ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concepts underlying arms control in the East-West context, examine the differences and similarities between it and the Middle Eastern context, and traces a possible evolutionary sketch of arms control in the region. Arms control and regional security building measures are an integral part of the Middle East peace process, and have received renewed attention from scholars and policymakers since the 1990–1991 Gulf War. Some arms control measures that can be imagined in the Middle East are purely technical, and can emerge in an atmosphere of intense distrust and conflict, while others would explicitly attempt to build trust and be linked to broader confidence building processes. Arms control has been understood by Western scholars as a historically conditioned set of practices that evolved between suspicious and heavily armed adversaries since the late 1950s. Arms control was a broader concept, and its underlying goal was the regulation or stabilization of the East-West conflict.
