ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the likely courses the flow of arms to the Middle East will follow during the balance of the seventies, the scope of feasible arms-limitation measures in light of existing political quarrels in the region, and the factor of greatly increased revenues for Middle East oil-producing countries. The Arab-Israel conflict remains the primary potential flash-point and the locus of greatest political and military instability in the Middle East area. The arms competition between Israel and its neighbors is the fiercest and most expensive of any generated by international conflicts outside the industrial European-North American quadrangle. The arms buildups in the Gulf and in the Arab-Israel conflict zone are closely linked by several factors other than geographic proximity. The situation in the Gulf epitomizes the complexity of the pattern of local conflicts characteristic of the Middle East as a whole.
