Persian Gulf After the Cold War

This is a comprehensive examination of the strategic affairs of the Persian Gulf since the Gulf War of 1991. The authors conclude that the arms race in the Persian Gulf should be controlled, but maintain it is likely to continue because of the clashing strategic perspectives of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and because of the sustained willingness of all major suppliers to find new revenue sources for their declining defense industries in the post-Cold War decade. They also argue that the U.S. should not adopt a policy of isolating or ignoring Iran in its endeavors to find security arrangements in the Persian Gulf, and that a weakened Iraq has become a major source of instability in the Persian Gulf.

M. E. AHRARI is Professor of Middle East and West Asian Affairs at the United States Air War College. He is a specialist in American policy process, with interests in foreign and defense policies, superpower relations in the Middle East, and the political economy of oil. His books include The Gulf and International Security (1989), Ethnic Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy (Greenwood Press, 1987), OPEC--The Failing Giant (1986), and The Dynamics of Oil Diplomacy: Conflict and Consensus (1980). He has also published extensively in professional journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia.

JAMES H. NOYES has been a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1985. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern, African, and South Asian Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He has written The Clouded Lens: Persian Gulf Security and U.S. Policy( 1979, 1981) and his most recent publications have appeared in American-Arab Affairs and in M. E. Ahrari's (editor), The Gulf and International Security (1989). Since 1984, he has served as editor of the Middle East section of Yearbook on International Communist Affairs.