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10. Policy Transformation in the Middle East: Arms Control Regimes and National Security Reconciled Hemda Ben-Yehuda This essay examines the debates over what regional changes will follow the end ofthe Cold War and the establishment of a new world order with the approach of the twenty-first century. While contributors to the volume under review may be divided into "realists" who emphasize the need for states to maintain full military capability and "liberals" who believe that norms of decision-making should constrain short-term power maximization, the author focuses on a neglected but crucial element in policymaking : elite attitudinal change, which she illustrates with examples from her original research into Yitzhak Rabin's evolving policy toward the Palestinians. Inbar, Efraim, and Shmuel Sandler, eds., Middle Eastern Security: Prospects for an Arms Control Regime, A BESA Study in Middle East Security, London: Frank Cass, 1995. cr-he collection of essays, Middle Eastern Security: Prospects for 1 an Arms Control Regime, by Efraim lnbar and Shmuel Sandler is the product of a November 1993 international conference on 173 174 Hemda Ben-Yehuda "Arms Control in the Middle East" held at Bar-Ilan University, integrating research by scholars from Europe, Israel, and the United States. This diversity adds to the scope of issues addressed in the book and makes it a valuable source for those who seek to understand the dynamics and prospects of conflict and cooperation in today's Middle East. The studies in this anthology bring together two concepts: security and regimes. These are core issues in international relations (lR) literature, and are not, in and ofthemselves, specific to this volume . Security can be defined as a situation of "self-preservation, obtained by ensuring that the territorial and political boundaries ofthe homeland and 'vital' territory cannot be changed by others."l This concept derives from the "realist" school in international relations literatu:re, which suggests that the best way to safeguard security is to maintain a powerful military capability, thereby ensuring that the threat posed by others is minimal. Regimes, the second concept, comes from the "liberal" school in IR literature, and is commonly defined as "principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area" that serve to "constrain immediate, short-term power maximization."2 When viewed together, both concepts form a "security regime," that is, "those principles, rules and norms that permit nations to be restrained in their behavior in the belief that others will reciprocate. The coneept implies ... a form of cooperation that is more than the following ofshort-term interests."3 Moreover, a security regime is characterized by an acceptance oflimitations on the use of military force, and includes agreements on arms control, Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs), and a certain level ofinstitutionalization. Security and regimes are hard to reconcile, since the former emphasizes self- and short-term interests while the latter are based on collective, long-term cooperative arrangemEmts. One ofthe strengths of the Inbar and Sandler volume is that it covers a wide range of thinking on the realism-versus-liberalism debate, including both studies that advocate the merits ofreaching a security regime in the Middle East and those that support the virtues of preserving a traditional military balance of power in the region. Security and regimes not only provide fodder for theoretical debate , but also bear policy implications for those leaders involved in the ongoing negotiation process. Since the October 1991 Madrid conference , Israel and a number ofArab countries have participated in multilateral negotiations on Arms Control and Regional Security Policy Transformation in the Middle East 175 (ACRS). During the biannual plenaries and frequent workshops conducted within this framework, participants address a wide range of issues, including CSBMs and verification for conventional as well as for nonconventional weapons (e.g., Steinberg, pp. 80-81). The different studies in the Inbar and Sandler anthology share many common assumptions, and the core topics linked to the problem of arms proliferation and disarmament in the Middle East are similar. Even the conclusions of most of the essays are identical: namely, that an arms control regime in the Middle East could be very helpful, is desirable, and is even supported by some ofthe leading states in the area-but nevertheless seems unlikely to emerge in the near future.4 First, the authors agree that for various reasons the United States, Russia, and the European states are unlikely to playa decisive and positive role in regime creation in the Middle...

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