In War, Nothing Succeeds Like Success : But it can’t be used as an excuse for a new arms race

The prewar talk was that the arms-importing nations of the Middle East might soon be induced to limit the size and nature of their arsenals. The postwar expectation is that the military defeat inflicted on Iraq could instead set off a new round of regional weapons buying, with demand especially high for some of the American equipment that achieved such spectacular results.

Soviet military leaders are meanwhile scrambling to explain why Iraq’s armed forces, largely equipped by the Soviet Union, were defeated so decisively. The favored reason is that it wasn’t the equipment that failed but the men who were operating it. Simultaneously, top Soviet military leaders, plainly impressed by what U.S. arms and tactics accomplished, are calling for an urgent review of their country’s air-defense system and weapons development programs. That could be ominous news, if a review leads to demands for big military spending increases to upgrade weapons that fared poorly under true battlefield conditions. The enfeebled Soviet economy would suffer still more if resources were diverted to the largely nonproductive military sector. An unwelcome boost in Soviet military spending would almost certainly produce demands in the United States for matching increases.

In Iraq, the future of arms control is by no means as clear as that nation’s war defeat suggests it should be. American officials remain firm in their view that Iraq should be subject to continuing international arms controls, although since the end of the fighting last week that demand seems to have been qualified. Now the duration of the arms embargo is being implicitly linked to Saddam Hussein’s survival in power, the hint being that if he goes, the barriers to Iraqi rearmament might be allowed to fall. Almost certainly efforts will be made to prevent Iraq from redeveloping its largely destroyed chemical and nuclear warfare capabilities. But it’s still far from a given that the requisite international cooperation--and verification procedures--can be agreed on and put into place to assure that Iraq won’t be able to build these terror weapons any time soon.

Whatever happens with Iraq in the immediate future, Saudi Arabia has made clear it still wants to buy another $15 billion in U.S. arms. Kuwait has also notified Washington of its interest in acquiring an array of modern weapons. It’s not easy to say no to allies who have just escaped the clutches of a still-unrepentant and bellicose neighbor, and certainly no one expects the Saudis or the Kuwaitis under their present royal regimes to become an offensive military threat. But neither can anyone foresee the future. Instability is no stranger to the Middle East. Even regimes that are abundantly well armed--as the Shah of Iran’s was in 1979--can be overthrown. It’s one thing to trust today’s Saudi and Kuwaiti governments to use their arsenals responsibly. In a highly volatile area, prudent thought must always be given to what their potential successors might do.

It may be that the dire realities of Soviet economic life will simply make any significant increase in defense spending impossible. And it may be that, if international mechanisms can be found to regulate the flow of foreign arms to Iraq and to Iran, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis and others won’t feel compelled to expand their own arsenals. It would be nice to think so; whether it would be realistic is something else. Wars have winners and losers, and in the aftermath of a war it isn’t always the destruction and humiliation suffered by the losers that are best remembered, but the nature of the arms triumph accomplished by the victors. It would be a bitter irony if the remarkable military victory achieved by the United States turned out in a sense to be too successful, setting off a new arms race that could vitiate Washington’s hopes for a more stable world order.