The Middle East Arms Bazaar after the Gulf War

Author(s): Joe Stork

Source: Middle East Report, No. 197, Vulnerabilities in the Gulf (Nov. - Dec., 1995), pp. 14-
17+19
Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project, Inc. (MERIP)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3013311
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USAF's SR-71 Blackbird on display in Lakenheath, England Orde Eliason/Impact Visuals

lt was much easier for George Bush to sell tanks to Kuwait and jets to Saudi Arabia than to persuade the Japanese
to import more American cars. "Weapons are a significant export earner," says a Clinton administration official,
"and one where the United States remains quite competitive."

military expenditures as a percentage of gross national

In the East
Middle course ofthe
after a March
US-led 1991
defeat"victory tour" of the
of Iraq, James product (20.1 percent) and of total government
Baker, then-secretary of state, piously proclaimed the expenditures (54.8 percent). Middle East force ratios ?
hope that Desert Storm might be "the last great battle" the number of persons under arms per thousand
in the region. Whatever credence this forecast may get population ?stand at 13.5, compared with 7.4
from recent agreements between Israel, the PLO and for the industrialized countries and 4.1 for the rest
Jordan, it is hard to reconcile with the mind-boggling of the South.1
pace of militarization that continues, especially in the As before the 1990-91 Gulf war, arms imports are a
Persian Gulf. According to a March 1994 US Arms significant piece of military expenditures in the region,
Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) report, the and serve as a window on the role of outside powers in
first to cover world military spending patterns since modulating the pace and extent of militarization in the
Desert Storm, the Middle East still ranks highest in Middle East. Arms export markets have declined

14 Middle East Report ? November-December 1995

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overall, including in the Middle East, with the end of France's eclipse of US sales in 1994 is especially
the Cold War and the impact of global economic noticeable because it goes against a trend of significant
recession. And the United Nations' embargo on Iraq has, decline in the share of major Western European
for now at least, deleted that country from the listsuppliers. of One ingredient here was the end of the Iran-
importers of major weapons systems. Iraq war in 1988. Iraq in particular had been an
According to the ACDA, the Middle East's share of enormously important market for French and other
the world arms market had risen from 35.9 percentEuropean in manufacturers. A second factor was the
1981 to 41.4 percent in 1991.2 In the Third World arms relative availability to Britain and France of Saudi and
market, Middle East countries have steadily accounted other Arab arms buyers at a time when US sales to
for 56 percent of total transfers.3 The impact of these those countries were increasingly hampered by
sales is being felt only now, as deliveries commence for opposition from partisans of Israel in the US Congress.
weapons systems contracted in the wake of the Gulf The 1990-91 Gulf war has almost completely transformed
war. It was only in late 1994, for example, that Kuwait those dynamics, with the result that the Arabian
took delivery of the first of 218 M1A2 Abrams main Peninsula has now become an almost exclusively
battle tanks ordered in 1992 from the US firm of American preserve in the domain of military sales.
General Dynamics?at a price tag of $5 million per tank.
The most startling change in the overall Middle Brief Restraint
East
arms trade picture since the Gulf war is on the supplier
side. The latest reports on conventional arms The rush to war in the fall and winter of 1990-91
transfers
by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) brought
show with it occasional acknowledgment by US
that the US share of arms agreements with Third other Western
World policy makers that the unrestrained
countries had climbed, with increasing momentum, supply of arms-on-demand to the countries of the Middle
from 10 percent in 1986 to an astounding 60.5 percent East bore some relation to the unfolding crisis. "The
in 1993 before dropping to just over 24 percent of the time has come to try to change the destructive pattern
total in 1994.4 In dollar terms, the drop was from $15.4 of military competition and proliferation in this region
billion in 1993 to $6.1 billion in 1994. France, in a and to reduce the arms flow into an area that is already
performance the CRS termed "extraordinary," sold $11.4 very over-militarized," Secretary of State Baker told the
billion worth of arms to Third World markets, for nearly House Foreign Affairs Committee in early February
45 percent of the total. Not surprisingly, French totals 1991. The Congressional Research Service reported in
were boosted by a strong showing in the Middle East? July 1991 that no less than 30 bills relating to arms
$3.5 billion sale of two frigates to SaudiArabia, Mirage control had been introduced into the House and Senate
fighter-bombers to Qatar for $1.3 billion, and three during and immediately after Desert Storm. The most
submarines to Pakistan worth $950 million. Russian far-reaching of these proposed a temporary unilateral
sales also rebounded in 1994, nearly tripling over the moratorium on all US arms sales to the Middle East.
year before to $4.6 billion mainly to China and The Bush administration and the arms industry
Malaysia. The CRS reckoning is summarized in Chart vigorously opposed any such measure. The administration
I, which bears some explication. countered with a proposal of its own on May 29, 1991, in
The end of the Cold War affected demand for majora commencement speech by President George Bush at
weapons, as wars in the Third World wound down fromthe US Air Force Academy. In addition to provisions
exhaustion and from an end to superpower patronage. directed at nuclear and chemical weapons, the Bush
It also affected the market from the supply side, withspeech proposed freezing the purchase, production and
the collapse of the Soviet Union. US analysts, of course, testing of surface-to-surface missiles. Acknowledging
have historically tended to inflate the dollar value of that the five permanent members of the UN Security
Soviet transfers, so that the US percentages for the lateCouncil were also by far the largest purveyors of the
1980s may be exaggeratedly low. Nevertheless, the most dangerous and destructive "conventional" weapons
overall trend is unmistakable. Russia and China systems, Bush proposed talks among the "Perm Five"
("others"), have been relatively negligible players to reduce the flow of arms into the region.
in the
larger arms market in the 1990s, both globally The Perm
andFive
in met three times?in July 1991 in
the Middle East. Their importance residesParis, solelyin October
in the 1991 in London, and in May 1992 in
fact that their one remaining Middle EastWashington, market of but they failed to move beyond insipid
any significance is Iran, which has been shut out of communiques about the need to curb sales. Practical
Western arms supermarkets under Washington's "dual steps eluded them completely, and the talks fell apart
containment" policy. Iran's economic troubles, though, when the Chinese withdrew to protest Washington's
have reduced its military procurement to "a fraction of September 1992 decision to sell 160 F-16 warplanes to
what they wanted."5 Taiwan. The only concrete measure from the Perm Five
Joe Stork is editor of Middle East Report. An earlier version of this article
talks was an agreement out of the London session to
appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique, January 1995. notify one another of major sales to the Middle East,

Middle East Report ? November-December 1995 15

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 Russia to the Third World
CHART I: ARMS TRANSFER AGREEMENTS WITH DEVELOPING NATIONS, 10S7-1004 in 1991!7

(BILLIONS OF CONSTANT 1994 DOLLARS)

Cashing in the
Chips of War
14%

SO Chart I graphically por?

23.1%
trays the contraction
40 of the Third World arms
.-, 15.4%
20.9% """T market over the last eight
80 51.7%

T" '? * 81.7% I 111.2% |-1 years, from a high of $62

20 42"6% L 38.3% _L ?>22.1% fill 28.2
billion in 1988 to just over
H12-6% ? ?.i% B28'6* $25 billion in 1993 and
lill 1994. In the face of this

ie.5% Jp; [^ [- [?
10 18.8%
I 60.5%
11.8% radical shrinkage, the
United States, until 1994,
1087 1888 1880 1801 1882 1884 had been able to maintain
its absolute dollar amount
UNITED STATES MAJOR W. EUROPEAN ? RUSSIA D ALL OTHERS of weapons sales at a level
of around $15 billion each
year, an amount that
is annroximatelv double

though there was no agreement as to whether what it was in the late 1980s. (These values are cited
notification should proceed or could follow the actual in constant dollars, but proportions are substantially
sales agreements. Meanwhile arms sales continued, the same when reckoned in current dollars.)
with the US well in the lead. Over the brief period when In regional terms, the Middle East comprises the
arms trade restraint was "politically correct" in major Third World market for the arms producers ?
Washington, from the end of Desert Storm through about the 56 percent of total transfers. Many observers see
beginning of June 1992, the US Congress cleared arms Asia?with increasingly affluent states like Taiwan,
sales to the Middle East (including Turkey) worth some South Korea and Singapore ?as the major growth
$18 billion.6 In 1992, the only new law passed by market. But for now the biggest market remains the
Congress relating to arms exports was the Iran-Iraq Middle East. The Middle East accounted for more than
Arms Non-proliferation Act, banning all sales to those 72 percent of total US arms transfers to the Third World
two "rogue states." from 1990 to 1993 ?up from 61 percent over the
The arms trade restraint effort collapsed completely previous four years, while the position of every other
as the 1992 US presidential campaign got underway, major arms supplier dropped significantly. In 1994, even
around a longstanding proposal to sell three squadrons without major purchases from the US, Saudi Arabia
of F-15s to Saudi Arabia. Candidates George Bush and was the leading buyer by far, at $9.5 billion. China was
Bill Clinton both agreed that the sale of the 72 F-15s to a distant second, at $2.5 billion, followed by Israel,
Saudi Arabia should go through. The question had been Qatar and Pakistan.
refrained politically to one of domestic economy and From Washington's point of view, a dominant
employment. McDonnell-Douglas, prime contractor for position as arms supplier in a strategically important
the F-45, launched an unprecedented lobby campaign region is important for reasons that go beyond
which it packaged as the "Jobs Now Coalition." commercial considerations. First, arms sales represent
The Saudi F-15 deal was initially estimated to be an aspect of political alliance, particularly with the
worth between $4 and $5 billion; when the Bush ad?military leaderships in buyer countries. Such
ministration sent sale notification to Congress on relationships can have consequences that also go
September 14, 1992, the price tag?including spare en?beyond the military realm. This works for buyers as
gines, targeting pods, 1500 missiles, 600 cluster well. Kuwait, for example, has done most of its postwar
bombs, 700 laser-guided bombs, technical documen? arms shopping in the US, but has ladled out occasional
tation and logistics training?had climbed to $9 billion. contracts to the French and even the Russians with
That same day, the administration also formally noti? the aim of securing their participation in any futur
fied Congress of its intent to sell the F-16s to Taiwan, a coalition defense against Iraq. "Protection is the
mammoth $5.8 billion deal in its own right. In one day, friends you have," commented Kuwaiti Defense
the Bush administration sold nearly $15 billion in arms Minister Ali Sabah al-Salim al-Sabah, "not the
to just two countries?three times the total sales of weapons you have."8

16 Middle East Report ? November-December 1995

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 Second, in a region such as the Persian Gulf, which [T]hey will almost certainly buy American as will every
US military strategists have designated as the most other Western buyer for the next several decades."12
likely site of any future major US military deployment, Recriminations on the part of US allies have
there is the question of interoperability. There is a sometimes been bitter. After Kuwait had selected the
strategic benefit, in military terms, to having US- Abrams MIA tank over the British Challenger 2 model
manufactured systems on the ground, systems on whichliberal British commentator Martin Woollacott
US technicians and troops have been trained and with complained that the Middle East had become "a
which they are intimately familiar. This has huge near-monopoly market for the American
become increasingly important in an era of AirLand industry." Sure, Woollacott wrote, US arms pac
Battle Doctrine, where US air, ground and naval are competitive, "[b]ut in the main it is coming
capabilities have been integrated to an unprecedented as a result of a ruthless cashing in of the chips
degree. Anthony Cordesman, in a review of the military US won during the Gulf war.... We British will
lessons of Desert Storm, commented that battlefield be content with the Emir's ?1 million donation to the
command and control coordination of US and Saudi London Zoo and Mrs. Thatcher's doctorate of letters
forces exceeded that of US forces with NATO allies, from Kuwait University."13
including Britain.9 There is no doubt about it: the gloves have come o
A third dimension of the competition for sales of "Whether you like it or not," commented one Clin
major weapons systems relates to the sharp downturnadministration official, "weapons are a significant
not just of weapons export markets but of Western export earner and one where the United States remains
countries' defense sectors across the board. In the words quite competitive."14 It was a lot easier for George Bush
of the Pentagon's Defense Conversion Commission, to persuade the Kuwaitis to buy the Abrams tank than
"[ijncreasing exports will be an important strategy for it was for him to persuade the Japanese to import more
some companies as they adjust to smaller US purchases."10 US automobiles. Bill Clinton's interventions have shown
Saudi Arabia, by one estimate, is likely to purchase moresimilar results. A Wall Street Journal news feature
main battle tanks over the rest of this decade than will crowed that 1993's record $34 billion in US arms sal
the US Army. The last several years have seen major "hark back to the days of overall US export leadersh
restructuring of defense industries in all major arms- before the Japanese and lower-cost Third World
exporting countries, including smaller ones such as producers helped create this nation's huge trade deficits
Israel. Employment in US military industries fell from in areas such as autos and electronics."15 The biggest
1.35 million in 1989 to 800,000 in 1994. Industrial threat to this bonanza is the serious cash-flow problems
giants like Ford, IBM and General Electric have sold that Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf customers
off their weapons subsidiaries, while large firms have experienced, forcing them to rewrite existing
specializing in arms manufacturing have engaged in purchase contracts and casting a cloud over the weapons
mergers and buyouts. Northrop took over Grumman industry forecasts of Middle East markets worth up to
earlier in 1994, and in August 1994 Martin Marietta $100 billion over the rest of this decade.
and Lockheed divulged plans to merge.11
"Aggressive" export strategies have accompanied "Undesirable" Proliferation
industrial consolidation, and the weapons companies
have openly enlisted the direct assistance of their When the Clinton administration took office in Janu?
respective states. In the US, both the Bush and Clinton ary 1993, key national security appointees such as
administrations, including the two presidents Defense Secretary Les Aspin and CIA chief James
themselves, have publicly joined in the selling efforts. Woolsey repeatedly cited weapons proliferation as pos?
So have Britain's John Major and France's Edouard ing the most serious security threat to US interests.
Balladur and Jacques Chirac. But the Americans, None of this, though, has been allowed to interfere with
unless 1994 proves to be more than an aberration, have the corporate-government drive for maximum sales of
been considerably more successful. Senator Christopher weapons abroad.
Bond, Democrat of Missouri (home of McDonnell- One technique has been to define the proliferation
Douglas), argued in overly grandiose but illustrative threat narrowly in terms of "weapons of mass destruc?
terms that capturing the Saudi market for advanced tion"?nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. When
fighter-bombers could have implications far beyond that President Clinton delivered his first pronouncement on
very lucrative sale alone. "If the Saudis are allowed to the subject, in his address to the UN General Assembly
purchase the F-15 aircraft they have requested," Bond in September 1993, he spoke eloquently about the hu?
said, "we are likely to see the Tornado line in Britain man toll and devastation wreaked by wars, and of the
close and the EFA [European fighter] program greatly increased demand for UN peacekeeping missions,
cancelled. Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain? but offered no words at all on the question of proliferation
as well as Saudi Arabia?all will still need to replace of so-called "conventional" weapons. His administration,
their aging fighters and will have few places to turn....meanwhile, has renamed the Foreign Assistance Act, un-

Middle East Report ? November-December 1995 17

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der which military aid is distributed, the Prosperity answer is a military research and procurement b
and Democracy Act, while Security Assistance has be? that can equip the US military with high-cost sy
come Assistance for Promoting Peace and Democracy. like ballistic missile defenses and "improved non?
Military aid to Israel and Egypt?87 percent of the nuclear penetrating munitions." "We need to have more
total, with most of the rest going to Turkey?is classi?
tools in our toolbox," says Gen. John Shalikashvili,
fied as "Middle East Peace Assistance." chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.20
The White House "fact sheet" distributed to the me? One has to wonder if it is mere coincidence that the
dia at the time of Clinton's UN address promised a most likely to profit from developing the components
conventional arms policy review that would take into for General Shalikashvili's toolbox will be the high-tech
account "national security, arms control, trade, bud? industries of California's Silicon Valley, who were among
getary and economic competitiveness."16 A year later,the earliest corporate backers of Bill Clinton's presi?
the National Security Council had finally compiled an dential campaign. As arms control advocate Lora Lumpe
options paper (Presidential Review Document-41) and, observed, this is a strategy that effectively promotes
with the State Department, drafted a Presidential De? "bombing as arms control."21 ?
cision Directive which Clinton signed in February
1995. The opening paragraph of this final document
claims to "promote restraint," but goes on to Endnotes
endorse "responsible" exports ?i.e., to those countries
in US favor. 1 US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), World Military Expe
and Arms Transfers, 1991-1992 (Washington, DC, 1994), pp. 6-7, 22-23.
The Clinton administration has adapted a line con?
genial to the interests of the weapons manufacturers, 2 ACDA, p. 8.

and customers like Israel and Saudi Arabia: the prob? 3 In this and in almost all such compilations, Turkey is counted with Europ
lem is not arms exports but "rogue states." This is the
than with the Middle East. Because Turkey is consistently among the top ten
recipients of arms transfers ?around $3 billion in 1994 from the US alone?these
equivalent of the slogan of the National Rifle Associa? percentages significantly understate the actual arms import profile of the regionv
tion in the US gun control debate?"Guns don't kill
4 Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress: Conventional Arms
people; people kill people." "Arms sales are appropri? Transfers to Developing Nations, 1987-1994 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress,
ate to responsible allies," testified Lynn Davis, Under August 1995), p. 51. In the previous year's report, the CRS had calculated the US
share in 1993 at 72.6 percent.
Secretary of State for International Security Affairs
and a chief administration spokesperson on arms trade 5 According to Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
WINEP, like other pro-Israel organizations, had been among the loudest in raising
policy.17 Ethan Kapstein, co-director of Harvard the alarm about an Iranian military behemoth in the Gulf. Washington Post,
University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, November 18, 1995.

makes the fantastic claim that US arms-trade domi? 6 Federation of American Scientists, Public Interest Report 45/6 (1992).
nance is desirable because "countries that rely on 7 Such inconvenient facts, of course, have not deterred the likes of Samuel
American arms are less likely to start wars."18 Huntington from citing the "Confucian-Islamic" arms trade as the gravest threat
to world peace. See "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72/3 (Summer
The Clinton administration has taken no steps to 1993), pp. 45-48.
resuscitate the Perm Five talks broken off in mid-1992.
8 The Middle East, July 1992.
In early 1994, the Western allies terminated the Cold
War-era Coordinating Committee on Multilateral 9 In remarks at the Smithsonian Institutions Woodrow Wilson International Center,
September 27, 1994. By contrast, the failure of the Gulf Cooperation Council states
Export Controls (COCOM), through which high- to standardize and rationalize military purchases has contributed to making their
technology sales with possible weapons applications "joint military exercises" futile to the point of embarrassment. This, of course,
suits Western arms peddlers, and probably the Saudis, just fine.
to Soviet bloc countries had been screened and
controlled. In its place the administration10 Arms
is proposing
Sales Monitor 19, March 1993, p. 7.

a "liberalized" export environment: restrictions would

11 Bernard Gray, "The harsh effects of peace," Financial Times, September 30,
apply only in the case of "the Middle East, 1994.
South Asia,
and elsewhere where the dangers are greatest, 12 Inside the Pentagon, July 9, 1992, cited in Arms Sales Monitor 16, July 1992
particularly in Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea."19
13 The Guardian, October 17, 1992.
All 17 industrialized democracies agree with this focus,
14 Washington Post, February 28, 1994.
according to Under Secretary Davis, "though they
prefer that this understanding not be accentuated 15 January 28, 1994.

in public." 16 Arms Sales Monitor 22, September 30, 1993.

As a logical extension of this trend, the Clinton
17 Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs, November 10, 1993.
administration has supplanted a non-proliferation
strategy with what the Pentagon calls a "Counterpro-18 "America's Arms-Trade Monopoly," Foreign Affaires (May/June 1994), p. 13.
liferation Initiative." Unveiled in a December 1993
19 Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs, November 10, 1993.
speech by then-Secretary of Defense Aspin, "counter-
20 Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1994
proliferation" assumes that export controls on weapons
and dual-use technologies simply will not work. The
21 Arms Sales Monitor 24, March 1994.

Middle East Report ? November-December 1995 19

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