States.

The most important thing is that the relationship between the two sides is developing very fast, and Saudi Arabia can choose the military products it wants without paying any political conditions, economic conditions or other additional conditions.

Liu Tao even thinks that when necessary, he can help Saudi Arabia achieve the industrial transformation from crude oil mining to petrochemicals.

The relationship between the two sides is based on a long-term cooperative relationship, and it is necessary to deepen cooperation.

And from the perspective of Panshan Group's own interests, Liu Tao is more inclined to deepen the cooperative relationship between the two sides.

Whether it is Panshan Group's military products or civilian products entering Saudi Arabia and then entering the Middle East, or Beidou Global Navigation System entering Saudi Arabia, and Internet Unicom to the Middle East, these are all real benefits.

For example, in the cooperation in the field of aerospace, Saudi Arabia used to rent communication satellites, meteorological satellites, and reconnaissance satellites, but now Saudi Arabia wants to have its own communication satellites, meteorological satellites, and reconnaissance satellites.

Saudi Arabia does not have the ability to manufacture satellites, let alone launch satellites, but China does. China can manufacture satellites for Saudi Arabia and launch satellites for Saudi Arabia!

Saudi Arabia only needs to know how to use them!

And Saudi Arabia only needs to pay a fee!

The negotiations between the two sides were very pleasant. Liu Tao hosted a banquet in Hong Kong to invite Prince Sultan, and then sent Prince Sultan away from Hong Kong.

Hotel suite.

Liu Tao turned on the wireless TV station. The current wireless TV station is also called Hong Kong Satellite TV, which can be watched in many places in the mainland.

He watched the news. The news broadcast at this time was the first round of peace talks between Iran and Iraq in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

By now, the dawn of peace has appeared in the Iran-Iraq War. Whether it is Iraq or Persia, their attitudes have softened compared to before, and their willingness to continue fighting is no longer strong.

Both sides want to end the Iran-Iraq War.

The original Iran-Iraq ship attack war, as the escort fleets of various countries escorted, the intensity decreased. Now it is not certain that a cargo tanker will be attacked and sunk in a month.

Even on the battlefield, there were no more large-scale battles. The battles between the two sides were small-scale.

Seeing the foreign ministers of both sides shaking hands, Liu Tao smiled. This should be the first handshake between the two sides in more than ten years.

I just watched the news. The two sides did not reach a ceasefire agreement in the first round.

But think about it. The two sides have been fighting for almost ten years. There is a lot of hatred and contradictions. How could an agreement be reached in the first round of talks?

"It seems that the Iran-Iraq War is expected to end this year!" Liu Tao murmured to himself in a low voice.

The losses between Iran and Iran are not small. Both sides invested a lot of real money in the Iran-Iraq War.

Not only did the economies of both sides not develop, but their foreign exchange reserves also showed a considerable decline.

The economies of the two countries have not advanced but regressed, especially Persia. The battlefield was located in Persia. The damage to Persia was very serious. The economic losses caused to Persia exceeded 300 billion US dollars. The war delayed Persia's economic development plan by at least 20 to 30 years.

Nearly 500,000 soldiers died in Persia, and more than 1 million were injured. In Tehran alone, 300,000 women lost their husbands.

500,000 people died and more than 1 million were injured, and these were all soldiers!

Human wave tactics and biological and chemical warfare caused extremely terrifying lethality.

In Iraq, more than 100,000 soldiers died and more than 150,000 were injured.

The navy was completely wiped out, and the air force had thousands of planes shot down, losing hundreds of pilots. An air base was destroyed, causing heavy losses.

In addition, the Persian air force's early bombing of Baghdad and other cities also caused many casualties.

This war is one of the wars with the most casualties after World War II, second only to the Vietnam War and the Korean War.

The casualties were large, and the equipment losses were also very large.

Persia lost nearly 1,000 combat aircraft, more than 3,000 tanks, more than 2,000 artillery pieces, and more than 40 ships; Iraq lost more than 1,000 aircraft, more than 3,500 tanks, more than 2,000 artillery pieces, and the navy was completely wiped out.

At the same time, non-belligerent countries also suffered huge losses, with more than 150 ships sunk or destroyed, more than 700 damaged, and another 90 trapped in the Shatt al-Arab River, most of which were damaged.

Both Iran and Iraq suffered serious losses in the war. In addition to conventional warfare, they adopted means such as city attacks, ship attacks, and oil field attacks to destroy the enemy's logistics and economic facilities during the war, and sieges and street battles also broke out.

Human wave tactics and biological and chemical warfare appeared many times on the battlefield, and chemical weapons were used.

There were trench warfare and human wave attacks in World War I, which were quite common, as well as armored warfare in World War II, and clustered tank long-distance assaults in modern warfare.

In addition, new tactics such as using helicopters to attack helicopters and using anti-aircraft missiles to attack small boats also emerged in the war. Both sides used a large number of anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship missiles, and ground-to-ground missiles.

It can be said that there are many cases worth studying in the Iran-Iraq War.

At the same time, this war also reveals the importance of war mobilization in modern warfare.

If Persia's war mobilization was not so fast and so strong, it would probably be defeated at the beginning of the war.

The resilience and war mobilization capabilities shown by Persia in the Iran-Iraq War are enough to move people.

At the very least, without full confidence and absolute overwhelming advantage, I am afraid that no force will launch a war against Persia.

Persia used this war to show that even if the "Tiger of the Middle East" is temporarily weakened, the Tiger of the Middle East is the Tiger of the Middle East!