Description
The issue of whether, and how, to regulate arms transfers to the Middle East has been a subject of controversy in recent years, particularly regarding transfers to Saudi Arabia and Israel. This paper examines the operation of the top-secret Near East Arms Coordinating (NEACC) created in the aftermath of the 1950 Tripartite Declaration, in which the US, UK and France declared their “opposition to the development of an arms race between the Arab states and Israel”. The paper begins by situating NEACC in the longer history of efforts to regulate the arms trade to the Middle East. The paper then draws on archival research to examine the background to the creation of NEACC, the debates in NEACC on how to measure whether an arms balance existed, and the strategies of restraint adopted by NEACC members. Overall, the paper will place current debates on controversial arms transfers to the Middle East in the context of the shifting models of arms trade regulation applied to the region. The paper also highlights the strategies of restraint short of prohibition adopted by NEACC members, and the implications such practices have for contemporary research on arms export regulation.
