The Saudis have been working with our military one way or another for over 35 years, and then apparently never even developed curiosity about air - land battle, let alone trained to employ it. This shit is embarrassing. I had a meeting with the head of the Saudi PSYOP branch in Riyadh a bit more than a decade ago. Nobody had spoken to these guys since Desert Storm times, 25 years prior. The first meeting was as cordial as could be. We were brought into their compound, made to park in their VIP garage area inside the compound, spoken to in English, and treated like honored guests. Ramadan happened. We couldn’t get in touch with them for a month during the summer immediately after they kicked off the war in Yemen. When we were finally able to get a second meeting, we were physically blocked from parking in the same place by armed troops, turned away, made to park on the street where cars were clearly being vandalized, ushered in hastily, spoken to in Arabic only, and were literally yelled at. I had brought an officer with me who had some Arabic skills, so we had an idea what was happening, but only just. The Colonel kept slapping their PSYOP products down on the conference table in front of me and demanding that I tell them what is wrong with it. If we are so good, we should be able to tell him how to make a better product, right??? This demand was made without us knowing who the target audience was, where the product was being disseminated, or even what the message was at all. It was disrespectful as hell, and clearly done on purpose. He didn’t know, but I had the resources of an entire MEU available to assist me. This had already been cleared by CENTCOM for my mission. Instead, trying to maintain some semblance of diplomacy, I bit my tongue, offered that I knew the Colonel was a very busy man, stood up and left the meeting. I would have been over the moon happy combining efforts and working directly with that staff. In fact, that’s what I was trying to accomplish. Instead, I was shouted at to serve the Saudis, and told that I was incapable of doing anything approaching their vaunted skill set. This was after a little more than 5 years of combat deployments taking action against organized transnational terrorism, while the Saudis had yet to accomplish anything in their first combat since Desert Storm. The Saudis can be spectacularly arrogant as well as spectacularly bad at war simultaneously. I’ve said it before, They internally called the conflict with the Houthis “Desert Storm 2.0” at the outset, because they expected the war to be over in a few weeks, prior to Ramadan in 2015. They are still fighting, and getting their asses kicked, today. @Supersonic_Red