The Washington Quarterly

1995 Autumn

SECTION: THE MIDDLE EAST IN TRANSITION; Vol. 18, No. 4; Pg. 27

LENGTH: 12632 words

HEADLINE: The Demise of the Middle East Arms Race

BYLINE: Aaron Karp - Aaron Karp is research coordinator and adjunct professor for the Graduate Programs in International Studies at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia.

HIGHLIGHT: From hotbed of intractable conflict to region of hope and promise -- the remarkable transformation of the Middle East, as yet incomplete, is one of the great surprises of the post-cold war era. What accounts for this transition, and how durable is it? In the following two articles, experts trace the end of the arms race in the region and the exhaustion of the passing strategic culture.

BODY:

PROGRESS IN THE Middle East toward a durable peace has been painfully slow, its path littered with false starts and failed schemes. The greatest accomplishments of the peace process are usually understood almost exclusively in political terms, because agreements between Israel and Egypt, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Jordan stand out as landmarks. Middle East armed forces remain the source of greatest international concern and one of the least promising areas for negotiated restraint. Nonetheless it is becoming increasingly clear that military confrontation in the region is not what it once was.

Slowly but surely, the race for conventional military superiority in the Middle East has come to an end. In some respects military affairs have lost none of their dominance in Middle East security. All countries in the region maintain large armed forces, and most continue to modernize their equipment. But in critical ways few if any of the armed forces in the Middle East appear as menacing as they did 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. The pace of modernization has slowed significantly and some countries are allowing their conventional forces to shrink. Almost 50 years after the establishment of the state of Israel created an environment of unparalleled tension, the arms race in the Middle East has lost much of its desperation and immediacy.

The decline in the armaments competition has not proceeded without challenges. The process has been reversed temporarily by major crises, especially wars in the Beka'a Valley and the Persian Gulf. Time and again major arms deals also fostered the impression that all restraint was lost, suggesting that the region was plunging again into a hopeless spiral of arming and counterarming. Upon reflection, though, hysterical arms buying looks increasingly anachronistic. Although there have been exceptional arms deals, these have done no more than interrupt downward trends in military procurement, a process that has been perpetuated by stronger long-term Interests.

The decline of the Middle East arms race deserves wider recognition, but it is not reason enough for celebration. Its foundations lie exclusively in domestic interests and official perceptions. These are not weak forces, but they require considerable reinforcing to form the basis for a long-term settlement of regional disputes. Like informal arms-control processes in other regions, this one is vulnerable to disruption, lacking formal commitments and institutional mechanisms to minimize adverse effects.

Even though the regional dangers of conventional armaments are subsiding, the role of confidence-building and arms control is no less important than before. The burdens they must carry, however, are not so great as previously assumed. Instead of having to transform regional security politics, Middle East arms control is needed more to reinforce existing trends and extend them to include other kinds of weaponry. Like other factors affecting Middle East security, the effect will not be revolutionary but incremental, supporting processes already changing the nature of the region. Even with this more modest goal, such measures are essential to insulate the gains of recent years and to help ensure that factors outside the conventional balance cannot undermine the stability that has so fortuitously emerged.

A Hidden Transformation The failure to appreciate this unprecedented change in Middle East security is strikingly similar to the greatest blunder of contemporary political science, the failure to anticipate the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War. Five years after the events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, a lively debate has emerged in intellectual circles on where to pin the blame for that failure. n1 The essential causes of the shortsightedness of so many observers probably lay in the blinding grip of powerful assumptions and ideologies and the compulsions of political pragmatism and expediency. The practical causes, however, may have been nothing more than lack of imagination and contentment with the status quo.

Few would admit to liking the Cold War, but virtually all responsible observers accepted it; as bad as it sometimes was, the Cold War was infinitely superior to the worst disasters they could conjure. n2 The most dynamic and influential policies during the later years of the Cold War -- from Ostpolitik and detente to arms control and confidence-building -- aimed not to end the superpower competition but to manage it, ameliorating its worst aspects while preserving the acceptable parts.

The Middle East is not Europe, and its strategic environment is very different from that of the Cold War. Unlike post-1945 Europe, it has seen fullscale warfare between key antagonists. It is marked by widespread unhappiness with the political status quo. Territorial divisions remain in dispute, and the region's ethnic, religious, and other cleavages have not been allowed to wither. But the status quo is not without its benefits and many governments have little interest in changing it. Just as in Europe of the late cold war years, in the Middle East politics tend to inhibit and conceal fundamental change.

The transformation of Middle East security politics has been obscured by many factors, but by none more than the conventional assumption that the region remains the most dangerous place on earth. The numbing repetition of cliches obscures trends moving in the opposite direction. The decline of the Middle East arms race has been a subdued process, almost invisible behind the rhetoric of polarization and confrontation. Most regional leaders have an interest in emphasizing only the most provocative acts of their neighbors, not the acts that demonstrate restraint. In a region where words often matter more than deeds, it can be easy to miss real geopolitical trends.

Change has also been concealed by excessive expectations. By identifying regional peace with completion of a comprehensive settlement (including resolution of the Golan Heights problem, the establishment of a full-scale Palestinian state, conventional arms control, and nuclear and chemical disarmament), the peace process casts a dark shadow over lesser but more tangible achievements. It also confuses the most important lessons of the superpower experience, which demonstrated that there is no inherent link between peace and arms control. The U.S.-Soviet arms-control dialogue made only modest contributions to easing tensions, and the initial rise of detente only permitted the most humble of arms-control measures. n3 Stability between the superpowers had other, more fundamental, sources in national self-interest.

Often observers simply have not known what to look for. The passions of confrontation naturally led them to hope for a radically different politics of mutual respect and accommodation. Although no one can fault such longings, grand aspirations can be emphasized to the exclusion of less dramatic progress. One of the innumerable ironies of Middle East politics is that all but the most extreme voices clamor for peace but scarcely know how to recognize it. Peace is not necessarily the opposite of confrontation. It is above all the absence of war. Although universal amity among nations will always be the long-term goal of international diplomacy, in the short term the avoidance of war is no small accomplishment.

Many serious security problems face the Middle East today, but the danger of major war is probably lower than at any time in modern memory. Today one need look only to the former Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Central Africa to find regions struggling with more immediate threats to human life from conventional warfare. Even the dangers of weapons of mass destruction, still an overwhelming consideration in the Middle East, pose considerably more urgent threats in South Asia and the Korean Peninsula.

Despite these changes, military dangers remain serious. The mobilization crisis triggered by Iraq's dispatch of troops to the Kuwaiti border in September 1994 illustrated the continuing relevance of conventional forces. Confrontations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen and the Gulf sheikhdoms in the winter of 1994-95 showed that war scares cannot be dismissed as an Iraqi monopoly either. Nonconventional forces, especially nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and ballistic missiles, have become more salient than ever before. And the continual loss of life -- whether from Muslim extremism in Algeria, Egypt, and Israel, an endless war of succession in Sudan, or chaos and terror in Kurdish lands -- leaves no doubt that the emerging regional order is not idyllic. Even so, the Middle East today is more stable than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman empire.

Ending the Middle East Arms Race? Despite the progress of the Middle East peace process, major arms deals have continued, leading many observers to the conclusion that the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict will not have an appreciable effect on military spending and the armaments competition. n4 Some go so far as to question the value of a peace process that allows an arms race to proceed apparently unhindered. n5

To be sure, all countries in the Middle East continue to buy new military equipment, often acquiring advanced weapons and support systems in boldly immodest quantities. Yet it has been a long time since the region saw a real arms race. Although most regional governments still buy arms, the goals and rationales for their purchases have changed, bringing the size of their acquisitions down dramatically (see figure 1). A few of the smallest Gulf states are expanding their conventional forces. Virtually all others are concentrating their resources to minimize the effects of inevitable reductions. Their arms investments go primarily into new equipment to preserve the utility of forces that reached their maximum size years ago. Although they undoubtedly spend more than secure states that have no truck with their neighbors, this is not the armaments strategy of countries planning to go to war with one another.

Figure 1

The Decline of Middle East Arms Imports Sources: Sipri Yearbook 1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Stockhold International Peace Research Institute, 1995). Sipri figures are in millions of constant 1990 U.S. dollars. World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1993-1994 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, February 1995). ACDA figures are in millions of constant 1993 U.S. dollars. Note: The Sipri data cover transfers of major weapons only. The ACDA data cover all transfers of military equipment and assistance.

The events behind this transformation have never been concealed. Many were highly publicized as they occurred, but their strategic significance was hidden by the nature of the process. Instead of appearing in a single, swift revolution of the sort typically sought in resolutions in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly or ambitious disarmament proposals, change has come slowly and incrementally over a period of decades. Usually it has come not through well-publicized shifts in policy, but in the form of decisions not taken and options not pursued.

Ironically, the roots of this restraint go back to the untenable buildups that followed the 1967 and 1973 wars. Even as military expansion accelerated after these conflicts, the seeds of restraint were germinating. Economic forces played a role, as did diplomatic and military factors. These expansions, whether due to fear or ambition, came at tremendous cost, driving military spending up above 20 percent of annual gross national product (GNP) for many countries. But high levels of military spending, although painful, were sustainable so long as military requirements remained extreme. n6

What allowed high levels of military spending to come down was the reduction of threat perceptions. More than anything else, it was gradual acceptance of the status quo that enabled progressively more countries of the Middle East to slow their arms procurement. By the mid-1980s the process was virtually complete among Israel and its neighbors. In the mid-1990s the logic of the status quo has reached most countries throughout the Middle East. As in Europe after World War II, general and unrestrained war is increasingly unacceptable. n7 The danger of general war in the Middle East comes not from deliberate choice, but from mistakes and miscalculation.

States in the traditional crucible of Middle East tension -- around Israel -- no longer fear for their survival. Their grand ambitions -- achievable only at the direct expense of the security of their neighbors -- are gone. All states in the region still have goals beyond their borders, but they understand that these can be achieved only through political initiatives. With this transformation has come a change in the role of armed forces. Instead of being maximized for interstate warfare, they stand ready for small-scale operations and suppressing domestic strife. The readiness of the armed forces has been reduced and there is greater willingness to divert troops to non-military tasks. Outside forces have played virtually no role in the process. Foreign arms suppliers of conventional equipment place virtually no restraints on their Middle East clients, with the partial exception of Iran and Libya and the complete exception of Iraq. Rising economic pressure also cannot explain the shift in priorities, which goes beyond simple budget cuts to include wholesale reductions in the proportion of GNP going to the military. Although many countries in the region have fewer economic resources than they did at the height of the oil boom, none are so poor that they could not rapidly increase defense spending if there was a consensus that national security was in jeopardy. n8 A few countries, moreover, have enjoyed exceptional economic prosperity in the 1990s -- Israel is the most obvious example -- yet still allow military spending to decline. In the absence of external compulsion, the only forces left to influence the Middle East armaments competition are internal. At the basis of the process is a change in perceptions. Although no one pretends that the region is becoming safe and secure, its leaders show little of the fear and anxiety that characterized their defense planning for decades. It is this change in official attitudes and domestic interests that leads so many highly diverse countries to adopt increasingly similar security policies. The process has no relation to the formal processes codified in superpower arms control. Nor does it reflect any clear reciprocity; one searches chronologies in vain for a shred of evidence that any country shows restraint in response to the forbearance of another. Rather the process can be understood exclusively in terms of domestic responses to a generally improving political-military environment. The transformation of Middle East security came unevenly, affecting different areas in different ways. Analysts are accustomed to thinking of the Middle East as a single region where innumerable linkages make it impossible to separate out individual conflicts: the Iran-Iraq conflict threatened to explode across the Persian Gulf; Iraq could credibly threaten to escalate conflict in 1991 by attacking Israel; Saudi efforts to deter Iran and Iraq implicitly threaten Israel; and countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Iran, and Sudan can conspire to undermine governments across the region. This situation, it is widely assumed, created a web in which resolution of individual disputes could only be accomplished through a comprehensive peace resolving all conflicts together. There is considerable truth to this perspective, but it also exaggerates the day-to-day problems of regional security building. In practice, the diverse countries of the Middle East increasingly pursue their security interests independently and pose less and less of a threat to one another. Most important, the environment around Israel has evolved along one path and that around the Persian Gulf along another. The situation around Israel was the first to yield to the logic of mutual acceptance. One by one, Israel's neighbors became reconciled to its existence. The lessons of military defeat were an essential part of this process. By the mid-1980s all sides had abandoned the dream of acquiring strategic superiority and achieving political goals through military conquest. Armed forces had not  PAGE 118 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn lost all relevance, but they had ceased to be a serious instrument of geepolitical change. n9 Military establishments were not allowed to atrophy uncontrollably, but they ceased to grow and in some cases actually shrank. Jordan The transformation came first to Jordan, which swiftly came to accept -- in fact if not in formal policy -- the loss of the West Bank in the 1967 war. Small and internally divided, Jordan could not hope to challenge Isradi power militarily. After the 1970 crises with the PLO and Syria, moreover, Jordan came to rely on indirect security guarantees from Jerusalem. By the late 1970s the Jordanian military had begun a steep decline. King Hussein signed his last major arms deals in 1982. After these Jordan ceased to modernize its military seriously. n10 Other major arms deals were discussed, but none were finalized. The sole exception was a contract for Mirage-2000 fighter planes initialed in 1988 only to be canceled the following year. New equipment has been acquired, but mostly by happenstance. The most impressive example came when Saddam Hussein gave Jordan several hundred armored vehicles his forces had captured from Iran. Lucky breaks could only slow a broader pattern of contraction, however. In the late 1980s Jordan began to expedite the decline of its forces, cannibalizing weaponry for spare parts and selling excess stocks to raise capital. n11 The very idea of excess arms was an extraordinary innovation in the Middle East. A more recent transaction is especially illuminating. In November 1994 seven Jordanian F-5E fighters previously declared excess and decommissioned were sold to Singapore in a deal worth $ 21 million. Only a cursory effort was made to replace these aircraft and it was later abandoned, although the sale will help to finance modernization of Jordan's remaining F-5 fleet. n12 Other, more marketable equipment such as helicopters and transport aircraft has been sold off as well. Behind these actions lies a new security strategy. Like many other nations that do not face a major military threat, Jordan no longer relies on large standing forces. Instead its military establishment is maintained as a small but highly qualified cadre. Although this cadre cannot defend the nation, it will serve as a basis for long-term training and expansion should regional threats reemerge. Egypt Egypt's decision to abandon strategic parity with Israel was equally tacit. Instead of a clear decision, a series of events gradually led in that direction, events with a clear cumulative effect. The path that emerged was not entirely intentional, but Egyptian leaders did not vigorously pursue others. The first step came when Anwar Sadat severed the arms relationship with Moscow in 1973, even though he had no alternative suppliers. This decision can be described only as a massive reordering of priorities; Sadat calculated that his country did not need the assurance of Soviet military aid sufficiently to justify the loss of autonomy it entailed. n13 After signing the Camp David accords five years later, Sadat found a new supplier in the United States. But U.S. aid was never as generous as Soviet assistance. The strict formula for U.S. military aid ensured that Israel always received more ($ 1.8 versus $ 1.3 billion annually), while Israel also had greater wealth and domestic resources.  PAGE 119 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn More recently Egypt has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of the end of the Cold War, receiving hundreds of 1960s-vintage M-60 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other equipment decommissioned by U.S. forces in Europe. This "cascade" allowed Egypt finally to get rid of 1950s-vintage Soviet hardware, but it has not brought a significant improvement in Egyptian offense potential. More serious modernization will include the gradual acquisition of 550 M-1 tanks and some 160 F-16 fighters. The latter will form the real nucleus of Egypt's future military capability. Despite the limits imposed by U.S. aid policy, Egypt has displayed little interest in striking out on its own. It has abandoned most efforts at domestic arms production and concluded few major agreements with European suppliers or the Soviet successor states. The nation's economic difficulties make it impossible for it to sign major new agreements except under tremendous pressure, while peace with Israel removes any motives for such investment. Syria Syria's transformation was more self-conscious, emerging largely through the lessons of war, the pressures of economics and technology, and deliberate strategic choice. In 1982 Syria found itself more isolated than ever after its disastrous Beka'a Valley war with Israel. Fighting alone -- except for some coordination with Palestinian factions -- it suffered the most lopsided defeat in the history of Middle East conflict up to that point. n14 Among the most prominent casualties were the Syrian military's stir-esteem and its trust in its Soviet-designed military hardware. Although Moscow and its East European allies were delighted to sell replacement equipment, and Syria bought readily, there was no possibility of matching Israel's technical wizardry. The arms shipments that followed-including over 1,400 T-72 tanks, 2,400 other armored vehicles, 200 combat aircraft, and air defense systems -- confirmed only Syria's quantitative superiority, something that was never in doubt. The futility of building further numerical superiority became evident to Damascus by 1986. Syrian officials ceased speaking of pursuit of "strategic parity" with Israel and allowed defense purchases to decline rapidly. n15 Purchases of Soviet-style equipment continue to this day, but at a much slower pace. Since 1988 a total of 70 MiG-29s have been ordered to replace a force of some 300 obsolete MiG-21s and MiG-23s. n16 The MiG-29 force may grow to 120 or 150 by the end of the decade, but this should be compared to an Israeli force of F-16s and F-15s that soon will amount to 350 aircraft. Smaller orders are adding more modern Su-24 bombers and SA-10 air-defense systems to Syrian inventories. In each case the main effect is not to expand overall capabilities but to preserve elite units from total obsolescence. Syria's investments in new armaments make it the most important customer for several ex-Warsaw Pact producers. n17 Its suppliers undoubtedly would sell even greater quantities of even more advanced hardware if Damascus asked, but Syrian officials have not shown much interest. The money is there; in the early 1990s defense spending amounted to an average of just 10 percent of GNP, far below the 20 percent levels the nation tolerated 10 years earlier. What is lacking most is hope of matching Israel's qualitative superiority. Having participated at the margins of Iraq's overwhelming defeat in 1991, Syrian leaders can be under no illusions regarding their nation's conventional capabilities. n18 From this recognition came a revolution in Syrian policy. A political dialogue with Israel was one result. President Hafez Assad has convinced many  PAGE 120 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn observers that he has made a strategic choice for peace, even if it must be on terms that satisfy his personal requirements. New policies deemphasizing combat readiness and training are another consequence. n19 Another, less reassuring, result is a long-term shift in armaments strategy, placing less emphasis on the ability to win wars through conventional forces. Instead Syria relies more on weapons of mass destruction designed not to win military victory in war so much as to influence adversaries in peacetime. The data in figure 2 show these trends graphically. After peaking in the early 1980s, arms imports by Israel and its immediate adversaries slowed greatly. Despite aggressive promotional efforts by nearly desperate exporters around the world, few buyers have been found among the states at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Modernization continues, at times in response to long-term domestic procurement plans, at times to take advantage of bargain offers, especially for second-hand equipment. When viewed individually these arms deals can look alarming, but when viewed together and compared to previous eras, the trends are far less disturbing. n20 Regional arms buying remains dangerous -- these are instruments of death and destruction after all -- but it takes a fertile imagination to see conventional arms as a potential cause of War. Figure 2 Arms Imports by Israel and Neighboring States (in millions of constant 1993 U.S. dollars) Source: World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1993-1994 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, February 1995). When evaluating recent Arab-Israeli arms trade trends, it is helpful to speculate on hypothetical alternatives. How extensive would the regional arms trade be if the Arab-Israeli conflict did not exist at all? Although it would undoubtedly be smaller, it probably would not be considerably so. Given the size of the armed forces present in the region and their special importance in non-democratic regimes, a significant arms trade would exist under almost any political circumstances, even the most peaceful. n21 For the same reason, the failure of the Middle East arms trade to slow even more than it has need not mean that old arms races continue. The more likely explanation is that in the Middle East, as elsewhere in the world, armies retain a symbolic and domestic political value regardless of the likelihood of actual fighting. Disruptions in the Region The trends in the immediate vicinity of Israel are clear, but there is greater ambiguity elsewhere in the region. Over the years hard-line states elsewhere have engaged in their own buildups. At times their military policies have been justified largely by local disputes; the Iran-Iraq War especially distorted arms procurement patterns in the Persian Gulf. At other times the preoccupation with Israel has been used to justify these developments. Yet even among these more volatile states there is growing acceptance of the regional geopolitical balance, allowing conventional arms spending to come down significantly. It is one more irony of Middle East politics that the further a country is from Israel, the weaker and less reliable its commitment to the current geopolitical balance tends to be. Even among these actors, though, the logic of the status quo has gained greater weight. Like Syria, they may seek specific adjustments to make the regional geographic order more palatable. It is also among these countries that there is the strongest interest in switching from  PAGE 121 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn strategies based on conventional weapons to greater reliance on weapons of mass destruction. Their objectives are, however, increasingly -- if still not exclusively -- political in character. Libya For many years the most troublesome Middle East dangers appeared to come from Libya, where Mu'ammar Qadhafi supported every trendy revolutionary group and built up a massive military stockpile of advanced military hardware, far more than his nation could ever deploy. Libya was the first export client for Soviet weapon systems like the SU-24 strike bomber and MiG-25 interceptor, and its purchases were instrumental in the emergence of many new arms exporters like Brazil. Expansion continued even after declining oil prices in the early 1980s made such purchases increasingly painful. The earliest restraint came from abroad. Some suppliers said no: China and Pakistan refused to share nuclear warheads, Brazil and the Soviet Union turned down requests for long-range ballistic missiles. Tired of Qadhafi's political and military excesses, Moscow became less sympathetic. After the embarrassing defeat of his forces in Chad in 1987, even Qadhafi lost interest in military adventure. Economically weakened and politically isolated, Libya ceased much of its previous support for terrorism and allowed its military establishment to atrophy. Tripoli has not ordered any major conventional weapons since 1988. n22 Four years later came the UN embargo on further arms sales in response to the Lockerbie bombing. n23 The embargo raised barriers, but it did not bring Libyan arms imports to a halt; rather it imposed a choice Libya had already made itself. Like Syria, Libya continues to invest in alternative technologies instead, especially chemical weapons and ballistic missiles. n24 These may allow Tripoli to remain a serious factor in regional strategic stability equations, in other words, to continue to be taken seriously. Libya is keeping its options open -- no one in their right mind would trust Qadhafi on anything -- but Libya is no longer the enfant terrible that it once was. Iran Today the greatest risks of strategic destabilization in the Middle East come not from traditional confrontation states but from the Persian Gulf. The Iranian revolution and the rise of Iraqi military power created threats that potentially could leapfrog over the more settled confrontation states to engage Israel directly. So long as the two Gulf powers fought each other in the 1980s the dangers could be managed. The key was to ensure that neither side defeated the other decisively. n25 In practice, this imperative had the effect of removing virtually all restraint on international arms transfers to the combatants. n26 This distorted Middle East arms import patterns, creating a mid-1980s bulge in statistics that otherwise would have shown a consistent decline beginning much earlier. With the end of the Iran-Iraq War in August 1988, energies that the antagonists had focused on each other began to shift toward outsiders again. Iran's threat to regional stability has been widely debated. Its support for Hizbollah forces in Lebanon and its inexcusable delight in vicious rhetoric have created a fearsome image. The substance behind the language is more obscure. The purchase of advanced Kilo-class submarines and a few squadrons of MiG-29s from Russia initially appeared to justify such concerns. Even if they did not make Iran an overnight superpower, they were seen as evidence that Tehran might  PAGE 122 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn have long-term ambitions. n27 Although Iran's goals for coming decades remain enigmatic, the nation is in no position to continue signing major arms deals. Only a decision to alter national priorities dramatically could make it possible for Iran to emerge as a major military power. n28 Iran still has a long way to go before its forces approach the strength of those it inherited from the shah in 1979. Even in defeat, Iraq retains considerable superiority over its old enemy. Geography and its own growing strength help ensure that Saudi Arabia can also defend itself against an Iranian attack. n29 Although Iran's ballistic missile capabilities have grown substantially, its nuclear capability remains nascent -- even after it signed a deal with Moscow for light-water reactors -- expressing distant intentions that must be taken seriously but have little effect on contemporary strategic planning. n30 Iraq Iraq remains the strongest land power in the Gulf region, but Saddam Hussein's threats increasingly rely more on his personal unpredictability than his military resources. With one of the largest armed forces in the Middle East -- even after Allied attacks and UN disassembly of much of its remaining infrastructure -- Iraq can still be worrisome. But deprived of supplies, spares, and foreign assistance, Iraq's conventional forces pose no serious danger to its neighbors, provided the latter have enough warning to mobilize. The near-certainty of U.S. intervention reduces the threat even further. Iraq will inevitably grow weaker during the next decade compared to its neighbors. The armaments binge among moderate Gulf regimes that followed the 1991 war will show results by the end of the century. The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) may still lack personnel and confidence, but the Gulf military balance seems more reliable than ever. Even Iran can acquire new military hardware with greater ease than Iraq. UN inspections under Security Council resolution 715 will make it impossible for Iraq to resume development of nonconventional armaments at the same pace as before, although this avenue remains its most likely hope for military influence. Saudi Arabia and the GCC Countries The scale of arms contracts signed by the moderate regimes of the GCC between 1991 and 1993 aroused concern that a new arms race was being created. Every GCC government bought state-of-the-art aircraft and armored vehicles. Several also purchased highly advanced equipment like military communications gear and air defense and antisubmarine systems. By the year 2000 Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf sheikhdoms will have some of the best quality equipment in the world. All that is missing is quantity. No country can afford an indefinite military buildup, even Arab oil sheikhdoms. The arms race that some feared would emerge out the trauma of the 1991 Persian Gulf War proved to be a two-year buying binge. Instead of going on uncontrollably, it ended almost as suddenly as it began. In effect Saddam Hussein, through his excesses, accelerated the normal modernization cycle of his GCC neighbors by a decade or more. As this procurement cycle was completed in 1993, its total dimensions became evident. Rather than expanding their armed forces, the GCC countries have created segmented military establishments, divided between a well-armed and trained nucleus and less impressive reserve and militia units. New equipment is going almost exclusively into modernization of existing units, not creation of new ones.  PAGE 123 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn Saudi Arabia and the other moderate Gulf countries have not gained the ability to attack Israel or more distant adversaries. Rather their acquisitions will enable them to defend their own territories more effectively, hopefully slowing an attack long enough for an international response to assemble. The gradual relaxation of tensions after Saddam Hussein's defeat is perhaps the strongest evidence that governments throughout the region are bent on nothing so much as preservation of the status quo. It is revealing that after completing a series of arms purchases that logically might have raised their self-confidence to an all-time high, Saudi leaders chose not to confront Israel, but to initiate steps toward political accommodation. n31 It is through measures like this that states show the real degree of their security. Israel Another sign of this security is Israel's new confidence. The end of the 1991 war did not occasion an Israeli military investment program comparable to those that followed previous wars. Despite the fact that Israel's economy is healthier than it has been in more than a decade, growing by over 5 percent a year in the mid-1990s, defense is being cut. A few critical projects continue such as the Merkava tank, Eilatclass corvettes, and the Arrow missile interceptor. Otherwise domestic defense industries are being closed or streamlined. n32 The military itself has been reoriented to devote greater resources to domestic security and terrorism, a shift to 1ow-tech operations that the Ministry of Defense expects to maintain for many years to come. n33 Like other regional actors, Israel deliberately avoided being drawn into a new arms competition. Its leaders remain deeply suspicious of countries like Iraq but show no interest in expanding their armed forces in response. n34 Instead of building it up, Israeli leaders seek to trim defense where possible while preserving existing military capabilities. In this respect Israeli armaments policy is no different from that of any West European country. The clearest example came after President George Bush announced the sale of 72 F-15X fighters and several hundred missiles to Saudi Arabia in September 1992. The deal, worth $ 9 billion, was criticized for destabilizing the regional balance. n35 Yet the country potentially most threatened barely reacted. Instead of demanding a huge package of comparable weaponry in compensation, as it had always done in the past, Israel allowed its previous procurement planning to stand unmodified. Instead of seeking new arms, Israel used the Saudi deal to force action on a long-sought U.S. commitment to share intelligence, something of far greater strategic importance than additional hardware. n36 Reinforcing Regional Peace The greatest weakness in the declining salience of conventional armaments in the Middle East is that the process is not based on any concept of self-restraint, let alone charity toward one's neighbors. Rather it is based exclusively on narrow self-interest, on perceptions of declining threats and ambitions, coupled with economic pressures. For a few countries -- especially Iran, Iraq, and Libya -- the hesitancy of foreign suppliers is also a serious barrier to greater procurement. Despite the strength of recent trends, there is every reason to suspect that if the economics were less pressing and foreign arms more easily available, some countries would be expanding their forces again, albeit at a slower rate than before. Without a comprehensive peace no regional arms slowdown can be sufficient for long-term confidence. Efforts to promote regional amity and arms control  PAGE 124 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn remain as important as before. The range of Middle East armscontrol and confidence-building proposals is very broad. n37 Good ideas have accumulated in a way typical of a field in which such proposals have been advanced for years without success. The impact of formal peace politics has been especially disappointing. The Camp David accords did nothing to mitigate military preparations, nor did the 1993-94 agreements between Israel and the PLO. The 1994 Israeli-Jordanian agreements came at the end, not the beginning, of a long process of informal decscalation. All three sets of agreements are of singular importance, if not because of their role in ending old arms races, then because of the future arms races they may prevent. Syria continues to distance itself from similar agreements, pending the return of the Golan Heights. The Madrid process, which it was hoped would advance military transparency and offer a basis for regional arms control, foundered on this issue. The minimal arms talks organized under the Madrid process's Arms Control and Security Working Group (ACRS) have not been completely unproductive, but the process has also been counterproductive. n38 Syria's refusal to participate, along with the non-participation of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, undermined the credibility of these talks and highlighted the extent of regional differences. Having spurned the ACRS forum, the governments of these countries will not be able to join it without sacrificing their domestic credibility and international dignity. Unless these governments are replaced with more accommodating ones, or another, unforeseen revolution alters the regional security equation, it will not be possible to reinvigorate the current dialogue. If and when a regional agreement becomes feasible, a completely different forum will be necessary. The outlook for confidence-building has been damaged further by the excessive politicization of confidence- and security-building measures. The need to score political points encourages Arab governments to present maximum proposals emphasizing Israeli nuclear transparency and disarmament. n39 They contend that Israel's nuclear forces must be brought into a comprehensive system for long-term security. Insisting on this as the first and primary goal of regional arms control eliminates possibilities for cooperation on conventional forces that would do more to enhance Middle East security today. There is more to be gained by building on the processes already restraining conventional forces than by trying as a first step to encompass the region's most contentious armaments. A variety of confidence-building and arms limitation proposals have been advanced in initiatives such as those proposed by Presidents Bush and Francois Mitterrand in 1991, but all must wait on diplomatic breakthroughs, especially with Syria, and changes in domestic priorities in other Arab countries. Meanwhile, it may be easier to organize a new forum among arms suppliers to coordinate and reduce transfers. The previous effort -- the dialogue initiated in 1991 by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- agreed on nothing but banal generalities before collapsing in 1992. Although similar discussions can be started again, competitive pressures make it unlikely that supplier restraint will achieve much without direct support from recipient countries as well. n40 The arms trade cannot be stopped by good intentions. Control requires the harnessing of the same political forces that make other forms of regional arms control so difficult to achieve. Throughout the foreseeable future, Middle East arms restraint will rely more on domestic factors and informal traderstandings than formal international agreements. This undoubtedly is an enormous improvement over the uninhibited  PAGE 125 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn competition of the past. But it is a weak basis for long-term stability. In lieu of formal agreements, the greatest danger will come from forces outside the balance of conventional arms. It is these factors that will be of the greatest importance to regional security. Unconventional Weapons: A New Regional Arms Race? The competition in conventional weaponry may have abated, but few countries in the Middle East have shown a comparable willingness to reduce their nonconventional weapons programs and some have clearly shifted priorities in that direction. Has a competition in weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles risen to replace the stymied quest for conventional superiority? If so, does this rising competition threaten to undermine the stability that has emerged in the conventional area? The threat of nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missiles has been part of the Middle East security framework since the late 1950s. Starting with Israel's decision to acquire nuclear weapons after the massive Soviet-Egyptian arms deal of 1956, weapons of mass destruction were originally seen in the Middle East as a remedy for weakness in conventional arms. n41 Similarly, during the long war with Iran, Iraq developed chemical weapons in an attempt to circumvent battlefield stalemate. Syria's chemical weapons program and its efforts to acquire long-range ballistic missiles both accelerated in 1986, the year Damascus apparently abandoned efforts to achieve parity with Israel in conventional forces. n42 For countries lumbered with increasingly dubious conventional forces, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles offer a partial exception to the seeming immutability of the strategic status quo. They are the clearest military alternative to conventional forces, virtually the only path left for acquiring useful power. For the most antagonistic Middle East regimes the goal of defeating Israel may be as elusive as ever, but through nonconventional armaments they can aspire to retain some degree of direct influence over Israel's freedom to use its own forces. The lessons of Iraq's missile attacks on Tehran in 1988 and Tel Aviv in 1991 have not been overlooked. Unconventional weapons may not be sufficient for victory, but they may be enough to tip the scales of conflict, breaking stalemates or preventing utter defeat. Competition in unconventional weapons is suppressed by the patchwork system of treaties and export control regimes. All have become stronger since the discovery in 1991 of Iraq's covert progress. Membership in all these regimes has grown dramatically, restrictions are tighter, and enforcement is far more aggressive. But all face threats from evasive states and profit-minded exporters. Of these regimes, the nuclear regime is the strongest and yet the most fragile. Impressive barriers have been erected to halt the further spread of nuclear weapons, but if only one additional Middle East country acquires a single bomb, the credibility of the entire effort will be gravely damaged. The Arab countries and Iran are increasingly vocal in their discontent with Israel's nuclear status, as seen in the tortuous politics of indefinitely extending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in April-May 1995, but few are seriously interested in acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. Although it leads Arab protests against Israeli nuclear capabilities, Egypt long ago lost interest in acquiring a nuclear option. n43 Syria never assembled the technical resources. Others, like Saudi Arabia, toyed with the possibility but were never seriously  PAGE 126 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn interested. The few that remain interested, like Iran and Libya, have had little luck, although foreign technical assistance or illegally acquired fissionable materials could change that. The situation regarding chemical and biological weapons is much less stable. These weapons are difficult to use and their effects are difficult to predict, but they have become the strategic weapon of choice for several Middle East governments. To be sure, several governments have signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, agreeing to its intrusive inspection requirements, but none of those directly face Israel. Although Iraq's large chemical stockpile has been destroyed by the UN Special Commission on Iraq, its biological weapons infrastructure is thought to remain intact. Other countries, including Iran, Libya, and Syria, are widely believed to maintain comparable stocks of chemical agents and to continue to develop their chemical warfare potential. n44 The long-range missile situation probably is the most delicate of the three. In contrast to other unconventional weaponry, there is no international norm to inhibit the spread of ballistic and cruise missiles. Nor are there barriers to their use. Since 1973, ballistic missiles have been fired in anger nine times; all but two of those occasions were in the Middle East (the exceptions were in Afghanistan and Bosnia). n45 Although Saddam Hussein apparently thought it wiser not to use his chemical arsenal in 1991, he felt no such inhibitions about unleashing his SCUD force. Future regional conflicts will almost certainly be punctuated by long-range missile attacks. The Missile Technology Control Regime has gained members and strength, but SCUD technology is already ubiquitous throughout the region and cruise missile technology may soon become equally available. n46 Virtually every country in the region that wants one now has a missile force. The number of SCUDs transferred to the Middle East by the Soviet Union alone is very large. Iraq is known to have received over 800, and the total number in the inventories of other Arab states could surpass 2,000. n47 Since the late 1980s most suppliers have left the field. Today North Korea is the preeminent supplier, having delivered at least 500 to 700 of its SCUD versions. If Pyongyang does not change its export policy, there is a serious danger that its clients in the region could acquire missiles like the Nodong-1, with a range of 1,000 km, as well as more powerful rockets still in development. n48 Can Unconventional Weapons Destabilize the Conventional Balance? Despite the genuine successes of nonproliferation treaties and export control agreements, greater competition in weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles remains likely. Whether this competition can undermine the region's conventional stability is far less certain. Nonconventional forces are developed for very different reasons from conventional ones and serve very different goals. n49 They have greater implications for the region's enduring political conflicts than for its diminishing military confrontation. These weapons may have been sought as a substitute for conventional power or a last redoubt in case of its failure, but there are clearly limits to their substitutability. When armed with high explosives, long-range missiles can be used as super artillery, but when carrying other armaments their role changes dramatically. More generally, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are most effective as instruments of deterrence in time of peace, while conventional forces remain the basic tools of actual fighting in time of war. Just as in Europe and between the superpowers, the two kinds of armament have become  PAGE 127 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn progressively more detached over the years. The importance of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East rose as the salience of conventional weapons waned, but the relationship between the two has since lost its flexibility. The day when one could substitute for the other appears to have passed. The logic that has been apparent since the birth of the nuclear era, which was first understood in terms of the superpower relationship and the situation in Europe, now seems increasingly appreciated in the Middle East as well. Only under the most peculiar of circumstances can unconventional armaments be used to conquer territory. They are poorly suited to defeating a standing army in the field. This is true even of chemical weapons, which are most effective when used on unprotected civilians. Weapons of mass destruction are overwhelmingly political instruments. In Europe and among the superpowers this was understood to mean deterrence of a potential attacker in times of peace and inhibiting escalation in times of war. The same rule applies in the Middle East, albeit with important differences. As Saddam Hussein's attacks on Israel in 1991 demonstrated, in the Middle East the list of political missions can include deliberate escalation of a conflict as well. Although conventional forces tend to grow or shrink in response to changing domestic priorities and the logic of the status quo, unconventional forces develop through a more independent process. There is a strong consensus that the only way to bring about reductions in their spread will be through verifiable arms-control agreements, probably beginning with confidence-building measures and progressing toward negotiated caps and reduction. n50 Some, however, argue that the only hope for control is through global measures to reduce the salience of these weapons. n51 Whereas the Middle East arms race was once seen as a single phenomenon requiring overarching solutions, there is now a widening split between the outlook for conventional and unconventional weapons. Solving the Middle East's nuclear quandary will be far more difficult than the resolution of its conventional arms race. The unfortunate side of this schism is that progress toward conventional stability may create little if any momentum for control over weapons of mass destruction. The fortunate side is that the possible worsening of the nuclear, chemical, and biological or missile confrontation probably will not weaken the underlying conventional stability. The New Link: Terrorism and Arms Races A greater danger of destabilization comes from the threat of terrorism and fundamentalist violence. Their rise poses a direct threat to safety, but this is not, except in the most extreme circumstances, a threat that can be met with military means. The exceptions, however, are of such importance as to require serious and searching consideration. Although terrorist violence itself does not justify procurement of advanced major weapons, the danger that extremists might acquire weapons of mass destruction cannot be dismissed, nor can the potential for destabilization. Should fundamentalists take power in the Arab world as they have in Iran, the possibility of renewed conventional escalation would be very difficult to control. The rising importance of terrorism and fundamentalist violence reflects not only their growing deadliness, but also their changing political nature, which makes them more difficult to deal with. The most serious terrorist groups of  PAGE 128 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn the 1970s and 1980s -- the Red Army Faction, the Irish Republican Army, the PLO, or Hizbollah -- relied on foreign state support; their deadliness waxed and waned with the favor of their foreign sponsors. n52 Through its reliance on foreign support, terrorism became in effect an instrument of covert government policy, a way for smaller powers like Bulgaria, East Germany, Libya, or revolutionary Iran to assert themselves indirectly. As long as terrorism was directly related to state policy, its dangers could be addressed by going to the state sponsors. Whether or not Washington could track down the bombers of the la Bell Disco in Berlin in 1986, for example, an air strike could be mounted against Libya. Similarly the international community could react to the Lockcrbie bombing by applying UN sanctions to Libya even without knowing the exact identity of the bombers. Regardless of whether the West could strike at terrorist factions based in Damascus, it could deal with Syrian authorities. When France apprehended the terrorist leader Carlos in August 1994, it reportedly was with the direct assistance of Sudanese (and probably Syrian) officials. The capture of Carlos was widely acknowledged as a climactic event of another era. The end of the Cold War brought an end to the sponsoring of terrorism by states of Eastern Europe and convinced most others to abandon the business. Today's most demanding security dangers come not from states or their proxy cells. Fundamentalists like the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or Hamas in Israel do not rely on the support of state sponsors. They gladly accept cash and arms from Iran, Iraq, or other patrons, but their most important support comes from wellorganized individual supporters. Having evolved beyond state sponsorship, terrorism has shed its critical vulnerability, rendering the most important instruments of anti-terrorist policy all but irrelevant. n53 The 30,000 deaths in Algeria since 1990 leave no doubt that the toll from the activity of terrorist groups can rival the destruction caused by orthodox state-against-state warfare. And the erosion of public confidence is no less palpable. The made-for-television gruesomeness of even relatively small terrorist attacks creates a special burden by convincing people that their government cannot defend their lives, stripping the state of a key element of its legitimacy. The danger of ungovernability must not be underestimated, but it is not the same as facing hostile armies directly across your borders. It is not a problem that justifies major military buildups, if only because extremists -- in and of themselves -- do not pose a conventional military threat. For extremists to undermine the basic elements of regional stability, they must either take control of governments and national armies or acquire weapons of mass destruction. The latter scenario is the source of widespread fear. One need look no further than best-selling novels, in which the theme of nuclear-armed terrorists long ago became common enough to bore anyone not addicted to the genre. n54 Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community and the ex-Soviet states have taken several steps to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of substate actors. After the Russian plutonium smuggling scares of July and August 1994, action to control fissile materials also became more coordinated. Yet the possibility that nuclear weapons may reach a subnational group remains serious.  PAGE 129 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn Other weapons could be harder to control. The possibility that terrorists will threaten to use biological agents is especially realistic and troubling, as the use of Sarin bombs in the Tokyo subways showed. Even so, this is a danger that cannot be addressed directly through full-scale warfare, rather it must be fought with discrete uses of force. Renewed large-scale military confrontation could still result, but only through more direct paths. Although the threat of a Muslim Brotherhood bomb, for example, would not justify a massive Israeli arms buildup, it could provoke uncontrollable tensions that would compel leaders on all sides into a new arms race. Aside from detonating a nuclear bomb over a major city, the greatest danger that extremists pose is the possibility of igniting a crisis like that of July 1914. By threatening to use weapons of mass destruction, they could compel governments to take extreme measures. The Middle East is accustomed to Israeli strikes against extremists like Hizbollah in Lebanon, usually in response to relatively limited attacks on Israelis. But Lebanon is weak, virtually a regional punching bag, unable to respond in any effective manner. If confronted by nuclear or biological threats from terrorists based in a stronger state like Egypt or Iran, Israel undoubtedly would feel compelled to threaten much more forceful action. In this scenario, however, the host state -- much stronger than Lebanon -- might feel equally compelled to react. However intended, the use or threat of force against extremists based in a neighboring state could provoke a cycle of arming and counterarming, starting a new arms race and possibly outright warfare. Conclusion Although the Middle East conventional arms race may not be completely over, this powerful engine of regional instability is not the threat it once was. With increasing acceptance of the region's geopolitical status quo and changing domestic priorities, the intensity of the Middle East race for superiority in conventional weaponry has diminished greatly. In and of itself, this is not a sufficient basis for regional peace, but it should encourage those who believe that regional security can be strengthened. It may be premature to speak of the end of the Middle East arms race, but a new watershed in regional security affairs has been reached. The transformation remains informal and incomplete; it lacks the reinforcement of international commitments and treaties, and it still does not fully embrace nuclear, chemical, and other weapons technologies. Despite its shortcomings and limitations, the process has proved surprisingly durable. Gradual and inconspicuous rather than sudden and dramatic, it has acquired a momentum of its own with clear consequences for regional stability. The decline of the Middle East arms race may not be easy to see, but its effects are increasingly obvious. As the danger of interstate war recedes and military preparations cease to be of overwhelming importance in relations between states, the Middle East becomes increasingly like other regions of the world. A comprehensive peace of the kind described in innumerable speeches at the UN may not be close at hand, but important aspects of it are being established piecemeal. Above all, fewer countries of the region pose a direct danger to the military security of their neighbors. Even if this is not the peace the world has long sought, it is one with which the world can long live. Four major consequences follow from this transformation. The first concerns the international trade in military technology. The trade in conventional  PAGE 130 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn weapons is less dangerous than previously thought. Individual arms deals -- even large ones like the Saudi Arabian F-15 deal -- pose little threat. The chief danger of conventional arms would come from a large and sustained series of transfers that would permit not just modernization but outright expansion. The most destabilizing technologies are those directly related to weapons of mass destruction or long-range missiles. Although they may not undermine the stability of the conventional balance, their own potential must not be underestimated. The second consequence concerns the outlook for Middle East confidence-building and arms control, which is now much better than ever before. Although the conventional confrontation has been ameliorated informally, formal agreements still have a vital role to play, reinforcing and institutionalizing the stability so felicitously achieved. The key to successful negotiations will be trimming expectations, shifting from the long-term goal of general regional disarmament to focus more on closer objectives, and stressing more modest but still vital mechanisms that control conventional forces. The third consequence is that, as in other regions, the most serious threats to international stability come not from the excesses of demonic leaders and rogue states but from the collapse of power in otherwise normal countries. Efforts by substate actors to take power or carve out sovereignties of their own are as destabilizing in the long term as official government revanchism. In a world increasingly divided between strong states and ineffectual ones, groups acting beyond the authority of any government are emerging as the dominant source of havoc. A fourth consequence is that regional armed forces must be reoriented to meet this new threat. Instead of orthodox large-scale conventional military operations, the new threat of terrorism and fundamentalist violence calls for small-scale operations by special forces. In the Middle East as elsewhere, Napoleonic mass armies are increasingly irrelevant, preserved more out of respect for aging memories than for day-to-day utility. In the Middle East as elsewhere, the armies of the future will tend to be small, highly trained forces designed to deal with specific contingencies. Such forces pose a minimal threat to neighboring states, while they have a greater ability to deal with the thorny challenges of terrorism and fundamentalist violence. The immediate goal of the international community should be to encourage this trend through arms-control initiatives, diplomacy, and aid. This essay is based on a chapter prepared for M. Ehsan Ahrari, ed., Continuity and Change in the Middle East: Conflict Resolution and Prospects for Peace (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, forthcoming). Notes 1. This debate was anticipated in Paul Johnson's Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Nineties, rev. ed. (New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 696-704, 750-768. Also see the symposium on "The Strange Death of Soviet Communism," in National Interest, no. 33 (Spring 1993). 2. John Lewis Gaddis, "International Relations Theory and the End of the Culd War," International Seeurity 17 (Winter 1992/93), pp. 5-57. 3. Colin S. Gray, House of Cards: Why Arms Control Must Fail (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992). 4. Julian Ozanne and Roger Matthews, "Ploughed Back into Swords," Financial Times, September 9, 1994, p. 13.  PAGE 131 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn 5. Michael Eisenstadt, Arming for Peace? Syria's Elusive Quest for Strategic Parity, Policy Paper no. 31 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Near East Policy, 1992), and Gerald M. Steinberg, "Middle East Arms Control and Regional Security," Survival 36 (Spring 1994), pp. 129-130. 6. It has been argued that even in the Middle East, high military spending is not economically sustainable over time. See, for example, Yahya M. Sadowski, Scuds or Butter? The Political Economy of Arms Control in the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993). In practice, however, economic pressure rarely reduces military spending unless the political causes of a conflict have been minimized first. 7. John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 1989). Whether Mueller's hypothesis applies to regions other than Europe and North America is the subject of lively debate. See Akhtar Majeed, "Has the War System Really Become Obsolete?" Bulletin of Peace Proposals 21 (December 1991), pp. 321-328, and Mueller, ". . . A Response to Akhtar Majeed," Bulletin of Peace Proposals 23 (March 1992), pp. 103-107. 8. On the great plasticity of defense spending, see Saadet Deger and Somnath Sen, Military Expenditure: The Political Economy, of International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 3-8. 9. Glen Frankel, Beyond the Promised Land: Jews and Arabs on the Hard Road to a New Israel (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1994). 10. In the early 1980s Western observers began to express concern that Jordan was becoming too weak to defend itself against Palestinian or Syrian intervention. See Anthony H. Cordesman, Jordanian Arms and the Middle East Balance (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1983). 11. Philip Finnegan, "Jordan Cuts Armed Forces; Plans to Sell Off Aircraft," Defense News, November 25, 1991, p. 1. 12. "Jordanian F-5s to Singapore," Military and Arms Transfer News 94 (December 2, 1994), p. 5. 13. Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile: The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship since the June War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), especially chap. 6, "The End of Illusion." 14. John Laffin, The War of Desperation: Lebanon 1982-85 (London: Osprey, 1985), pp. 119-121. 15. Efraim Karsh, "The Rise and Fall of Syria's Quest for Strategic Parity," RUSI and Brassey's Defence Yearbook 1991 (London: Brassey's, 1991), pp. 197-215. 16. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1994-1995 (London: Brassey's for the IISS, 1994), pp. 123, 140. 17. Craig Mellow, "Saber-Rattling Helps Russia Ring up Arms Sales," International Herald Tribune, December 19, 1994, p. 9. 18. Geoffrey Kemp, "Impact of the Gulf War on Attitudes Toward Advanced Weaponry" (presentation at a conference sponsored by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Geneva, February 14-15, 1994). 19. Roger Matthews, "A Crisis of Leadership," Financial Times, December 21, 1994, p. 13; "Syria in 'Secret' Talks with Israel," Financial Times, December 23, 1994, p. 4; "Father Figure," Economist, January 7, 1995, pp. 33-34; and James Bruce, "Syria's Inner Circle's Reshuffle," Jane's Defence Weekly, September 17, 1994, p. 27, and "Assad Sanitizes Agencies to Prepare for Peace Deal," Jane's Defence Weekly, November 26, 1994, p. 13. 20. A similar point is made by Saleh Al-Mani, "Conventional Weapons and Arms Transfers in the Middle East," in Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, ed., Conference of Research Institutes in the Middle East (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1994), pp. 58-59. 21. Keith Krause, "Middle East Arms Recipients in the Post-Cold War World,"  PAGE 132 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn Annals of the American Academy of Politital and Socialscience 535 (September 1994), pp. 73-90. 22. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the last Libyan order of major weapon systems was a 1988 contract with Moscow for 15 SU-24 bombers. SIPRI Yearbook 1991 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 262. According to the IISS, though, the order was apparently canceled after only 6 of the aircraft had been received. IISS, The Military Balance 1994-1995, p. 145. 23. Security Council resolution 748 of March 31, 1992. The resolution's impact is discussed in Paul Lewis, "U.N. Tightens Sanctions against Libya," New York Times, November 12, 1993, p. A-10. 24. W. Andrew Terrill, "Libya and the Quest for Chemical Weapons," Conflict Quarterly 14 (Winter 1994), pp. 47-61. 25. Stephen C. Pelletiere, The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), and Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (London: Paladin, 1990), chap. 3. 26. European support for Iraq was unambiguous from the start of the war. See Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq (London: Fourth Estate, 1992). The strength of U.S. support for Saddam Hussein is more obscure. An extreme position is developed by Alan Friedman, Spider's Web: Bush, Saddam, Thatcher and the Decade of Deceit (London: Faber and Faber, 1993). 27. R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, testimony before the U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, February 24, 1993. 28. James W. Moore, "An Assessment of the Iranian Military Rearmament Program," Comparative Strategy 13 (Fall 1994), pp. 371 -- 389, and Elaine Sciolino, "Iran's Difficulties Lead Some in U.S. to Doubt Threat," New York Times, July 5, 1994, p. A-I. 29. Shahram Chubin, Iran's National Security Policy (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1994), pp. 29-38. 30. Iranian efforts to buy reactors and enrichment technology have caused alarm. See, for example, Chris Hedges, "Iran May Be Able to Build an Atomic Bomb in 5 Years, U.S.and Israeli Officials Fear," New York Times, January 5, 1995, p. A-10. The reactors' light-water design, however, does not offer a practical basis for nuclear weapons production. See the repudiation of the Hedges article in Clyde Haberman, "U.S. and Israel See Iranians 'Many Years' from A-Bomb," New York Times, January 10, 1995, p. A-3. A balanced assessment is Shahram Chubin, "Does Iran Want Nuclear Weapons?" Survival 37 (Spring 1995), pp. 86-104. 31. Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Muslims Argue the Theology of Peace with Israel," New York Times, January 31, 1995, p. A-9. 32. Julian Ozanne, "Economic Policy Splits Israeli Cabinet," Financial Times, January 18, 1995, p. 4. Israeli Military Industries (IMI), for example, is cutting employment from 21,000 in the mid-1980s to 3,000 in 1995. Eric Silver, "Israel Aims to Cut 5,000 Defence Jobs," Financial Times, January 6, 1995, p. 3. 33. Stuart A. Cohen, "How Did the Intifada Affect the IDF?" Conflict Quarterly 14 (Summer 1994), pp. 7-22, and Efraim Inbar, "Israel's Small War: The Military Response to the Intifada," Armed Forces and Society 18 (Fall 1991), pp. 29-50. 34. Interview with Israel's Ministry of Defense director-general, David Ivry, in Jane's Defence Weekly, April 9, 1994, p. 32. 35. Natalie J. Goldring, testimony before the U.S. House, Subcommittee on Arms Control International Security and Science and the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the House's Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C., September 23, 1992, and William D. Harttmg, And Weapons for All (New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins, 1994), pp. 276-281. 36. Barbara Start, "Israel Will Get Early Warning Downlink," Jane's Defence  PAGE 133 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn Weekly, February 13, 1993, p. 5. Two years after the Saudi F-15 Israel did purchase 20 additional F-15Es, but this had no direct connection to events in Saudi Arabia; the deal fulfilled a requirement established several years earlier to replace aging F4 Phantoms. It was a classic example of force modernization, not expansion. 37. Useful introductions to this large literature are Avi Becker, ed., Arms Control Without Glasnost: Building Confidence in the Middle East (Jerusalem: Israel Council on Foreign Relations, 1993); Efraim Inbar, ed., Regional Security Regimes, Israel and Its Neighbors (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1995); and Alan Platt, ed., Arms Control and Confidence Building, in the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1992). 38. The most tangible accomplishment is an agreement to establish a network of Middle East Conflict Prevention Centers in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan with a coordination center in The Hague to share information on troop movements and exercises. Caroline Faraj, "Mideast States Get Security Centers," Defense News, February 20, 1995, p. 16. 39. Mounir Zahran, "Strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime," UNIDIR Newsletter, no. 26/27 (June-September 1994), pp. 16-18, and Chris Hedges, "Dispute over Nuclear Treaty Is Souring Relations between Israel and Egypt," New York Times, February 24, 1995, p. A-8. 40. David Mussington, "Understanding Contemporary International Arms Transfers," Adelphi Paper 291 (London: Brassey's for IISS, September 1994). 41. Avner Cohen, "Stumbling into Opacity: The United States, Israel, and the Atom, 1960-63," Secuity Studies 4 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 195-241. 42. Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "Syria's Acquisition of North Korean 'Scuds,'" Jane's Intelligence Review, June 1991, p. 250. 43. Shyam Bhatia, Nuclear Rivals in the Middle East (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1988), pp. 47-63. 44. Philip Shenon, "Libya Expels Thais in Chemical Weapons Dispute," New York Times, November 10, 1993, p. A-14, and Daniel Pipes, "Trust Assad? Not yet," New York Times, January 18, 1994, p. A-22. 45. Aaron Karp, Ballistic Missile Proliferation: The Politics and Technics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 4446. 46. On the latter point, see W. Seth Carus, Cruise Missile Proliferation in the 1990s, Washington Paper 159 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1992), and K. Scott McMahan and Dennis M. Gormley, Controlling the Spread of Land-Attack Cruise Missiles (Marina del Rey, Calif.: American Institute for Strategic Cooperation, January 1995). 47. Aaron Karp, "Ballistic Missiles in the Middle East: Realities, Omens and Arms Control Options," Contemporary Security Policy 16 (April 1995), pp. 111-129. 48. The latter are described in David Wright and Timur Kadyshev, "The North Korean Missile Program: How Advanced Is It?" Arms Control Today 24 (April 1994), pp. 9-12. 49. This conclusion is shared even among analysts with opposite views of the dangers of nuclear proliferation in the region. See Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 32-52, and Yair Evron, Israel's Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), especially chap. 2. 50. Efraim Karsh and Yezid Sayigh, "A Cooperative Approach to Arab-Israeli Security," Survival 36 (Spring 1994), pp. 114-125. 51. See Elisa D. Harris, "Towards a Comprehensive Strategy for Halting Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation," Arms Control 12 (September 1991), and Geoffrey Kemp, "The Middle East Arms Race: Can It Be Controlled?" Middle East Journal 45 (Summer 1991).  PAGE 134 The Washington Quarterly 1995 Autumn 52. Max G. Manwaring, ed., Uncomfortable Wars: Toward a New Paradigm of Low Intensity Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), pp. 20-24, and Edward E. Rice, Wars of the Third Kind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), especially chap. 4. 53. On a specific case, see Claire Spencer, "Algeria in Crisis," Survival 36 (Summer 1994), pp. 149-163. More generally, see J. E Holden-Rhodes and Peter A. Lupsha, "Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Gray Area Phenomena and the New World Disorder," Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement 2 (Autumn 1993), pp. 212-226. 54. A formal statement of the novelists' favorite theme is Tom Clancey and Russell Seitz, "Five Minutes Past Midnight," National Interest, no. 26 (Winter 1991), pp. 3-14. GRAPHIC: Picture, no caption LOAD-DATE: September 13, 1995  PAGE 135