ABSTRACT
The present situation surrounding the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the means for their delivery has become noticeably more complex. With the advent of globalization, and in conjunction with the emergence of international terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has become the principal threat of the twenty-first century. Efforts by several countries to acquire WMD can be explained objectively by states’ threat perceptions and security concerns, with little regard to the extent to which these efforts have undermined the security of their neighbors.This points to one of the main dilemmas on how a country can enhance its security without diminishing the security of its neighbors. The position of many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is
that they find it difficult to enter serious arms control negotiations until some form of regional peace is fully established. This stems from their perception that nations in the region still consider military force as the only viable source to achieve their policy objectives.The danger from this underlying reasoning, if perceived as the only alternative to preserving a regional security balance, is that it could give rise to an uncontrollable arms race and to a parallel proliferation ofWMD. Arms transfers to the Middle East are not the sole cause of the regional problems. In fact,
the acquisition of arms has been the product of the unresolved political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as other conflicts in the region. The continuing Arab-Israeli conflict has made it practically impossible to formulate and implement formal arms control agreements, resulting in a failure from the beginning. Over the past five decades, there have been a number of arms control proposals and attempts for the Middle East. One main weakness of these proposals was that they were not integrated into a political process.Therefore, in any move towards arms control and regional security in the region, the linkage between both conventional and nonconventional weapons and the ongoing peace process must be made. Any massive rearmament will surely create an unrestricted arms race in the Middle East
which will automatically be accompanied by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The fear is that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction could give rise to states announcing a so-called “in-kind”deterrence, or the right to retaliate in kind.Unless controlled, this arms race will give rise to another military conflict with catastrophic human and environmental consequences.
