Toward Armageddon: The Proliferation of Unconventional Weapons and Ballistic Missiles in the Middle East.

摘要

The author concludes that it is probable that unconventional weapons and their associated delivery systems will form a permanent part of future political and strategic calculations in the Middle East. Some possible consequences of this situation can be divided into three classes: intra-regional, inter-regional and extra-regional. There is no doubt that Israel, driven by the need for security,precipitated the proliferation of unconventional weapons and of surface-to-surface missiles in the Middle East. It will now be driven to secure itself from the new threat to its security posed by its regional opponents. The most significant extra-regional consequence of developments in the Middle East may be further complication of great power arms control negotiations. To the re-discovery by the United States and the Soviet Union of their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to reduce the level of their nuclear weapons must now be added the desire to reduce, if not entirely eliminate, their chemical weapons stockpiles in advance of a global ban. It is possible that lesser powers will learn from the evidence of the great powers behavior, although that contradicts much of what we know of the psychology of decision making in international politics. What is necessary, though not necessarily sufficient, is that the U.S. and the USSR as the two external powers with potentially the greatest leverage, work together toward the resolution of the underlying causes of conflict in a region marked by more than a generation of competition between them.