A report on Arab-Israeli military balance
Not so much, according to a new report on the Arab-Israeli military balance from the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
As the report shows, Israel has also benefited from continuing US aid and arms transfers â?? benefits that are substantially greater than the dollar figures show because Israel is able to draw on the most advanced US military technology, often on preferential terms, and integrate into its own advanced military industrial base. Israeli political claims that the Obama Administration has somehow distanced itself from a concern with Israelâ??s security have not been reflected in arms transfers and security cooperation.
One interesting area of the report is what it notes about biological weapons:
The wild card in this quiet race in weapons of mass destruction is biological warfare. All of the major states in the Middle East that affect the Arab-Israel balance are acquiring the technology and industrial base to produce advanced genetically engineered biological weapons. Such capabilities may also be within the grasp of non-state actors in the mid-term. There are no meaningful control or inspection options to prevent this, and no prospect that any weapons of mass destruction free zone agreement could deal even with this aspect of the arms race in the region.
Nuclear bombs capture the imagination, but they're hard to make and essentially impossible to use in aggression against another nuclear state given mutually assured destruction. Biological weapons, however, seem to be a perfect "terror weapon." One that probably requires a lot more attention than previously given.
(AP Photo)
