Advertisement

Arming the Middle East: An Ominous List Expands

Share
<i> Enrico Jacchia directs the Center for Strategic Studies at the Free University of Rome</i>

The quickening arms race in the Middle East is raising concerns among nations bordering the Mediterranean. Libya, Israel, Syria, Iraq and Egypt have acquired new and dangerous military technology, dramatically increasing the dangers of local confrontations.

Europeans, who welcomed the elimination of the SS-20, cruise and Pershing 2 missiles, are dismayed by the prospect of a proliferation of new mass-destruction weapons at their southern doorstep.

The list of hardware creating ominous risks gets longer every month: chemical weapons, missiles, nuclear arsenals and sophisticated bombers.

Advertisement

As for Col. Moammar Kadafi’s chemical plant, strong U.S. pressures have not prevented the continuing transfer of technology and basic materials from industrialized countries to Libya, according to European sources. The Western World will soon have to decide what to do about it, but in the meantime a new dimension has been added to the Libyan threat: the Soviet supply to Tripoli of high-performance bombers and an airborne refueler.

Allies on the southern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been puzzled by the Soviet move, which contradicts the Kremlin’s claim that Moscow wants to play a more conciliatory role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, seeking to increase its influence in the region through policies that bolster stability, rather than undermine it.

The international press has focused its attention on the threat that an enhanced Libyan capability might imply for Israel. However, William H. Webster, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, recently told a congressional committee that if Libya extended the range and performances of its warplanes, the entire balance of power in the region could be altered. All the more so, given Kadafi’s unpredictability. A couple of years ago he substantiated his threats against Italy by ordering two Scud missiles--which fortunately missed--to be fired at the Italian island of Lampedusa. Kadafi claimed a U.S. Coast Guard station on Lampedusa had guided American planes on their April, 1986, raid on Libya. The Italian Ministry of Defense has pointedly announced that new radar systems will be installed in the southern part of the peninsula, acknowledging that the Soviet SU-24 bombers recently sold to Libya could, if refueled in the air, reach all of Italy--as well as parts of France and West Germany.

While the chemical weapons situation is not encouraging, recent developments concerning missiles and their potential payloads are no brighter. These weapons appear to be more freely available in the international arms market than was intended by the seven industrial nations (the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and West Germany) when they agreed to restrict access to missile technology in April, 1987, with the Missile Technology Control Regime. And now there is a growing risk that surface-to-surface medium-range missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads and spread throughout the Middle East.

Israeli officials have alleged that Iraq is secretely engaged in a crash program to build nuclear warheads for a medium-range missile under development with technical and financial assistance from Argentina and Egypt. While the missile project (called Condor 2 by the Argentines) has been confirmed, the allegations about the Iraqi nuclear program have raised doubts. Both the news and the unconfirmed allegations, nevertheless, offer Israel a good reason--or a good pretext--for proceeding with its crash program on nuclear arms, missiles and other sophisticated weapons.

Estimates on the number of atomic warheads Israel possesses vary considerably, depending on interpretations given to data that Israeli technician Mordechai Vanunu disclosed in his Oct. 5, 1986, interview with the London Sunday Times. Israel might have an arsenal of 100 to 200 nuclear devices, according to several specialists who analyzed the data and examined the photographs supplied by Vanunu. Accepting the authenticity of his technical data, Theodore Taylor, a former U.S. weapons designer, and Frank Barnaby, a British nuclear scientist who debriefed Vanunu extensively, also believe Israel has produced weapons that use nuclear fusion: H-bombs.

Advertisement

The consensus among U.S. officials who have access to the information provided by intelligence sources is that Israel’s nuclear arsenal contains no more than 50 to 70 devices. Yet even an arsenal of this size is much bigger than all previous estimates and could enable Israel to develop a nuclear strategy based on a panoply of tactical, medium range and strategic atomic weapons.

This is a distinct change in the Middle East scenario. France has been until now the only medium-size power to have a totally independent nuclear deterrent, the force de frappe-- striking force--and an original doctrine for its employment. Has the force de frappe concept proliferated? Israel is apparently developing a missile that can reach the Soviet Union. Should we conclude that Israel has a nuclear defense strategy?

If this is a plausible conclusion, then Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s predictions have been proved right. De Gaulle was utterly skeptical about the possibility of preventing the spread of atomic weapons trough international constraints. His nuclear doctrine was based on the assumption that every industrial nation would, in time, possess its own nuclear arsenal composed of a panoply of weapons adapted to its specific situation and needs--its own force de frappe.

The importance of Israel’s nuclear development has increased to a point that it might constitute an Israeli force de frappe doctrine--a doctrine playing a vital role in Israeli defense and strategic thinking. This, in turn, gives a powerful impetus to the arms buildup of the Arab and Muslim states in the region. Something must be done to arrest this calamitous spiral.

Advertisement