No Farewell to Arms Race

It was not your usual trade show: Where else could one meet AK-47 assault rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, contract former South African fighters to bolster a shaky Third World regime, hear a Raytheon Corp. vice president sing the kill ratio of his company’s Patriot antimissile defense system or see the first public live-fire demonstration of Russia’s latest dual-rotor Black Shark KA-50 attack helicopter?

With such attractions, no wonder military intelligence officers and arms procurers from as far afield as Libya and North Korea jammed the fairground aisles in this desert emirate, agog at all that is laser-guided, stealthy, encrypted, thermal-visioned, miniaturized and digitalized in the brave new world of weaponry.

The recent four-day International Defense Exhibition, the largest arms show in the Middle East, featured more than 500 exhibitors from 42 countries selling a startling array of wares--including F-16 fighter planes, air defense systems, chemical-protection clothing and even Swiss army knives.

There were plenty of displays, besides the T-shirts, raffles, brass bands and buyers wearing a dazzling assortment of uniforms and national garbs: Want to see a 46-ton battle tank fly off a ramp and sail 20 feet through the air or watch a reenactment of how to extract a downed pilot from behind enemy lines?

This bazaar was at times bizarre.

But its unspoken message was also serious: Tension and insecurity still reign in this region six years after the Persian Gulf War, and uncertainty about the future has pitched the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries into a major arms race.

The Persian Gulf, which possesses more than half the world’s known oil supplies and is thus vital to the United States and the West, is an inherently unstable area. Its two most ambitious countries--Iran and Iraq--have most of the population, while other, sparsely populated desert kingdoms possess most of the oil.

Aware of the bitter lesson of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and anxious about Iran’s future military designs, the emirs and princes of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are buying costly arms for their land, air and sea forces at a prodigious rate.

The United States is the chief beneficiary, but increasingly deals are going to Russian, European, South African and other suppliers.

These Mideast nations now account for about half of the $18 billion in arms purchased worldwide each year, and the six U.S.-aligned Gulf Cooperation Council countries will spend an estimated $75 billion on defense equipment between now and 2002, says Paul Beaver of Jane’s Information Group.

The binge troubles some experts.

Kenneth Katzman, an analyst and Persian Gulf specialist at the Congressional Research Service, said the U.S. government and its allies need to think beyond the “dual containment” of Iran and Iraq, a policy in place since the Gulf War.

The policy treats both countries as a profound threat to regional stability and seeks to quarantine them. To that end, the United States has encouraged its Persian Gulf allies to arm themselves.

“We want to continue to keep [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein in his box,” Deputy Defense Secretary John White argued recently in Bahrain. “With respect to Iran, we see them as a long-term threat and a major exporter of terrorism in the world.”

An example of the arms race in the Persian Gulf is Iran’s recent purchase of three submarines from Russia, making it the first country in the region, besides the United States, to have deep-water warfare capability. The Russian company that sold the subs to Iran, naturally enough, was in Abu Dhabi pushing the same kind of craft to Iran’s neighbors.

Partly in response to the submarine threat, several Persian Gulf countries also were shopping for advanced coastal-patrol aircraft, minesweepers and modern surface vessels capable of confronting underwater threats.

Katzman said he believes that it would be better for the area’s long-term security if Iran could be drawn into talks with the United States and the other Persian Gulf countries about mutual security concerns.

“I’m not against arms sales and not squeamish about the use of military force,” he said. “What I am saying is that can’t be your only solution. That can’t be the only tool in your arsenal. You have to have a diplomatic vision.”

Meanwhile, arms purchases have become a source of disgruntlement in countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where critics say such huge spending should go toward education, jobs, social programs and the like.

And because U.S. manufacturers pocket the largest share of arms revenue, weapons programs are seen in some quarters as a thinly disguised form of foreign aid to the United States.

“Some of the states are over-strapped in making these purchases, and U.S. policy continues to push” them, Katzman said. “You have to look at these sales and ask what is really achieved by this.”

Michael Collins Dunn, who monitors Persian Gulf security issues in his newsletter The Estimate, noted that the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf has grown tremendously since the war with Iraq, and he contended that is what really is deterring adventures by Baghdad or Tehran.

The United States now has about 25,000 troops, 200 planes and 35 ships on permanent rotation in the region and has positioned heavy arms on land and afloat in the Indian Ocean for emergency deployment.

That makes the region moderately secure for now, Dunn said.

But the situation could change if Baghdad and Tehran, or the other Persian Gulf countries, doubt the U.S. military commitment in the region.

“If the day ever comes that the U.S. umbrella isn’t there . . . then these guys would be very vulnerable,” Dunn said.

Daniszewski was recently on assignment in Abu Dhabi.

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Military Power

Here is how militaries compare in the Middle East, perhaps the world’s most volatile region:

Bahrain

Armed forces: 11,000

Combat planes: 24

Tanks: 106

Defense budget: $265 million

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Iran

Armed forces: 513,000

Combat planes: 295

Tanks: 1,440

Defense budget: $3.4 billion

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Iraq

Armed forces: 382,500

Combat planes: 210

Tanks: 2,700

Defense budget: $2.7 billion

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Israel

Armed forces: 175,000

Combat planes: 449

Tanks: 4,300

Defense budget: $7 billion

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Kuwait

Armed forces: 15,300

Combat planes: 76

Tanks: 215

Defense budget: $2.9 billion

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Oman

Armed forces: 43,500

Combat planes: 46

Tanks: 144

Defense budget: $1.8 billion

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Qatar

Armed forces: 11,800

Combat planes: 12

Tanks: 24

Defense budget: $330 million

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Saudi Arabia

Armed Forces: 105,000

Combat planes: 301

Tanks: 1,055

Defense budget: $13.9 billion

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U.A.E.

Armed forces: 64,500

Combat planes: 99

Tanks: 201

Defense budget: $1.9 billion

* United Arab Emirates

Source: The Military Balance 1996/97, The International Institute for Strategic Studies