The Arms Race In The Middle East

This edited volume discusses security policy and strategic policymaking in the Middle East region. Due to its unique geopolitical, geoeconomic and geostrategic features, the Middle East region has been confronted with challenging security issues. Combined with a lack of an efficient regional security regime this has led to the formation of a full-fledged arms race. This book draws together contributions from international experts to address the factors that have been contributing to the ongoing formation of an arms race in the Middle East as well as the impact of this phenomenon on the regional and global security environment. The book is organized in three sections. The first section outlines the contemporary dynamics of the arms race in the Middle East by focusing on its most recent dynamics and their implications for regional and international security. The second section conducts systematic analysis of case studies of country-specific drivers of the arms race. The third and final section examines the role of external actors in the arms race, evaluating both the responses of regional actors to external interventions as well as the implications of the arms race for extra-regional countries.

The Gulf War has highlighted the dangers of the Middle East arms race. Unless measures are taken to control further weapons proliferation, a new arms race, and possibly another war are likely. Recognizing this danger, President Bush has made arms control one of his key policy priorities for the region.

This volume incorporates the talks delivered at a conference on 11 Arms Control and the New Middle East Security Environment, 11 held in Ginosar (Israel) in January 1992. The conference was organized within the framework of the Project on Security and Arms Control in the Middle East conducted by Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Some 28 scholars from eight different countries, together with some 30 Israelis, took part in the conference deliberations.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Middle East has been the focus of various projects for the establishment of arms control (including CBMs) regimes. Whereas some of these projects were initiated at the global level, others were discussed and debated at the regional level. This book analyses the global and regional dynamics of arms control in the Middle East in the post-Cold War era. It examines American and European arms control projects, the contexts in which they were presented, the reactions of major regional actors, and their impacts on arms control efforts in the region. It assesses Arab perceptions of the motivations for and constraints on establishing arms control regimes. It also explores the prospects of regional arms control in the context of the ongoing Arab Spring with its ramifications for Arab regional politics, and provides a new perspective on arms control in the Middle East. This volume enriches the ongoing discourse, which to date has been dominated by mainly Western perspectives.