Abstract
This chapter examines how Israel contributes to the contemporary arms race in the Middle East. Facing security challenges posed by the Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) proposed a digitalization plan to empower itself with cutting-edge technologies. The vision was then materialized by Israel’s defense industry, which developed modern weaponry and equipment based on IDF’s needs. As the state-of-the-art systems enhanced Israel’s military superiority, they also disturbed the regional arms dynamic and balance of power. In response, Israel’s adversaries will attempt to narrow the technological gap and develop asymmetrical countermeasures, which again alters Israel’s security environment. The outcome is a vicious circle of a regional arms race. This mechanism is exemplified by Israel’s AI-powered arms development and its impact on the conventional and nuclear arms races in the region. What further distorts the arms dynamic is the military aid and arms exports of the USA to the region. In the foreseeable future, the Middle East is likely to witness an acceleration of arms races as emerging cutting-edge technologies are introduced by regional powers into the military domain as force multipliers.
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Notes
- 1.
The Abraham Accords is a series of US-brokered joint declarations in 2020 and 2021 for normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan (US Department of State, n.d.).
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He, J. (2023). Israel and the Regional Arms Race in the Digital Era. In: Eslami, M., Guedes Vieira, A.V. (eds) The Arms Race in the Middle East. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32432-1_8
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