Morocco’s Defense Grows in Clout on Back of Diversified Arms Suppliers

Morocco continues to reinforce its military arsenal by diversifying its arms suppliers. Although Morocco’s military weaponry is still supplied by the United States, China, France, and Israel, new rivals are entering the market with less-priced armaments as Brazil and India.
Although ties between France and Morocco are “neither friendly nor good”, Elysee is maintaining its arms exportation to Morocco. An illustration of this is the French-manufactured DT26 E model drones, which may be deployed to protect distant sensitive spots to counter suspicious movements and illegal immigration as well as organized crime.
Morocco continues to be the major importer of French weapons in the Maghreb region, despite a sharp decline in placed orders from 425.9 million euros in 2020 to merely 95.2 million euros in 2021. The Kingdom is also expecting the arrival of 36 Sherpa-style military vehicles from the French company “Arquus”. These multi-purpose vehicles have a crew of five and can cross water up to 1.5 meters deep while traveling at speeds of up to 110 km/h.
The vehicles will be equipped with the Mistral Atlas RC air defense system, the most modern model of missiles from the France-based European arms manufacturer MBDA, as reported by news website “infodefensa”. With a 95% success rate against low-altitude targets, this system can also hit drones and helicopters with its missiles.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA, the US arms export agency) agreed last April to selling Morocco the JSOW guided glide bombs and 18 Himars (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) rocket systems, which can have a range of up to 300 km, for a total cost of 774 million dollars.
The kingdom also increased its defense budget for 2023 to $10.9 billion, up from $10.53 billion in 2022.
As per confidential Pentagon papers, the Hebrew State was also planning to deliver its Barak-MX anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense system to Morocco.
In this vein, China, which held a 6.8% market share in Morocco from 2018 to 2022, was negotiating with Morocco at the beginning of 2023 for the acquisition of advanced weapons through the Chinese defense corporation China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) as reported by E-news outlet Tactical Report.
In addition to Turkey and its famous Bayraktar drones, India is also coveting the local arms market. In March 2022, Moroccan Minister Delegate in charge of Investment Mohcine Jazouli, said the Moroccan government signed an agreement with Indian companies for the construction of Indian vehicles for the Moroccan army. Last January, the FAR received 92 highly mobile multi-axle trucks from Indian manufacturer Tata.