Except Saudi Arabia who obtained ballistic missiles from China in the 80’s during the Iran-Iraq war,11Clayton Thomas, « Arms Sales in the Middle East: Trends and Analytical Perspectives for U.S. Policy », Congressional Research Service, 10/11/17 Arab Gulf States’ weapons procurement strategies seemed not oriented to get the means to guarantee their own security. In fact, despite the fact that these countries spent 24.7 billion dollars buying weapons between 1979 and 1989,22Source: SIPRI Database they were unable to protect themselves against Iraq when the latter launched an invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. After that new Gulf War,33The first Gulf war opposed Iraq to the Islamic Republic of Iran (1980–1988) the main Arab Gulf States pursued their ‘life insurance policy’ by still buying weapons from Western countries, hosting at the same time foreign military bases in their territories44Mainly the US, based in Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Kuwait and Oman and signing Defense agreements with the greatest powers.However, things began to evolve at the beginning of the 21st century, with a change of strategy by certain Arab Gulf States, notably the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. These evolutions are largely due to different changes observed in the Gulf region from 2000 on: the Iranian nuclear program and Teheran’s potential hegemony across the Middle East and the waters of the Gulf, the war in Yemen and the operational need for naval capabilities (mainly for the UAE), and the doubts about the American political and military involvement in the Middle East. Moreover, with the aim to reduce their countries’ dependence on oil, many Arab Gulf States have promoted new national strategies to reduce the volume of importations from abroad, including military equipments, along with the targeted goal to promote local production of different products. The aim of this article is to analyze some Arab Gulf States’ naval procurement strategy, according to the political and strategical evolutions that have occurred in the Middle East since the beginning of the 21st century. It will demonstrate that the two main powers of the Arab Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have developed a three-level procurement strategy in order to get autonomy while increasing operational capabilities and promote national industries. The first level of this strategy consists in pursuing the procurement of naval equipment from Western suppliers. The second level aims to gain skills and experience through transfer of technologies in the context of co-developed military projects. The third one consists to a full how-know production process of middle class vessels. This article will also analyze which challenges the Arab Gulf States are facing in their naval procurement ambitions, and the probability that these challenges could lead them to revise them downwards.