Forum on the Arms Trade
  • Home
  • Experts
    • View all - by location
    • View by issue expertise >
      • View all
      • US Policy and Practice >
        • Arms sales
        • Security assistance
        • Export control
        • Defense industry
      • International Instruments >
        • Arms Trade Treaty
        • CCW
        • Other instruments
      • Weapons >
        • small arms/light weapons
        • drones
        • landmines/cluster munitions
        • killer robots
        • cyber
        • explosive weapons
        • F-35
      • International Trade >
        • Global trade data/trends
        • Strategic trade control
        • Africa
        • Latin America
        • Middle East
        • Europe
        • Asia
      • Implications >
        • Harm to civilians
        • Gender
        • Child soldiers
        • Arms trafficking
        • Corruption
        • Environment
    • A to B >
      • Rasha Abdul Rahim
      • Jeff Abramson
      • Ray Acheson
      • Katherine Aguirre Tobón
      • Linda Åkerström
      • Waleed Alhariri
      • Radhya al-Mutawakel
      • Alma Taslidzan Al-Osta
      • Philip Alpers
      • Habbouba Aoun
      • Peter Asaro
      • David Atwood
      • Kathi Lynn Austin
      • Natalia Báez Zamudio
      • Deepayan Basu Ray
      • Seth Binder
      • Subindra Bogati
      • Laura Boillot
      • Matthew Breay Bolton
      • Mark Bromley
      • Martin Butcher
    • C to G >
      • Brian Castner
      • Thompson Chengeta
      • Purna Shova Chitrakar
      • Helen Close
      • Jordan Cohen
      • Magda Coss Nogueda
      • Verity Coyle
      • Anna Crowe
      • Maria Pia Devoto
      • Lode Dewaegheneire
      • Bonnie Docherty
      • Gugu Dube
      • Geoffrey L. Duke
      • Nils Duquet
      • Cindy Ebbs
      • Jennifer L. Erickson
      • Andrew Feinstein
      • Aude Fleurant
      • Denise Garcia
      • Dan Gettinger
      • Natalie Goldring
      • Colby Goodman
      • Hector Guerra
    • H to L >
      • William Hartung
      • Lisa Haugaard
      • Alexandra Hiniker
      • Erin Hunt
      • Adam Isacson
      • Roy Isbister
      • Cesar Jaramillo
      • N.R. Jenzen-Jones
      • Raza Shah Khan
      • Daryl G. Kimball
      • Adele Kirsten
      • Kate Kizer
      • Michael Klare
      • Matt Korda
      • William Kullman
      • Guy Lamb
      • Bruno Langeani
      • Edward J. Laurance
      • John Lindsay-Poland
    • M to R >
      • Daniel Mack
      • Daniel Mahanty
      • Ara Marcen Naval
      • Ivan Marques
      • Jesus Martínez
      • Montserrat Martínez Téllez
      • Nicholas Marsh
      • Shana Marshall
      • Stephen Miles
      • Elizabeth Minor
      • Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan
      • Robert Muggah
      • Wanda Muñoz
      • Folade Mutota
      • Jasmin Nario-Galace
      • Afrah Nasser
      • Amy Nelson
      • Linnet L. Wairimu Ng'ayu
      • Nancy Okail
      • Iain Overton
      • Scott Paul
      • Carlos Pérez Ricart
      • Samuel Perlo-Freeman
      • Michael Picard
      • Natália Pollachi
      • Allison Pytlak
      • Josh Ruebner
    • S to Z >
      • Wilder Alejandro Sanchez
      • Stephen Semler
      • Camilo Serna
      • Annie Shiel
      • Shobha Pradhan Shrestha
      • Stephen Mwachofi Singo
      • Frank Slijper
      • Nate Smith
      • Ayman Sorour
      • Emma Soubrier
      • Jen Spindel
      • Alexandra Stark
      • Anna Stavrianakis
      • Rachel Stohl
      • Avihai Stollar
      • Ari Tolany
      • A. Trevor Thrall
      • Sahar Vardi
      • Andrea Edoardo Varisco
      • Francesco Vignarca
      • Jodi Vittori
      • Leah Wawro
      • Eugenio Weigend Vargas
      • Doug Weir
      • Anne-Charlotte Merrell Wetterwik
      • Sarah Leah Whitson
      • Patrick Wilcken
      • Cristian Wittmann
      • Sarah Yager
      • Katherine Young
      • Elias Yousif
      • Wim Zwijnenburg
  • Emerging Experts
  • Arms Transfers to Ukraine
    • Ukraine Countries List
  • U.S. Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy
  • Major Arms Sales Notifications Tracker
  • Events
  • Congressional Arms Trade Measures
  • Biden Admin's Controversial Arms Sales
  • U.S.-Saudi Arms Sales
  • U.S. Arms Sales to Taiwan
  • Biden Arms Sales To Israel
  • U.S. Arms Sales to India
  • U.S. Landmine Policy
  • Resource Page - Under Threshold Arms Sales
  • Resource Page - USML Cat I-III to Commerce
  • Journalists
  • Get on the list
  • About
  • Archives
    • All archives
    • Expert Publications
    • Blog
    • Newsletter

Anticipating Trump Administration Arms Sales to the Middle East?

12/16/2016

2 Comments

 
This is the fourth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2017 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.
Picture
William D. Hartung
As with many other issues, Donald Trump has made conflicting statements about what a Trump administration policy toward the Middle East might look like.  This is particularly true on the issue of U.S. arms transfers to the region.  He has made biting criticisms of Saudi Arabia, far and away the biggest U.S. arms client, even as he and his advisors have targeted Saudi Arabia’s main rival, Iran, as the greatest security threat in the region. How this will play out in the realm of the weapons trade remains to be seen.

It might be hard for a president Trump to outdo the Obama administration’s aggressive sales push in the Middle East.  According to data from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the United States has offered a record  $198 billion in arms to Persian Gulf nations under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales program since 2009.  Many of these deals are still in the pipeline, and some may fall by the wayside as economic and political circumstances change.  But they represent an unprecedented flood of arms offers to the region.

Recent deals to re-supply Saudi Arabia with bombs and ammunition for its brutal air campaign in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians while involving what Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) has said, “look like war crimes,” have been of particular concern. It’s hard to overstate the devastating humanitarian consequences of the bombing and a parallel blockade of Yemen’s ports.  According to the United Nations, nearly three-quarters of the population is in need of assistance, and access to food, clean water, and medical care is scarce.

In December, the Obama administration took a step in the right direction when it indicated that it would hold up a sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia out of concern for the kingdom’s continuing air strikes on civilian targets.  This had been a demand of non-governmental organizations working against U.S. support for the Saudi-led war. But the policy shift was a halfway measure, as the United States will continue to refuel Saudi aircraft that are engaged in bombing Yemen and not impact other sales, including a more than $3 billion deal on Chinook helicopters sent to Congress just days earlier.

So how will a Trump administration fit into this existing pattern of large-scale arms transfers to the Middle East?  On the one hand, Trump has had harsh words for the Saudis, accusing them of being behind the 9/11 attacks and threatening to end U.S. oil imports from the kingdom.  And some analysts have suggested that Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric might actually lead to a reduction of U.S. sales to the region.

A countervailing factor that could lead a Trump administration to make ample arms offers to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies is the strong anti-Iran stance of his key advisors.  His appointee for National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, has implausibly described Iran as the “linchpin” of a “working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.” As for secretary of defense nominee Gen. James Mattis, his response to a question about the three greatest threats in the Middle East and South Asia, was “Iran, Iran, Iran.”

In the short-term, the most consequential arms transfer decision in the region is whether to continue to supply weapons in support of the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen.  Trump has fallen into the trap of seeing the conflict as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, going so far as to claim that Iran’s reason for being involved is as a first step toward crossing the border into Saudi Arabia and seizing its oil assets.  The roots of the conflict are much more complicated.  While Iran has supplied some weaponry to the Houthi-led opposition, the Houthi have longstanding political and economic grievances that predate Iranian involvement.  The Houthi movement is far from being an Iranian “puppet,” and there is absolutely no evidence that Tehran plans to ride its limited support for the Houthi into a surge toward Saudi oil fields, as Trump as suggested.

The Trump administration’s decision about whether to continue to back the Saudis in Yemen will be carried out in the context of growing Congressional opposition.  Earlier this year, a resolution sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) that would have banned U.S. sales of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia almost passed, garnering 204 votes.  Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) organized a letter signed by 64 House members calling on the Obama to reconsider a proposed tank deal to Saudi Arabia in light of its indiscriminate bombing campaign in Yemen.  And in September, a bipartisan group of Senators sponsored a resolution of disapproval in an effort to block the Saudi tank deal.  The resolution received 27 votes, far from victory but a significant step forward given that a year ago only a handful of members of Congress were raising questions about U.S. arms sales to Riyadh.

The precise shape that a Trump administration policy might take toward arms sales to the Middle East in general and transfers in support of the Saudi war in Yemen in particular is unclear.  Will Trump and his advisors take a hard look at the negative security consequences of flooding the region with U.S. arms, or will their exaggerated view of the threat posed by Iran serve as the rationale for even more weapons deals?
This article is adapted from a longer piece that appeared in The National Interest.

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

2 Comments
bestessays link
8/25/2017 05:42:42 am

The entry of Donald Trump as the president of America indicates the fact that how one man can alter all the conditions of the country in such a negative manner that all the citizens of the country get into the state of anxiety and apprehension.

Reply
icloud login link
5/2/2021 07:42:05 pm

Donald trump as a president of USA was a nightmare for the citizens once.Btw i agree with the above facts. You wrote in a good manner.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    About

    The "Looking Ahead Blog" features comments concerning short- to medium-term trends related to the arms trade, security assistance, and weapons use. Typically about 500-1000 words, each comment is written by an expert listed on the Forum on the Arms Trade related to topics of each expert's choosing.

    We have a number of special series including: 


    Looking Ahead 2023
    Looking Ahead 2022
    ​Looking Ahead 2021
    Looking Ahead 2020

    Looking Ahead 2019
    Looking Ahead 2018
    First 100 Days (April/May '17)

    Looking Ahead 2017

    Inclusion on the Forum on the Arms Trade expert list does not indicate agreement with or endorsement of the opinions of others. Institutional affiliation is indicated for identification purposes only.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    July 2020
    May 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    May 2018
    December 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015

    Pdf's

    March 11 (2015)

    Categories

    All
    Adam Isacson
    Africa
    Alejandro Sanchez
    Allison Pytlak
    Amy Nelson
    Anna Stavrianakis
    Arms Sales
    Arms Trade Treaty
    Arms Trafficking
    Aude Fleurant
    Bonnie Docherty
    Brian Castner
    Child Soldiers
    Colby Goodman
    Corruption
    Cyber
    Dan Gettinger
    Danielle Preskitt
    Divestment
    Doug Weir
    Drones
    Emerging Experts
    Environment
    Erin Hunt
    Europe
    Exploration Of Arms Reduction And Jobs
    Explosive Weapons
    First 100 Days
    Frank Slijper
    Gender
    Global Trade Trends
    Harm To Civilians
    Hector Guerra
    High School Debate '19 20
    High School Debate '19-20
    Humanitarian Disarmament
    Iain Overton
    Jeff Abramson
    Jobs
    John Lindsay Poland
    John Lindsay-Poland
    Jordan Cohen
    Kate Kizer
    Killer Robots
    Landmines/cluster Munitions
    Latin America
    Laura Boillot
    Lode Dewaegheneire
    Looking Ahead 2017
    Looking Ahead 2018
    Looking Ahead 2019
    Looking Ahead 2020
    Looking Ahead 2021
    Looking Ahead 2022
    Looking Ahead 2023
    Maria Pia Devoto
    Martin Butcher
    Matthew Bolton
    Middle East
    Military Expenditures
    Natalie Goldring
    Nicholas Marsh
    Non State Actors
    Paul Holtom
    Rachel Stohl
    Ray Acheson
    Robert Muggah
    Robert Watson
    Roy Isbister
    SALW
    Samuel Perlo Freeman
    Samuel Perlo-Freeman
    Security Assistance
    Seth Binder
    Shannon Dick
    Suicide Bombing
    Summit For Democracy
    Sustainable Development
    Tobias Bock
    Transparency
    Ukraine War
    UN Register
    Victim Assistance
    Wanda Muñoz
    War In Ukraine
    William Hartung
    Wim Zwijnenburg
    Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly