Abstract
Ballistic missiles have been the deterrent of choice in the Middle East, where countries rely on their missile forces for civilian and military security. The arms race goes on as these nations continue to develop and test missiles. But in response to growing international interest in restraint, a trend toward missile control has surfaced in the Middle East.
With the exception of Iran, Middle Eastern countries have traditionally remained ambiguous about their missile programs, letting others tell the world about their tests and capabilities. This makes it possible to enjoy deterrence without releasing sensitive details or exposing themselves to outside pressure to disarm. But such pressure is limited at best. There are no globally accepted norms regarding ballistic missiles, and most efforts to prevent proliferation have been futile. The only international body currently addressing the spread of missiles, the Missile Technology Control Regime, wants to change that.
Iran's Shihab-3 missile, in a military parade in Teheran, September 1998.
The control regime, which has its fifteenth anniversary this April, aims at stopping the proliferation of missiles with ranges of more than 300 kilometers and payloads greater than 500 kilograms. It is an informal but exclusive club that allows members to buy and sell missile parts only among themselves. A prerequisite for membership is signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty–a requirement that has prevented Israel from joining. Despite this, Israel has adhered to the regime since October 1991, when, under American pressure, it halted missile transfers to South Africa. A decade later, the missile regime's guidelines are now included in Israeli export control rules. Other countries, like Iran and Egypt, are also making slow moves toward missile control.
In 2000, missile control regime members began promoting a new initiative to expand missile nonproliferation efforts to include states such as Syria and Iran that had been left out of its scope. The initiative, a “code of conduct,” is intended to encourage “responsible missile behavior” and has two pillars. It calls for transparency in missile development as a confidence-building measure, asking each country to declare its missile policy and inform other states about every missile test and launch. The other principle is payoff: creating incentives for countries to forgo their missile capabilities.
When the draft code reached Jerusalem, the Israeli government decided to respond with a detailed policy. The foreign ministry, which calls for greater openness toward arms control initiatives, led the process. But the security establishment, long committed to vagueness about its missile program, bristled at the idea of transparency. Defense authorities maintained that openness, far from being a confidence-building measure, actually fans the flames of the arms race, citing the tit-for-tat behavior of India and Pakistan. “When India and Pakistan show off their missiles towards each other, it only spurs further development,” an Israeli official told me, “and when Iran puts its Shi-hab missile in a military parade, with the word ‘Jerusalem’ written on it, what kind of confidence building is that?”
Last May, at the regime's Warsaw conference, the Israelis presented their policy paper. It recognized missile proliferation as a major problem in the Middle East and agreed on the importance of getting non-regime states to join the code of conduct, as long as doing so doesn't weaken the existing control regime. (In other words, don't give handouts just to have certain countries on board.) But because Israel feels that transparency is a poor idea in the Middle Eastern context, it also called for a mixture of different confidence-building measures tailored to fit regional conditions.
The reaction at the conference was positive, and officials in Jerusalem are now waiting to see an updated draft of the code.
Israel has never publicly acknowledged the existence of its ground-to-ground missiles, admitting only to having the Shavit space launch vehicle, which is used to carry Ofeq spy satellites into orbit. Israel's missile program is the oldest and most sophisticated in the Middle East, dating back to the early 1960s and believed to be built around the Jericho mediumrange, nuclear-tipped missile.
Despite its secrecy, Israeli missile activity is far from hidden. It is often widely covered in the international press and never officially denied. When the latest Jericho test was carried out in June 2001, the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat reported on it. An earlier test in April 2000 was leaked by the Pentagon after the missile passed too close to an American military vessel in the Mediterranean.
Summer is traditionally a season of missile testing in the Middle East. A few days after the Jericho launch in June, Syria fired a Scud-B missile that Israeli media reported as armed with a “chemical warhead”–but none of the reports explained exactly what was meant by that term. When the Syrians kept silent about it, Israel disclosed the test.
Nine months earlier, Israeli chief of staff Gen. Shaul Mofaz had revealed the launching of Syrian Scud-D missiles that had been discovered by Israel's new missile defense radar system, the Arrow. Syria built its missile force to counter Israeli air and nuclear superiority. Israel attacked Damascus during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and in 1982 destroyed the Syrian air defense system. The Scud, now indigenously produced in Syria with North Korean know-how, is the backbone of Syria's strategic equation with Israel.
Iran, seen as Israel's main adversary, has maintained an ongoing missile program. Iran successfully tested its Shihab-3 missile in July 2000, while Israelis and Palestinians were meeting at Camp David. A later test in September 2000 apparently failed. With its 1,300-kilometer range, the Shihab-3 can reach any target in Israel and is seen as a major threat to Israeli security. Unlike their neighbors, the Iranians are proud about their missile force and publicize their launches.
But recently, Iran has stepped back from its aggressive pursuit of improved missiles. Its Shihab-4, originally planned as a ballistic missile, was renamed as a space launcher for civilian purposes. And in late 2000, Iran proposed a U.N. resolution creating a panel of government missile experts to develop a “comprehensive approach towards missiles, in a balanced and non-discriminatory manner, as a contribution to international peace and security.” The resolution was adopted, and 23 states sent their officials to the panel's first meeting last August, which dealt with procedural matters. Two more meetings are scheduled for 2002, the next being in March. Israel, suspicious as always toward the United Nations, participates in the panel but places greater emphasis on the regime's code of conduct initiative.
Egypt's missile breakthrough came when the Soviet Union supplied it with Scud missiles before the Arab-Israeli war in 1973. The Scuds deterred Israel from attacking Cairo and the Egyptian rear. Since then, Egypt has kept quiet about its missile force as its program advanced with technical assistance from North Korea, the key supplier of missile technology to the region. As an American ally, Egypt was kept outside the focus of U.S. nonproliferation efforts. Nonetheless, Washington cringed at the cooperation between Cairo and Pyongyang. Last July, an Egyptian delegation was called to Washington to discuss suspicions regarding a new deal with North Korea to produce a longer-range missile. The issue had been raised by Israel's friends in Congress, who pushed the Bush administration to act. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak denied the existence of a deal, and his delegation managed to sufficiently assure the Americans. According to Israeli media reports, the Egyptians will upgrade their aging Scud inventory but refrain from building and deploying a larger model.
Given the growing tensions in the Middle East, there is little likelihood that the regional missile race will stop or even substantially slow down. But the events of the past year show that international pressure could move missile control forward.