The Arms Race in the Middle East

While the academic interest in the arms race as a research theme has steadily diminished since the collapse of the bipolar world order, the arms race in the Middle East has continuously been in the center of political and academic attention since the early 2000s. More recently, this interest was reinforced by the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 (Zunes, 2019) and the Middle Eastern states involvement in the war in Ukraine. Aiming at a better understanding of the dynamics that sustain the regional arms race, the present volume untangles its complexities in the Middle East, addressing it from the national, regional, and international perspectives.

One of the central issues in the Middle East is the security order in the Persian Gulf. Over the last decades, a number of critically important events such as Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988), the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1991 unfolding into a war, and the invasion of Iraq by the USA in 2003 have challenged the security policies and the engagement of the Western actors such as Britain and the USA with the countries in this international waterway. This chapter examines four ideal types of security orders and their relevance to the contemporary political and security dynamics in the Persian Gulf: the concert of powers of the Persian Gulf, the hegemonic stability order, the collective security order, and, finally, the balance of power. The contribution argues that the latter is the order that more precisely captures the contemporary evolution of the Persian Gulf and its most immediate evolution in the future.

This chapter investigates the changing nature of arms races in the Middle East and its implications for regional and international security. The author argues that the unpredictability of and costliness of direct confrontation have led the regional and trans-regional players to resort to hybrid deterrent strategies in tackling their perceived individual threat and preserving their geopolitical interests in the Middle East. In this type of deterrence, hardware power is still at the focus of countries’ defense policy, yet in order to lower the political, security, and economic costs of a direct conflict, they have merged hard military tools and soft means in an unconventional pattern and hybrid format to achieve their military-security, political, and even economic aims. In this respect, ethnic-religious characteristics, intrastate and interstate divisions, regional wars and crises, and the states’ specific geopolitical features have differentiated the conduct of hybrid deterrence strategy from one country to another. The author concludes that the unpredictable consequences and heavy costs of direct confrontation and the states’ increased confidence to tackle the perceived threats with hybrid deterrence have stayed away the region from a nuclear proliferation. Yet and as to Iran, any effort to restraint Iran’s conventional deterrent power by the West and its regional allies would be a strategic mistake, as it could direct the country toward further unconventional means of deterrence.

The utilization of semiautonomous weapons, such as drones, by state and non-state actors poses an unconventional threat to Middle Eastern states. In response, these states are investing in advancing their military capabilities by importing AI and cyber technologies and by producing their own. This chapter examines the geopolitical implications of the military technology race in the Middle East and the ethical and technological challenges/risks of acquiring, developing, and using such capabilities by Middle Eastern States. The chapter argues that this race is creating new geopolitical cooperation and competition dynamics, in addition to escalating proxy wars. Within the context of the Sino-American rivalry, most countries are shifting toward Chinese technology. Furthermore, states are cooperating with traditional adversaries to compete with their rising rivals. The lack of internationally accepted regulations and the tendency to delegate decision-making to machines are at the root of the ethical challenges associated with AI-based military technology and the attendant civilian casualties dismissed as collateral damage. Additionally, military application of AI is subject to cybersecurity challenges through algorithm/data manipulation cyberattacks and espionage, given states’ dependency on foreign expertise.

Based on an extensive analysis of open-source data and materials, this paper examines the emergence and evolution of Iran’s Mohajer-6 midrange surveillance and attack drone and other models within the context of the regional arms race involving this rapidly expanding technology. This paper argues that before the UN arms embargo against Iran expired in October 2020, the Islamic Republic used the Mohajer-6 and other drones for domestic counterinsurgency and exported them to predominantly quasi- or non-state partners and proxies in the Middle East. Before 2020, Iran witnessed how the drones of its regional rivals, namely, Turkey and the UAE, with first-mover advantage turned the tide of nearby conflicts in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Islamic Republic was also involved on the same or opposing side. Consequently and since 2021, Iran has been more active and assertive in the global military drone market, as evidenced by Tehran’s export of the Mohajer-6 to the Ethiopian government during the Tigray War (2020–present), alongside Ankara and Abu Dhabi. Like Turkey, Iran has on its own and through its rivals learned lessons of drone usage across conflicts rather than simply within them and has leveraged the technology to advance extra-regional foreign policy ambitions.

Advanced ballistic and cruise missiles have become a salient feature of the Middle Eastern security landscape. More regional states are either developing indigenous production capabilities or importing missiles than ever before, and their use has also become a frequent occurrence in regional conflicts. The chapter surveys the historical and contemporary missile landscape in the Middle East charting its evolution and trajectory and identifying some key region-wide trends. The chapter argues against adopting a deterministic approach that confines the region’s missile dynamics to an inescapable arms race based on unique regional features. Instead, it explores the multiple dimensions of the region’s approach to missiles through exploring variable drivers and changing historical phases as well as the impact of global patterns of diffusion whether of missile defense or offensive systems.

This chapter traces how both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia employed “sectarianism” as ideational weapons, along with accruing ever more conventional, material armaments. However, sectarianism is not a causal variable in the region’s ideological cold war. Rather, from the Islamic Republic’s perspective, the regional rivalries between it and Saudi Arabia are part of its constructed division of the Middle East into two political-ideological axes. The “resistance axis,” led by Iran, including Sunni Islamist groups, is opposed to the “US-Israeli international order” and the “compromise axis,” with Saudi Arabia at its core. The competition between these two axes and their reliance on militia groups in a proxy war constituted a cold war in the Middle East that began in 1979. This chapter, within this volume, examines how Iran’s reliance on its regional allies and militia client proxies has been a parallel dynamic in a continuous arms race between the Islamic Republic and the Saudi Kingdom.

This chapter examines how Israel contributes to the contemporary arms race in the Middle East. Facing security challenges posed by the Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) proposed a digitalization plan to empower itself with cutting-edge technologies. The vision was then materialized by Israel’s defense industry, which developed modern weaponry and equipment based on IDF’s needs. As the state-of-the-art systems enhanced Israel’s military superiority, they also disturbed the regional arms dynamic and balance of power. In response, Israel’s adversaries will attempt to narrow the technological gap and develop asymmetrical countermeasures, which again alters Israel’s security environment. The outcome is a vicious circle of a regional arms race. This mechanism is exemplified by Israel’s AI-powered arms development and its impact on the conventional and nuclear arms races in the region. What further distorts the arms dynamic is the military aid and arms exports of the USA to the region. In the foreseeable future, the Middle East is likely to witness an acceleration of arms races as emerging cutting-edge technologies are introduced by regional powers into the military domain as force multipliers.

The advent of technology breakthroughs in recent years particularly in machine learning approaches, the abundance of vast amounts of data, and the exponential growth in computing have provided various opportunities for states and non-state actors to be a part of the ongoing race for the development of cutting-edge weapon systems. Perhaps, recent developments in the Turkish defense sector have been the manifestation of a desire to take advantage of first mover advantages. This chapter argues that Turkish foreign policy has become militarized particularly in the wake of transition to the presidential system. Though this militarization period might be investigated through the concept of “strategic autonomy,” this chapter takes a neoclassical realist approach focusing on both internal and systemic factors which paved the way for robust Turkish UAV-making capacity and assertive Turkish foreign policy in different theaters.

For the six conservative Arab Gulf Monarchies that entered into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) alliance in 1981, insecurity and uncertainty dominated contemporary affairs, as regional tensions especially with Iran, Turkey, Yemen, and until recently both Iraq and Israel necessitated a serious arms race. This chapter proposes to discuss some of the key developments that mobilized GCC States militarily, including the War in Yemen against Houthi rebels and Iran’s hegemonic aspirations to control vulnerable states whose limited human capabilities required global assistance. It will also touch on the ongoing arms race with imports from Western powers as well as China, Russia, India, and the Koreas, among others. The paper will assess galloping military budgets and analyze whether significant expenditures were sufficient to meet various threats. Finally, an effort will be made to decipher whether the changing global order footprint—once driven by Cold War geopolitics and high Western demand for foreign oil and gas—will be redefined. The paper will close with an evaluation of lucrative arms sales from the sellers’ perspectives, whether buyers were getting their monies worth and if political reasons were leading to the emergence of indigenous military industries, especially in Saudi Arabia.

The chapter provides a contextual analysis of the evolution of the militarisation of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip between 1994 and 2021. The chapter examines the foundation, evolution, and institutionalisation of Palestinian armed forces within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with a specific focus on the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-aligned Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The evolution and institutionalisation of Palestinian armed forces is divided into three distinct phases: the Oslo era, the Second Intifada, and the ongoing divide between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank following the 2006 elections and subsequent armed schism in 2007. Through an examination of both primary and secondary sources, the chapter interrogates the roles of intra-regional dynamics, economic sources, political developments, and foreign influence vis-à-vis the ongoing militarisation, evolution, and institutionalisation of Palestinian armed actors.

Iraq’s unique position among the countries in the Middle East is to a large extent determined by its huge oil revenues as well as deep-seated internal cleavages exacerbated by the interference of external powers in Iraq’s domestic affairs. The present chapter aims to examine a threefold relationship between the policy of arms acquisition and development, rentier governance, and identity dynamics in Iraq. This perspective allows for a more fine-grained view on the pattern of Iraq’s acquisition and development as a result of changing interpretation of the prevailing threats following the emergence of ISIS post- 2013 and the ensuing vacuum of power after Saddam’s regime and previous motivations for the arms race. The contribution also demonstrates that in the last two decades, internal vulnerability has replaced external threats, and there is a need for Iraq to diversify weapons supply sources and avoid dependency on one supplier country. The contribution draws on documentary research and semi-structured expert interviews carried out by the author between 2016 and 2022, in Mousel and Soleimanieh (Iraq) and Tehran (Iran).

Yemen has been at war since 2014. But decades of conflict between the north and the south and the Sa’ada wars between 2004 and 2010 had already led to a heavy militarization of Yemen. With the Houthis nationwide expansion of power, the arms dynamics within the country changed significantly. The civil war internationalized into a proxy war between Sunni Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, and Iran, resulting in the armament of various local actors. However, due to the geostrategic and religious dimension of the war, local developments have also led to massive regional investments in military technology, further fueling the arms race. Internal power shifts and the war have led to a weaponization of key stakeholders (Yemeni Army, Houthis, Joint Forces, STC) by external actors (KSA, UAE, Iran). Developments in Yemen also had a huge impact on the armament of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which see Houthis’ territorial conquests as a threat to their own security; the war changed and increased their proliferation of military technology. For (Neo)realism, it seems puzzling that the drivers of the arms dynamic affecting the entire region are mainly found in the “black box” of Yemen – a finding that would appear puzzling to (Neo)realist International Relations approaches prioritizing the systemic-level explanations of state behavior and portraying arms buildup as a phenomenon driven primarily by states’ quest for security in an anarchic and threatening international environment.

The chapter analyzes US efforts to secure what it sees as its national interests in the Middle East through the lens of its arms exports policy. Affirming the importance of the Middle East in maintaining the US’ hegemonic ambitions, we argue that the sensitivity and importance of the region have pushed the USA to adopt a policy with a disproportionate emphasis on military aid and arms sales. While US security policy has been changing in recent years by reducing its direct military operations, it has been continuing large-scale arms transfers while seeking to limit the procurement of potentially dangerous weapons and weapons systems by adversaries. In this vein, it imposed strict sanctions over the development of military programs in some of the countries in the region while being the biggest weapons supplier for other countries. This chapter argues that US arms policy toward the Middle East, rather than contributing to stability in the region, has actually contributed to a dangerous arms race and increasing instability.

The present contribution locates the changing importance of Russia’s arms sales to the countries in the Middle East, while focusing on their initial association with Russia’s orientation on the West and the USA and a departure from this policy in the 1990s; their role as an instrument in the nuclear negotiations with Iran intertwined with Russia’s aspiration to assert itself as a “normal great power” the 2000s and 2010s; and their importance as an instrument of support of Russia’s search for “geopolitical relevance” and the intervention in Syria. The contribution finally argues that the war in Ukraine has been challenging Russia’s position as an arms exporter and a key external actor in the Middle East.

China's role as an arms exporter to the Middle East has received little academic attention and its connection to the region's growing arms race and security dynamics remains to a large extent overlooked. Beijing is regarded as a newcomer to the Middle East arms market, and despite being the fourth exporter, China’s share was too small until the early 1980s. However, due to advances in science, technology, innovation, and manufacturing of advanced military platforms and technologies, China has progressed from being a significant importer of conventional arms to an increasingly competitive exporter of major weapons systems over the following decades.

China’s impressive economic performance and growing involvement in regions outside its borders have resulted in strengthened military-security ties (arms deals and weapons co-production) with some Middle Eastern countries (particularly Persian Gulf nations) as one dimension of its overall Middle East strategy. This study traces the trajectory of China as an arm’s exporter and examines the objectives of its cold war and post-cold war arms sales in the Middle East based on three assumptions: an indication of the country’s economic advancement, status establishment, and counterbalancing the influence of the USA and other western countries in the region. Moreover, given that China is competing for markets with one of its closest partners, Russia, it is worth investigating China’s strategic choices and their impact on regional power balances.

While the USA and Russia contribute significantly to the buildup of arms in the Middle East, EU member states also play a prominent role in the transfer of modern conventional weapons (MCW) to the region. While foreign policy prerogatives on the part of EU member states are a key variable to understanding arms races in the Middle East, my contribution argues that the EU’s contribution to the arms race in the Middle East is the result of two processes: the security dilemma within the regional security complex that exists in the Middle East and competitive pressures among EU member states generated by EU’s institutional efforts to harmonize arms exports. My chapter focuses on how the security dilemma and regional security complexes provide necessary conditions for arms sales to the region. The security dilemma within the regional security complex contributes to the intra-EU competition in the transfer of MCWs to the region. While the EU has developed two instruments to regulate arms exports – the politically binding EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports (1998) and the now legally binding current Common Position on Arms Exports (2008) – the latter has had the effect of stimulating arms exports to the Middle East. Given that the arms industry is often simultaneously a buyer’s and seller’s market, my contribution seeks to understand how regional security issues and competitive intra-EU contribute to the arms race in the Middle East.

Pakistan shares complicated but necessary ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia – two countries involved in a multilayered conflict in the Middle East. The bilateral relations with Pakistan are historical, and there are deep religious, cultural, and social affinities. And there are issues of security and economic interdependence as well. However, given the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Pakistan has to follow a policy of neutrality toward both. This means that it has to carefully balance its relationships and find opportunities to grow ties with one without antagonizing the other. In this chapter, these dynamics are explored, as recent concerns in Pakistan’s ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia are highlighted to show the complicated situation for Pakistan in this regard.

Afghanistan is surrounded by four security systems including the Middle East, South Asia, Eurasia, and Asia-Pacific. It has enacted an ineffective role within these systems over the last four decades. However, the country has been a pivotal area regarding competition between influential players of these systems. As a result of various conflicts, we have witnessed an arms race taking place in this country. The main question of this article concerns the sources of the longstanding conflict in Afghanistan and its different aspects. The main argument of the present contribution is that the situation of Afghanistan as an insulator country has led to the rise of tensions and competition among the various security systems and, consequently, overwhelmed Afghanistan, with the key actors intervening and meddling in the Afghanistan internal political and security affairs. The findings show that the transition from an insulator state to one of a connector can help to manage the crisis in this country and prevent the current status quo from ever changing.

The UK is a key actor in the global defense industry in terms of arms sales to the Middle East. According to recent figures, almost half of the UK’s arms sales goes to the Middle East. Simultaneously, the Middle East and North Africa regions have been tumultuous for decades given the regional conflicts and foreign interventions such as in Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. This chapter evaluates the UK arms sales to the Middle East starting from 2010 to 2022. It also assesses the ramifications of these sales to the regional conflicts. Finally, it maps out major partners of the UK in the Middle East.

Many analysts and scholars have either ignored or downplayed Greece’s role as a distinct actor in Middle Eastern security and its impact on regional security and defence dynamics. The country’s geographical location, combined with its NATO and EU membership, has played a key role in great powers’ foreign and security policies. Greece’s latest, more active engagement in the Middle Eastern security equation was promoted by forging strategic partnerships and establishing joint defence and military initiatives with several regional countries. At the same time, Greece’s delivery of military assets to Middle Eastern partners and friendly states reflects the country’s growing involvement in regional dynamics, including arms races. Meanwhile, Greece’s foreign policy approach emphasised ties with Israel while promoting a multifaceted engagement with Arab countries. Hence, this chapter traces the origins of the Greek posture in the Middle East, arguing that it is motivated by two driving forces: a Western-focused security orientation and the containment of Turkey’s assertive behaviour in the Mediterranean.

Armenia’s position in the geopolitical epicenter of clashing security alliances, notably, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the emanating security dilemma was exacerbated by the Syria and Libya conflicts, turbulent US-Iran relations, and the wars over Nagorno-Karabakh (2016 and 2020). Being epistemologically inductive, this chapter draws on (Neo-)Realism and Constructivism to explain Armenia’s policy in the context of the arms race in the Middle East, focusing on Armenia’s sending a peace-keeping contingent, voting in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on issues pertaining to Syria and Libya, given the presence of Armenian minorities in the ME, recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Middle Eastern countries, strategic “bandwagoning” to Russia and tactical allegiance to Iran so as to “balance” against the Turkey-Azerbaijan alliance. Leaning on Iran qua economy and infrastructure, Yerevan’s relations with Tehran were “securitized” during the latest Karabakh war due to Iran’s deployment of troops on the border and “politicized” thereafter in light of Iran’s military exercises on the border with Azerbaijan, insistence on the inviolability of Armenia’s sovereign territory and zeal in the 3 + 3 format for regional cooperation proposed by Iran still in 2003 and revived lately.