THE MIDDLE EAST A SPACE OF CONFRONTATION FOR THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

Civil wars have occurred often in the post–World War II era. Their frequency of initiation decreased after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the persistence of these conflicts meant that there was not a dramatic decline after the end of the Cold War. The causes of civil wars and their consequences for the stability of the international environment have, however, changed dramatically in the last two-and-a-half decades. During the Cold War, most civil wars were proxy battles between the Soviet Union and the United States; both superpowers were interested in maintaining regimes that were sympathetic to their side. The Soviet Union was never interested in the promotion of democratic regimes. The United States professed a commitment to democracy, but when faced with a choice between a Communist or even left-leaning democracy and an autocrat who aligned his state with the West, the United States chose the latter. The strongly positive statistical relationship between per capita income and democracy, which holds for most of the period between 1820 and 2000, disappears during the Cold War, when both superpowers were more interested in external alignment than in democracy.1The impact of civil wars on the stability of the international system has increased during the twenty-first century. September 11, 2001, marks a watershed because, for at least some observers in the advanced industrialized world, the ability of transnational terrorists to destroy two of the tallest buildings and kill thousands of people in the commercial center of the most powerful country in the world, as well as to fly a commercial airliner into the command center of the most powerful military (an event that one of us witnessed first-hand from inside the Pentagon and the other witnessed from the State Department across the Potomac River) represented a sea change in the extent to which developments in poor and remote countries could affect even the strongest and most powerful. September 11 created an urgency that was absent during the 1990s, when major powers believed that they could walk away from war-torn countries such as Somalia with limited consequences for their own polities.Greater urgency however, has not led to agreement, even in the academic world, on two critical issues: First, what are the potential threats to stability that might emanate from civil wars and weak governance in poor and remote areas of the world? Second, what policy instruments, if any, can be deployed to treat civil wars and reduce the downstream effects on other states and global order? There are no consensus answers to any of these fundamental issues.Rather than trying to identify some common ground, which we do not believe exists, we offer our own assessment of the consequences of civil wars, the nature of civil wars, and possible interventions that external actors might most effectively pursue. Our judgments have been informed by the essays in this issue of Dædalus and in the previous issue, but are not dictated by them.Civil wars can impact the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. The most consequential potential impacts are transnational terrorism and pandemic diseases, global crises that could be caused by intrastate conflict. Civil wars might also lead to large-scale migration, regional instability, and potential great-power conflict. And high levels of intrastate violence and loss of government control can often give rise to massive criminality, though this is most effectively addressed through domestic law enforcement rather than international initiatives.The nature of civil wars varies. The most important distinction is between civil strife that is caused by the material or political interests of the protagonists and civil strife that is caused by transnational ideological movements. The latter, if successful, might threaten regional stability and even the stability of the contemporary international system that is based on sovereign statehood. Transnational ideological movements, which in the contemporary world are almost all associated with particular versions of Islam, base legitimacy on the divine and reject both existing boundaries and secular authority. While transnational movements claiming divine authority are more threatening to the existing international order, it is very difficult for such movements to secure material resources. Institutions that control these resources, primarily states but also international organizations, NGOs, and multinational corporations, are manifestations of the extant global order. When combatants in civil wars are motivated by material incentives and accept the principles of the existing international order, then the “standard treatment” for addressing civil strife- UN peacekeeping plus some foreign assistance-is the most effective option if combatants believe that they are in a hurting stalemate, and if there is agreement among the major powers. If, however, combatants reject the existing order, then the standard treatment will not work.Finally, based on most, but not all of the essays in these two issues of Dædalus, the opportunities for external interveners are limited. Countries afflicted by civil strife cannot become Denmark or be placed on the road to Denmark; they cannot be transformed into prosperous democratic states. The best that external actors can hope for is adequate governance in which there is security, the provision of some services especially related to health and possibly education, and some limited economic growth. This is true whether the standard treatment is applied or if one side can win decisively. More ambitious projects aimed at consolidated democracy, sustained economic growth, and the elimination of corruption are mostly doomed to fail and can be counterproductive regardless of whether the combatants are interested in seizing control of an existing state or are motivated by some alternative, divine vision of how political life might be ordered. National political elites in countries afflicted with civil strife will be operating in limited-access, rent-seeking political orders in which staying in power is their primary objective. National elites will not accept accountability, legal-rational bureaucracies, or free and fair elections, all of which would threaten their power.The essays in these two issues of Dædalus and the literature more broadly identify six threats from civil strife that might directly impact the wealthy and more powerful polities of the world, or the nature of the postwar liberal international order. The first two-pandemic diseases and transnational terrorism-are potentially the most consequential, although neither poses the kind of existential threat presented by war among nuclear armed states.Pandemic diseases. As the essay by Paul Wise and Michele Barry points out, since 1940, some four hundred new diseases have emerged among human populations.2 Most of these diseases have been zoonoses: disease vectors that have jumped from animal populations, in which they may be benign, to human populations, in which they might cause serious illness. Most of these outbreaks have occurred in a belt near the equator, where human beings intermingle more closely with animals, such as bats and monkeys. The main impact of civil wars is, however, not in increasing the number of new diseases, but rather diminishing the capacities of health monitoring systems that could identify, isolate, and possibly treat new diseases. Effective detection requires constant monitoring, which is extremely difficult in areas that are afflicted by civil war. Epidemics, or at least disease outbreaks, are inevitable given the ways in which human beings impinge more and more on animal habitats, but allowing an epidemic to evolve into a pandemic is optional. If effective detection and monitoring are in place, a disease outbreak will not turn into a pandemic that could kill millions. So far, the world's population has been spared such an outbreak. If, however, a disease can be transmitted through the air, and if civil strife or something else prevents effective monitoring, the likelihood of a pandemic increases.Transnational terrorism. Terrorism, which in recent years has primarily, but not exclusively, been associated with Islamic jihadism, can arise in many different environments. At the time of the September 11 attacks, Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden were resident in Afghanistan, a very poor, land-locked country. Before that, Bin Laden had found refuge in Sudan. Most of the participants in the September 11 attack, however, were born in the heart of the Arab world, namely in Saudi Arabia, and had resided for a number of years in Germany. The perpetrators of the July 7 attacks on the mass transit system in London were Muslims of Somali and Eritrean origin, raised and schooled in the United Kingdom. The bomber, whose efforts to bring down an airliner headed for Detroit were frustrated by a courageous and alert passenger, was a Nigerian citizen who had spent time with jihadi ideologues in the Middle East. The attacks in Paris and Nice in 2015–2016 were carried out by individuals born in North Africa, but who had lived for many years in Western Europe. The murders of fourteen people in San Bernardino, California, were perpetrated by a U.S. citizen born in Chicago, whose parents were from Pakistan and who was educated at California State University, San Bernardino, and his wife, who was born in Pakistan but spent many years in Saudi Arabia. The massacre at the Orlando, Florida, night club in 2016 was carried out by the American-born son of a man who had emigrated from Afghanistan and had lived for many years in the United States.While terrorism associated with Islamic jihadism is hardly an exclusive product of safe havens in countries afflicted by civil strife or poor governance, the existence of such safe havens does, as Martha Crenshaw argues, exacerbate the problem.3 Safe havens are environments within which would-be terrorists can train over an extended period of time. A number of terrorists, even those raised in Western, industrialized countries, have taken advantage of such training. Transnational terrorist organizations might or might not secure weapons of mass destruction; they might or might not develop more effective training; their operatives might or might not be discovered by intelligence services in advanced industrialized democracies. Civil war and weak governance, however, increase the likelihood that transnational terrorist groups will find safe havens, and safe havens increase the likelihood of attacks that could kill large numbers of people.Global pandemics and transnational terrorism are the two most serious threats presented by civil wars. The probability that either will significantly undermine the security of materially well-off states is uncertain, but both are distinct sources of danger. Civil wars and weak governance increase the likelihood that large numbers of people could be killed by either threat. Neither is an existential threat, but both could have grave consequences for advanced industrialized democratic states. Hundreds of thousands or millions of people could die from a pandemic outbreak resulting from an easily transmissible disease vector or from a transnational terrorist attack that could involve dirty nuclear weapons, an actual nuclear weapon (still quite hard to obtain), or artificial biologics (increasingly easy to produce).Either a global pandemic or terrorist attack, possibly using weapons of mass destruction, would almost certainly lead to some constraints on the traditional freedoms that have been associated with liberal democratic societies.Migration, regional instability, and great-power conflict. Civil wars are also dangerous because they could lead to greater refugee flows, regional destabilization, and great-power conflict. Not every civil war has the potential for generating these global crises, but if generated, they would be a product not just of civil strife but also of policy choices that were made by advanced industrialized countries. In this regard, they should be contrasted with possible pandemics and transnational terrorism that, arguably, would occur regardless of the policies adopted by wealthy democratic states.As Sarah Lischer's essay shows, the number of migrants–especially people displaced by civil wars–has increased dramatically in recent years.4 Most of these migrants have been generated by three conflicts, those in Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia. The wave of migrants entering Western Europe has destabilized traditional politics and contributed to the success of Brexit in the UK, the increased share of votes secured by right-wing parties in a number of Western European countries, and the electoral gains of a number of right-wing parties in Eastern Europe. Anxiety about immigration contributed to Donald Trump's victory in the United States. European countries, even those on the left like Sweden, have responded to rising numbers of refugees by tightening the rules for potential migrants. The European Union reached a deal with Turkey in 2016 to provide financial resources in exchange–among other things–for an increase in acceptance of refugees. At the same time, the sheer number of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon can potentially undermine government control in those countries.The impact of civil wars in one country can spread to surrounding areas. ISIL's ambitious campaigns have afflicted Syria and Iraq. Civil strife in Somalia has, as Seyoum Mesfin and Abdeta Beyene write, influenced the policies of Ethiopia.5 The FARC insurgency in Colombia impacted Venezuela and Ecuador. Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) drew in several neighboring states. Some regional conflicts have resulted in millions of deaths, most notably the war in the DRC, with limited impact on and attention from wealthy industrialized countries. Wars in the Middle East, however, have been more consequential because they have led to the involvement of Russia and the United States, they are closer to Europe and have therefore generated more refugees, and Middle Eastern oil is a global commodity on which much of the world depends. Regional destabilization in the Middle East does matter for the West; regional destabilization in Central Africa may only matter for those who live in the neighborhood.Direct confrontation between major powers has not occurred since the end of World War II. In well-governed areas, where civil wars are absent, the likelihood of great-power conflict is small. Territorial conquest has been delegitimized (though Russia's annexation of Crimea stands as a recent exception to this norm). The existence of nuclear weapons has removed uncertainty about the costs of a confrontation between nuclear-armed states with assured second-strike capability. Great-power confrontations are, however, more likely in areas that are afflicted by civil strife, because instability and appeals from local actors could draw in major state actors with vested interests. This is especially true for the Middle East. Moreover, in countries on the periphery of Russia that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, especially those with sizeable Russian ethnic populations, the government in Moscow has demonstrated that it can increase the level of internal unrest. There is no guarantee of stability, even in countries that might have been stable absent external support for dissident groups that would otherwise have remained quiescent.As Barry Posen suggests in his essay, multipolarity makes all aspects of external involvement in civil wars more fraught, including the possibility of a conflict among the major powers.6 In a multipolar world, no single pole is likely to be able to dictate outcomes to potential combatants. The possibility of a hurting stalemate declines because all sides hope that their fortunes could be resurrected by some outside power. Absent a hurting stalemate, which makes the standard treatment including UN Peacekeeping Operations (UN PKOs) and other forms of assistance attractive to major combatants, civil wars are more likely to continue. The contemporary international environment is more multipolar than was the case during the bipolarity of the Cold War or the unipolarity of the United States that lasted for a little over a decade after the Soviet Union collapsed. Managing civil wars will now be more difficult. The possibility of great-power conflict has increased. And because wars will prove harder to end, refugee flows will persist.Criminality. Criminality is a final area in which there may be some association between civil wars and weak governance, and the well-being of individuals in advanced industrialized countries. Because of the ease of transportation and communication, criminality is not limited to specific countries. Internet theft can originate from and impact many different countries. The loss of billions of dollars a year, drug smuggling, and human trafficking are familiar manifestations of transnational criminality. As Vanda Felbab-Brown writes, large-scale criminality can greatly exacerbate the challenges states face in defeating insurgencies and ending civil wars.7Addressing criminality associated with civil wars is fraught with difficulty. The association between criminal gangs and the state may be uncertain. National elites may protect criminal organizations. Some criminal organizations may generate revenues that help national elites stay in power. Yet while transnational criminality does affect individuals and institutions in the wealthier democracies, it is not a threat to their domestic political orders. The problem is best dealt with through national and international law enforcement.The most important conclusion that emerges from the discussions at the core of our project is that the policy options for addressing civil wars are limited. The essays in these two issues suggest that there are four factors that external actors must take into account when considering responses to intrastate warfare in weakly governed polities: the extent to which the interests of external and national political elites are complementary; the presence of irreconcilable groups in a civil conflict; the threat of great-power conflict; and the costs of intervention.Alignment of interests. Of these four factors, the greatest impediment to successful interventions is the misalignment of domestic and external elites' interests. Domestic elites governing an area afflicted by civil strife will be primarily interested in keeping themselves in power. The path to Denmark is paved with free and fair elections, rational-legal bureaucracies, and the rule of law, all of which are antithetical to the interests of those who hold power in closed-access or exclusive polities.The best that external actors can hope for is to bring some degree of security to areas that are afflicted with civil strife, which is easier to accomplish if none of the combatants are motivated by ideologies that cannot be reconciled, and if competing major or regional powers are not in proxy wars. even if irreconcilable and states are not part of a civil ambitious for and will fail because domestic elites are primarily interested in staying in not in and security assistance has been effective in a limited number of state institutions and the of civil but then only and only to some assistance might of but these are likely to or away when foreign assistance is the support of domestic external actors will fail to civil wars or effectively deal with from such of the world's especially polities by intrastate are rent-seeking states in which the political in power through foreign assistance and will not lead to into the night the number of votes the number of that political to stay in power. The in which the government is to but to within a is not the of almost all of human in almost all in the world, were and If individuals could the of the state they some external actors might be able to the incentives of national elites in the which this might are elites in countries by civil war are almost in what and political have an exclusive Their primary is to stay in power. This requires the and of of their support Most they must have command over of those who control the of violence that they cannot be in exclusive or rent-seeking orders are on the loss of and even life that would from a loss of will efforts for hold free and fair or to corruption as existential more like which are often sources for elites in exclusive might be as actors are only likely to have if domestic elites are on foreign as essay is often the and if external actors can threaten to which is often not the If domestic have sources of such as from or if the state is will not be able to threaten to assistance as government and have constraints were in Afghanistan, where the United States, billions of dollars in elections, and was to the of the rather than efforts to the fundamental of because such his The were because could not (though corruption on all to the of some from the of were by because the his and his in his essay, a for the that occur when the interests of external and internal actors are which will be the case when external actors to in rent-seeking on security that an effective national security at least effective in the of external is much harder than has been or As interests of domestic elites are often different from the interests of external The on power and domestic threats to their while the more on international or transnational threats that could their is, as a problem that cannot be the United States is most likely to provide security assistance to states that are governed if these polities were they would not external security In rent-seeking political will not the military as an the armed will be as as a potential that must be through some of and military in that to the of the A military of effectively in the is what in rent-seeking states do not As it would be almost for an external to such as with military or or which would be in the interests of national but not in the interests of external actors to an effective national military this the collapse of the in in one decade of U.S. military and billions of dollars of was hardly The United States that to effectively its ideological an that would not threaten and their on wars do not the that countries to stable polities and significantly the economic of large of the As with to the Middle East, the rent-seeking that were the conflict are likely to be during of civil is a that elites to those with they to stay in the of the external powers is the problem of to when the challenges of monitoring the of security assistance actors are not likely to be able to or even the interests and of actors in countries by civil may be may be power and their live in and for a while foreign and often for one at if the of the United States or other external is to help countries that have been afflicted with civil war consolidated democracy and there will be between the of domestic and foreign presence of and powers. If one or more of the major are or if two or more major powers have and interests conflict policy options to treat civil wars will be terrorism has been motivated primarily by ideological movements that reject the extant rules and of the global order. As the essays by and motivated have a that is antithetical to the almost of in the contemporary international the sovereign state The principles and associated with and international are to those that have been and by Islamic jihadi Islamic as points out, other authority is from not from some Islamic there is a fundamental distinction between the world of by Muslims and by Islamic law, and the of or where Islamic law is not to some of Islamic law, Islamic states can only with other Islamic with the world, are limited to the most contemporary of Islamic jihadi has that its is to a in the Middle East. a would state and the and rules of an secular who to a sovereign state the same to external powers that a on the of the contemporary international system and the of existing state cannot be with foreign assistance and they will not accept such the most policy option for those to the of the might be to war a As the armed were able to the while to the international order, from the of the may however, be to may have to be as the of Afghanistan and when with a a or parties are a more attractive as the misalignment of domestic and external interests has policy do the misalignment of major interests. The presence of major powers in a civil as can potentially threaten the security of as well as the international the

The issue of nuclear proliferation is one of the most vital issues as it reflects a form of dealing in the field of international relations. Therefore, the Middle East region has taken great interest in reducing the levels of nuclear armament and acquiring nuclear power within the strategic framework of the international and regional powers. The establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East region is currently one of the most important international and regional arrangements for controlling the levels of nuclear proliferation and attempting to build a state of stability and balance. In the Middle East and the world. The importance of the research comes from the fact that it deals with an important and vital issue: the issue of nuclear proliferation and its implications for the equation of the strategic balance in the Middle East after the events of September 11, 2001, which gained great importance in the post-cold war era. And to achieve some kind of stability and balance within the framework of the international and regional environment, especially in the Middle East, which has increased the importance of efforts in this regard the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries, it is possible to obtain nuclear technology by enhancing levels The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has become one of the most important facts for the post-Cold War era. At a time when only five countries possessed nuclear weapons (the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain) , As well as the possibility of other countries such as India, Pakistan and Israel, which suggests that the post-Cold War era has seen a widening of the circle of States possessing or manufacturing such weapons (Pakistan, North Korea and Iran) The emergence of regional tensions as in the case of William Middle East. Thus, the issue of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has become a central issue in the context of the post-Cold War American strategy, especially after the events of September 11, 2001, as a result of the convictions that there is an interrelationship between the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the global fight against terrorism. In keeping with this, the research started from the premise that the continuity of the Middle East countries in seeking to acquire nuclear capabilities is in itself an essential brake or determinant of the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, as well as the lack of guarantees to establish security among countries The Middle East, which is reflected negatively on the regional and international security approaches to the Middle East, and of course lead to the adoption of their respective security policies against each other within the framework of the growing levels of nuclear weapons to achieve some kind of balance towards the nuclear capabilities of each of these countries And then more nuclear armament policies in the region, as a result can not promote positive security perceptions that are based on the employment of enablers of smart power, which is reflected negatively on the strategic balance in the territory of the Middle East equation. Keywords: nuclear proliferation, the Middle East, strategic balance, the events of September 11, 2001, regional and international security, doctrine of preemptive war, preemptive war, nuclear deterrence, strategic perception, terrorism, nuclear power Nuclear proliferation.

Issues of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament take a back seat to a Middle East regional nuclear-free zone.

Can we put labels on states due to their history of conflict involvement? Popular folklore as well as the rhetoric of politicians suggests that we can. Germany up to the end of World War II and Japan in the same period were labeled “revisionist” or “aggressive” states. President Reagan called the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire,” due to its seemingly expansionist ideology, but also due to its presumably aggressive behavior. Israel is often depicted by many of its neighbors and other countries in and outside the Middle East as “inherently expansionist.” These examples suggest a notion that states can somehow be structurally characterized, independently of specific policies, leaders, political parties or regimes in power, economic and social conditions. If we can label states in structural terms, we can also label pairs or groups of states. For example, President George W. Bush branded North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as the “Axis of Evil,” due to these countries' pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton administration identified Syria, Iran, and Iraq as a destabilizing axis in the Middle East, confronting the latter two through a policy of dual containment. The scholarly literature on international politics has identified structural patterns of warring or conflicting dyads through such concepts as protracted conflict, intractable conflicts, and—more analytically defined—the concept of enduring rivalries (Diehl and Goertz 2000; Maoz and Mor 2002). How scientifically sound are such labels? More importantly, are such labels helpful in understanding the causes, courses, and consequences of international conflicts? In other areas of human and social inquiry, structural characterization of units is of immense importance. Genetic research clearly indicates that certain people are far more prone to some diseases than others. Research on addiction attempts to identify structural propensities of drug or alcohol abuse. Research on recidivism in criminology …

The relevance of research. The relevance of the problem under study is due to the need to develop a national concept for the control of weapons of mass destruction, taking into account national legislation, in order to develop a mechanism for monitoring activities in the field of trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, as well as measures to counter the merging with terrorist and religious extremist activities. Currently, financing of weapons of mass destruction poses a potential and real danger to the national security of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as the EAG countries. This is due to the common borders with many countries of the near abroad, a common historical past, and the manifestation of extremely negative factors of destabilization of states and the conduct of aggressive wars, with the use of such weapons, both in the Middle East and in other territories in the international community. The purpose of the article: is to determine the ways of interaction on the use of information by competent authorities countering the financing of weapons of mass destruction in the framework of international cooperation, as well as the system for the exchange and use of information by competent authorities countering the financing of weapons of mass destruction in the framework of international cooperation, consideration of legal and other mechanisms cooperation, coordination and control of weapons of mass its destruction (manufacture, acquisition, storage and disposal, transportation), within the framework of national legislation. Research results: A national concept for the control of weapons of mass destruction of a national and international mechanism for monitoring activities in the field of the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, sanctions for this criminal offense is presented and considered, new risks of financing WMD and their most problematic issues in the Republic of Kazakhstan are identified, taking into account the national legal system ensuring their effective resolution, as well as preventive measures for merg ing with the terroristion and religious extremist activities. Practical significance: Based on the current national legislation, the methodology for investigating crimes related to WMD and its financing and merging with international terrorism is determined, the main elements of the criminalistic characteristics of the type of criminal offense under consideration are identified, certain aspects related to the definition of weapons of mass destruction, their classification and types, the degree of the damaging effect and the severity of the consequences of their use, the purpose of punishment are identified, and the threats and vulnerabilities associated with financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction for modern Kazakhstan are identified.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I would like to thank Andrew Baker, Eric Helleiner, Jonathan Kirchner, Hubert Zimmerman, Paul Bowles and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts. See Ronald I. McKinnon, 'The Euro Threat is Exaggerated', The International Economy, Vol.12, No. 60 (1998), pp. 32–3. Ed Blanche, 'Iran takes on US but at what cost?', The Middle East, March 2006, p. 23. International Institute for Finance, Regional Briefing Gulf Cooperation Council, 31 May 2007, http://iif.com/emr/emr-af See Louise Story, 'An Oracle of Oil Predicts $200-a-Barrel Crude', The New York Times, 21 May 2008. IMF, Regional Economic Outlook: Middle East and Central Asia (International Monetary Fund, 2008), p. 44. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2008/MCD/eng/mreo0508.pdf IMF, Regional Economic Outlook, 2008, p. 61. International Institute for Finance, Regional Briefing Gulf Cooperation Council. George Magnus, 'Petrodollars: Where are they and do they matter?', UBS Investment Research, 19 July 2006, p. 5. Siddiqi Moin, 'Gulf Cooperation Council Goes for Growth', The Middle East, 1 December 2006. McKinsey & Company. 'The New Power Brokers: How Oil, Asia, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity are Shaping Global Capital Markets', The McKinsey Quarterly, October 2007, http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/The_New_Power_Brokers/ International Institute for Finance, Regional Briefing Gulf Cooperation Council Ewe-Ghee Lim, The Euro's Challenge to the Dollar, IMF Working Paper no. 06/153, IMF, 2006, p. 20. Eric Helleiner, 'Political Determinants of International Currencies: What Future for the US Dollar?', Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2008), pp. 354–78. See Danske Bank, 'Will the decline in USD become disorderly?', FX Crossroads, 14 November 2007. The IMF has also argued that the high oil prices cannot be explained by the 'fundamentals' and points to market speculators as a key factor in higher prices. See IMF, Regional Economic Outlook, p. 27. Musa Essayad & Ibrahim Algahtani, 'Policy Issues Related to Substitution of the US Dollar in Oil Pricing', International Journal of Global Energy Issues, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2005), p. 75. Government Accounting Office (GAO), The US–Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation', GAO, ID 79-7, 22 March 1979. Edward Morse, 'A New Political Economy of Oil?', Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 53, No. 1 (1999), p. 4. David E. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets (Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 105–26. Musa Essayad & Donald Marx, 'OPEC and optimal currency portfolios', Oil, Gas, and Energy Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 2 (2001), pp. 363–84. See also Oystein Noreng, 'Oil, the Euro, and the Dollar', Journal of Energy and Development Vol. 30, No.1 (2004), pp. 53–80. See Bessma Momani, 'Reacting to Global Forces: Economic and Political Integration of the GCC', Journal of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies, Vol. 38, No. 128 (2008), pp. 46–66. Oystein Noreng, 'The euro and the oil market: new challenges to the industry', Journal of Energy Finance and Development, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1999), pp. 29–68. Gregory Gause, 'Relations between the Gulf Cooperation Council States and the United States', Gulf Research Center, Dubai, 2004. Simon Bromley, 'The United States and the Control of World Oil', Government and Opposition, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2005), p. 244. Essayad & Marx, 'OPEC and optimal currency portfolios', pp. 364–84. Essayad & Algahtani, 'Policy Issues Related to Substitution of the US Dollar in Oil Pricing', p. 72. See Noreng, 'Oil, the Euro, and the Dollar'. Benjamin Cohen, 'The Geopolitics of Currencies and the Future of the International System', Paper prepared for a conference on The Geopolitics of Currencies and Oil, Madrid, 7 November 2003, pp. 18–9. Russian President Putin first alluded to the idea of using petroeuros instead of petrodollars in 1999 during an EU meeting in Helsinki, and again in a news conference with the German Chancellor in Yekaternburg in 2003. In the later meeting, Putin remarked: 'We do not rule out that it [petroeuro] is possible. That would be interesting for our European partners … but this does not depend solely on us. We do not want to hurt prices on the market.' Quoted from Catherine Belton, 'Putin: Why not price oil in Euro?,' Moscow Times, 10 October 2003, p. 1. William Clark, Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar (New Society Publishers, 2005), p. 31. As US rationales for war in Iraq have continued to be exposed for naught – weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi connection to 9/11, spreading democratisation in the Middle East – radical critics have charged that the real motivation behind the war in Iraq was to prevent other OPEC members from also selling oil in euros. See Clark, Petrodollar Warfare, p. 31. 'Iran Ends Oil Transactions in US Dollars', The Associated Press, 30 April 2008. Gause, 'Relations between the Gulf Cooperation Council States and the United States', pp. 17–8. Morse, 'A New Political Economy of Oil?', p. 13. Kamran Dadkhah, 'Futures market for Crude Oil', in Siamack Shojai & Bernard S. Katz (eds), The Oil Market in the 1980s (Praeger, 1992), pp. 210–11. Morse, 'A New Political Economy of Oil?', p. 21. Elitza Mileva & Nikolaus Siefried, 'Oil Market Structure, Network Effects and the Choice of Currency for Oil Invoicing', Occasional Paper Series, European Central Bank, 2007. See Katherine Stephan, 'Oil Companies and the International Oil Market', in Svetlana Tsalik & Anya Schiffrin (eds), Covering Oil: A Reporter's Guide to Energy and Development (Open Society Institute, 2005), pp. 47–60. Robert Looney, 'A Euro-Denominated Oil Bourse in Iran: Potential Major Force In International System?', Gulf Research Centre, Dubai, 2006, p. 8; Noreng, 'Oil, the Euro, and the Dollar', p. 40. Javad Yarjani, Head of the Petroleum Market Analysis Department, OPEC, 'The Choice of Currency for the Denomination of the Oil Bill', Speech given at Oviedo, Spain at a meeting on The International Role of the Euro, convened by the Spanish Minster of Economic Affairs, 14 April 2002. Mark Irvine, 'Long Shot: The prospects for a Conversion to Euro Pricing in Oil Markets', Elements, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2005), pp. 63–8. Mark Irvine, 'Long Shot'. Yarjani, 'The Choice of Currency for the Denomination of the Oil Bill'. Iran has already started to trade oil in euros in bilateral contracts with the EU and has a US$70 billion gas deal with China (the second largest oil consumer), but pricing remained set in US dollars. In December 2006, Iran also announced that its Central Bank would replace all dollar assets and future foreign transactions with euros. Looney, 'A Euro-Denominated Oil Bourse in Iran?', p. 8. Ibid., p. 8. It should be noted that because oil pricing is more market-based, the kind of state bargains used to decrease oil prices are now less successful and oil markets are more vulnerable to political crises and risk in oil-producing states. So, oil markets can lead to steep increases in oil prices despite consistent supply because risk is factored into oil prices. Irvine, 'Long Shot'. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony, p. 37. Government Accounting Office (GAO), 'Are OPEC Financial Holdings A Danger to the US Banks or the Economy?', GAO, ID 79-45, 11 June 1979. See Looney, A Euro-Denominated Oil Bourse in Iran, p. 8. See GAO, The US–Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation. Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., p. 48. See 'Saudi Arabia: Current Issues and U.S. Relations', Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2006. Don De Marino, 'How Can the U.S. Reopen For Business To The Arab World?', Middle East Policy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2006). Heather Timmons, 'Asia finding rich partners in Mideast', The New York Times, 1 December 2006. Lawrence Summers, 'Funds that shake capitalist logic', The Financial Times, 29 July 2007. See Henry Paulson, 'Paulson Remarks On Open Investment Before the US–UAE Business Council', US Department of Treasury, 2 June 2008, http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp1001.htm 'The Petrodollar Puzzle', The Economist, 9 June 2007, p. 86. Moin, 'Gulf Cooperation Council Goes for Growth'. Christian Menegatti & Brad Setser, 'Are GCC Dollar Pegs and Impediment to Global Adjustment? And Does Pegging to the Dollar Make Domestic Sense?', Roubini Global Economic Service, 2006. See 'Gulf Investments and Its Trends', Gulf Industrial Bulletin, GOIC, 2006, http://www.goic.org.qa/relatedDocs/GIB/GIB66_E.pdf See Andrew Cooper & Bessma Momani, 'The Challenge of Re-branding Countries in the Middle East: Opportunities through New Networked Engagements versus Constraints of Embedded Negative Images', Paper presented to the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, 26–29 March 2008. See Matteo Legrenzi, 'Did the GCC Make a Difference? Institutional Realities and (Un)Intended Consequences', in Cilja Harders & Matteo Legrenzi (eds), Beyond Regionalism? Regional Cooperation, Regionalism and Regionalization in the Middle East (Ashgate, 2008), pp. 107–24. IMF, Regional Economic Outlook, p. 8. Moin, 'Gulf Cooperation Council Goes for Growth'. Economics Intelligent Unit (EIU), 'Near East meets Far East: the rise of Gulf investment in Asia', September 2007. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 7. Ramin Toloui, 'Petrodollars, Asset Prices, and the Global Financial System' Capital Perspectives, PIMCO, January 2007, p. 6. Institute of International Finance, 'Regional Briefing Gulf Cooperation Council', p. 4. Ibid., p. 4. Ugo Fasano & Zubair Iqbal, 'Common Currency', Finance and Development, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2002), pp. 1–7, are optimistic that with added institutionalisation, like the creation of a regional central bank, the GCC's currency unification should produce positive results. For GCC currency unification to succeed, as some economists have argued, the GCC needs to liberalise capital and labour mobility, have flexible prices and wages, and have a fiscal transfer system. See 'Lyons Raises Doubts over GCC Common Currency,' Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), Vol. 50, No. 6 (2006), p. 24. See Brad Sester, 'The Case for Exchange Rate Flexibility in Oil-Exporting Economies', Policy Brief, Peterson Institute for International Economics, November 2007. Kuwait which had used a basket of currencies, aligned its currency closer to the dollar in preparation for the currency union in 2003 and then again de-pegged its currency in 2007. 'The Dollar: Time to break free', The Economist, 22 November 2007. IMF, Regional Economic Outlook, p. 3. Jeffrey Frankel, 'A Proposed Monetary Regime for Small Commodity Exporters: Peg to the Export Price', International Finance, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 2003), pp. 61–88. See 'UAE Rejects calls to drop the dollar', Khaleej Times, 29 February 2008. See 'Countdown to lift-off', The Economist, 22 November 2007. Outside the GCC, moreover, Syria also announced that it would use euros in government transactions as opposed to dollars and a number of other Middle East central banks hinted of adopting similar policies in reaction to the failed ports deal. See Philip Thornton, 'Arab central banks move assets out of dollar', The Independent, 14 March 2006. Veronica Brown, 'DIFC CEO sees more Gulf FX moves away from dollar', Reuters, 25 March 2007. See Sester, 'The Case for Exchange Rate Flexibility in Oil-Exporting Economies'; Gerard Lyons, 'Middle East must loosen ties to the dollar,' The Financial Times, 6 December 2007. The name for the proposed currency has yet to be decided upon. Some media reports have referred to it as the Khaleej Dinar, although this will be a contested term. 'Regional Currency Areas and the use of Foreign Currencies', BIS Papers, No. 17 (2003), available at http://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap17.pdf Emilie Rutledge, 'Gulf Monetary Union is a cracking project?', Gulf News, 16 December 2006; see also Menegatti and Setser, 'Are GCC Dollar Pegs and Impediment to Global Adjustment?' Gaurav Ghose, 'UAE Doubts union deadline', Gulf News, 18 December 2006; see also Rutledge, 'Gulf Monetary Union is a cracking project?' Mohammed Abbas, 'Bahrain to ditch dollar peg, report claims', Reuters, 11 December 2007. Andrew England, 'Saudis urged to revalue riyal', The Financial Times, 13 January 2008. Simeon Kerr, 'Qatar considers dropping dollar peg', The Financial Times, 30 January 2008. Noreng, 'Oil, the Euro, and the Dollar'. Henner Furtig, 'GCC–EU Political Cooperation: Myth or Reality?', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2004), p. 30. Furtig, 'GCC–EU Political Cooperation', p. 30. Bessma Momani, 'A Middle East Free Trade Area: Economic Interdependence and Peace Considered', The World Economy, Vol. 30, No. 11 (2007), pp. 1682–700. Bessma Momani, 'Reacting to Global Forces: Economic and Political Integration of the GCC', Journal of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies, Vol. 38, No. 128 (2008), pp. 46–66. Agata Antkiewicz & Bessma Momani, 'Pursuing Geopolitical Stability through Interregional Trade: The EU's Motives for Negotiating with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)', CIGI Working Paper 31, Centre for International Governance and Innovation, 2007. Daniel Hanna, 'A New Fiscal Framework for GCC Countries Ahead of Monetary Union', International Economics Programme, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2006), p. 7. See Marc O'Reilly & Wesley Renfro, 'Evolving Empire: America's 'Emirates' Strategy in the Persian Gulf', International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2007), pp. 137–51. Furtig, 'GCC–EU Political Cooperation', p. 30. Eckart Woertz, 'The Role of Gold in the Unified GCC Currency', Gulf Research Centre, Dubai, 2005.

The global nuclear regime may have reached a crossroads: the states par ties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have called for the establish ment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems in the Middle East. Now that Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have reached a deal in Geneva over a phased verification of the peaceful character of Iran’s nuclear program, the international community needs to address broader regional issues. Failure to move forward could imperil the global nonproliferation architecture. At the same time, little thought has been given to how this regional arrangement would work both internally (with its member states) and externally (with other organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency). This article reviews the obstacles and windows of opportunity for a comprehensive regional nuclear settle ment by drawing lessons from recent history in Europe. In particular, the history of the European Atomic Energy Community suggests how a future regional organization with jurisdiction in all aspects of nuclear develop ment should articulate its functions with existing international organiza tions such as the IAEA. In Europe, regional institutions have played a crucial role in creating trust among former warring nations and in harmo nizing the regional and global nuclear orders. A EURATOM-like organiza tion would be a great step for the Middle East and a great model for other regions that must deal with issues of global legal complexity (e.g., how they can harmonize regional and global orders so that they can pursue the same goals with different but compatible means). KEYWORDS : Middle East, EURATOM, weapons of mass destruction, regime complexity. NUCLEAR ENERGY IS ON THE RISE AND WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW nuclear power plant projects, especially in volatile regions like the Middle East, new security concerns are likely to dominate international affairs in the coming years. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates significant growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide—between 23 per cent and 100 percent by 2030—although the agency’s projections for 2030 are 1‐9 percent lower than projections made in 2011. 1 The spread of nuclear

Tables and figures Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee 1. Weapons of mass destruction: a brief overview Susan B. Martin 2. The international law concerning weapons of mass destruction Paul C. Szasz Part I. The Original Debate: 3. Realist perspectives on ethical norms and weapons of mass destruction Scott D. Sagan 4. Realism and weapons of mass destruction: a consequentialist analysis Susan B. Martin 5. Natural law and weapons of mass destruction C. A. J. Coady 6. War and indeterminacy in natural law thinking John Langan S.J. 7. Liberalism: the impossibility of justifying weapons of mass destruction Henry Shue 8. A liberal perspective on deterrence and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction Michael Walzer 9. Christianity and weapons of mass destruction Nigel Biggar 10. Christian apocalypticism and weapons of mass destruction Martin L. Cook Part II. Expanding the Conversation: 11. Buddhist perspectives on weapons of mass destruction David W. Chappell 12. Buddhism and weapons of mass destruction: an oxymoron? Donald K. Swearer 13. Confucianism and weapons of mass destruction Julia Ching 14. 'Heaven's Mandate' and the concept of war in early Confucianism Philip J. Ivanhoe 15. Hinduism and the ethics of weapons of mass destruction Katherine K. Young 16. Hinduism and weapons of mass destruction: pacifist, prudential and political Kanti Bajpai 17. Islamic ethics and weapons of mass destruction: an argument for nonproliferation Sohail H. Hashmi 18. 'Do not violate the limit': three issues in Islamic thinking on weapons of mass destruction John Kelsay 19. Judaism, war and weapons of mass destruction Reuven Kimelman 20. Between the Bible and the Holocaust: three sources for Jewish perspectives on mass destruction Joseph E. David Part III. Critical Perspectives: 21. A feminist ethical perspective on weapons of mass destruction Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick 22. A pragmatist feminist approach to the ethics of weapons of mass destruction Lucinda Joy Peach 23. Pacifism and weapons of mass destruction Robert L. Holmes 24. Pacifism and weapons of mass destruction: the challenge of peace Duane L. Cady 25. Weapons of mass destruction and the limits of moral understanding: a comparative essay Steven P. Lee Contributors Index.

COVID Roundtable

A Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East by Jan Prawitz and James F. Leonard. New York and Geneva: United Nations 1996. Pp.134. £19. ISBN 9290451149 The Devil's Brews II: Weapons of Mass Destruction and International Security, Robin Ranger and David Wiencek, Bailrigg Memorandum 17, Centre for Defence and International Security Studies, Lancaster University, 1997. Pp.74. £10. ISSN 0969–6040

The focus of this article is the causes of proliferation of nuclear, biologic, and chemical weapons, and their means of delivery—collectively referred to simply as weapons of mass destruction—in the Middle East. It seeks to explain the quest to proliferate in terms of the motivations of the major regional powers, the interconnectivity of the region, and local perceptions as to the nature of security threats. Finally, the article comments briefly on what the United States should do to control the proliferation incentive in the region.

Brief Synopses of New Arabic Language Publications

The Middle East and North Africa are one of the most conflict-prone regions. Due to its geopolitical position and oil production, the Middle East has always been the trump card in the game, both before World War II and during the Cold War, still today. Why do wars persist in the Middle East? Why has the situation in the Middle East deteriorated to this extent? Is rentier economics always a vital variable explaining political instability in the Middle East? After empirically analyzing the causes of political instability in the Middle East using various data, the study suggests that the experience of being a colony of Britain, France, and Italy hurt society and that the critical geographic location between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War suffered various harmful effects. On the other hand, the result also shows that manufacturing weakness due to the oil economy, high unemployment rates, and lack of democracy are all critical explanatory variables for political instability. Since the 2000s, the United States has increased its energy self-sufficiency rate through the shale oil and gas revolution. The Middle East is an option for the United States to buy oil. On the other hand, the Middle East is essential for the United States to export weapons. The Middle East has faced a geopolitical crisis in recent years due to these factors.

The modern world is exposed to increasingly rapid and dramatic changes. In the past three years. the most important global processes are marked by great dangers, which interrupted the thirty-year period of global stability and progress. The past three years have been marked by processes that radically change the current political, economic and security relations in the world and significantly affect contemporary states and the international order. The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly intense global migration, the American effort to preserve global dominance, the strengthening of China’s role in the world, Russia’s preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, and the renewal of the arms race, especially with nuclear weapons, have the effect that security turns into insecurity of the international order. With the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is faced with major economic and political consequences. The end of the war in Ukraine is also uncertain, as is the possibility of its spread to other countries and the unfathomable consequences it has caused for global politics and the economy. Already these two global problems have dramatically affected the global community, and the repositioning of many countries, especially the leading world powers. Because of this, the US continuously adapts its foreign and security policy to the state of the world, strengthening its influence in Europe and Asia, where it confronts Russia and China. As America’s main challenger, China continues to strengthen its economy and project soft power in the global community, especially in Africa and the Middle East. India, which has recently become the world’s most populous country, is also gaining a growing global influence. Taking into account the influence of other global actors such as the European Union, Brazil, Japan and Australia, it is certain that we are facing a period of new multipolarism as a framework for solving both new and old global political, economic and security problems. Global security, which until recently was threatened primarily by terrorism, organized crime, hybrid threats, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and cyber threats, due to the increasing number of new and more challenging threats, such as wars, will be realized in the uncertainty of the international order.

The history of the Middle East Nuclear Weapon Free Zone proposal, originally advanced by Iran and Egypt in 1974, is described, as well as the extension of the concept in 1990 to include all weapons of mass destruction, and the UN Secretary General's 1990 expert report on the subject. The possible geographic scope of the Middle East for a zone purpose is discussed, concluding that such a zone should include all League of Arab States members and Israel and Iran. The elements and design of a potential treaty for a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMDFZ) are then considered, including a proposed definition of the concept of weapons of mass destruction, standard features and aspects of such zones, and the issue of sea areas adjacent to the zone. Finally, recent developments are analyzed, particularly the possible effects of the May 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear test explosions on the Middle East peace process. It is concluded that Israel, the third nuclear threshold state, will most probably not follow the South Asian example; and that the principal obstacle to progress on the WMDFZ proposal is the delay in implementing the peace process.