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The international politics of the Persian Gulf
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
Extract
International politics in the 1970s are multi-layered and characterized by fluidity and multipolarity. The decline of security issues as the primary focus in many regions is paralleled by the ascent of welfare issues and the blurring of the line between internal and external policy. These are reflected in the heightened specificity of power, between military capability and the ability to influence, in the prevalence of many simultaneous games in the international system (subsystems of activity) and the relative autonomy of the politics of the region.
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- Copyright © British International Studies Association 1976
References
page 216 note 1 This section draws on Hoffman's, Stanley‘Notes on the elusiveness of Modern Power’, International Journal, xxx (1975), pp. 183–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Puchala, Donald J. and Fagan, Stuart I, ‘International Politics in the 1970s: The Search for a Perspective’, International Organisation, xxviii (1974), pp. 248–65Google Scholar, and Bergsten, C. Fred, Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., ‘International Economics and International Politics: A Framework for Analysis’, International Organisation, xxix (1975), pp. 3–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Buchan, Alastair, The End of the Postwar Era: A New Balance of World Poiver (London, 1974), pp. 76–83Google Scholar, 128-32, 313-15. Aron, Raymond, The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World 1945–1973 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1974), pp. 134–6Google Scholar.
page 217 note 1 See Puchala and Fagan, op. cit. pp. 225-6.
page 217 note 2 David Ronfeldt of RAND in a personal communication to the author.
page 218 note 1 Stanley Hoffmann makes the first point nicely: “In a world of interdependence your desire to influence me may force you to help me get stronger”. ‘Notes on the Elusiveness of Power’, op. cit. p. 201. The second point is exemplified by a report of Joseph Kraft on Kissinger's attitude to U.S. relations with these states: “In plainer English he means that when Iran and Saudi Arabia become hooked on American technology, he will be able to give them reasons for co-operating with his country on political matters”. International Herald Tribune, 21 March 1975.
page 218 note 2 See Hartley, A., ‘American Foreign Policy in the Nixon Era’, Adelphi Paper, no. no (London: IISS) 1974-1975Google Scholar; Liska, George, ‘The Third World: Regional Systems and World Order’ in Osgood, Robert (ed.), Retreatfrom Empire: The First Nixon Administration (Baltimore, 1973) PP. 279–343Google Scholar. Bundy, William P., ‘International Security Today’. Foreign Affairs, liii (1974), pp. 24–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 220 note 1 See the Shah's comments along this line suggesting that the superpowers' major priority i n these situations is conflict avoidance not a just settlement but any settlement of the issues. Time, 4 Nov. 1974.
page 221 note 1 See especially Horelick, Arnold L., ‘The Soviet Union's Asian Collective Security Proposal: A Club in Search of Members’, Pacific Affairs, xli (1974), pp. 269–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reau, Guy, ‘Un Projet Sovietique: Securite Collective en Asie’, Defense Nationale (1975), pp. 29–42Google Scholar; Glebhardt, Alexander O., ‘The Soviet System of Collective Security in Asia’, Military Review, liv (1974), pp. 19–25Google Scholar.
page 222 note 1 For a fuller discussion see my ‘Iran-Soviet Relations in a Changing Context’ (Nov. 1974.
page 222 note 2 This thinking runs through Senator Kennedy's, Edward article, ‘The Persian Gulf: Arms Race or Arms Control’, Foreign Affairs, liv (1975), pp. 14–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar It discounts the U.S. allies concern regarding (a) the ability of the U.S. Executive to convince Congress about arms supplies; (b) the long lead-times involved in selling arms, delivery, and assimilation versus rapidity of crises in international politics; (V) doubts about detente - selective or partial; and (d) misgivings about allies who seek to dictate others’ security requirements.
page 223 note 1. See the Shah’ s interview with Sulzberger, C. L., International Herald Tribune; 19 Mar. 1975Google Scholar.
page 223 note 2 Among others William Simon and Senator Henry Jackson. See also Satire, William, International Herald Tribune, 1 Jan. 1975Google Scholar; Shannon, William, International Herald Tribune, 21 July 1975Google Scholar.
page 223 note 3 See for example Yergin, Daniel, ‘How to Break the Cartel: Calling OPEC's Bluff’ New Republic, 5,12 July 1975, pp. 13–16Google Scholar. Osborne, John, 'White House Watch: Bowing to OPEC, New Republic,15 July 1975, pp. 12–14Google Scholar. See also, Kraft's, Joseph comments in International Herald Tribune, 26 Sept. 1974Google Scholar; 19 Feb. 1975.
page 223 note 4 Iran has signed similar agreements with the U.S.S.R. ($3 billion), France ($6 billion), Italy ($3 billion) an d the U.K. ($500 million).
page 224 note 1 George Liska has noted that the leading regional power or core-actor mayhave difficulties i n attracting other states into such a system which is likely to be hierarchical not egalitarian -particularly when the motives of the lesser powers will be different. 'The Third World', op, cit. pp. 305–6.
page 225 note 1 Not only has each been reassured by the others' motives, but the acquisition of arms and the trappings of power by the smaller Persian Gulf states (including experience in self-government by the U.A.E.) has made these states less reluctant to envisage regional cooperation. This evolution appears to bear out S. Spiegel's hypothesis that “the weaker the states of a region, the less likely to a pattern of co-operation”. ‘In search of the subordinate system’ (Paper presented at APSA 1974), p. 16.
page 225 note 2 Prince Fahd's comments in an interview in Tehran exemplifies this problem that existed under King Faysal as well. See Tehran Home Service 1630, 1 July 1975, BBC-SWB, ME/4945/ A/7, 3 July 1975. See also the Iran-Saudi communique ME/4947/A/2 5 July 1975.
page 226 note 1 Involvement in the promotion of a joint arms industry or perhaps in the sale of arms assembled (and eventually produced) in Iran, as well as other non-military joint ventures.
page 226 note 2 Spiegel, op. cit. p. 17.
page 226 note 3 See the hypotheses advanced by Cantori, Louis J. and Spiegel, Steven, “The Analysis of Regional International Politics: The Integration Versus the Empirical Systems Approach', International Organisation, xxxvii (1973), p. 490Google Scholar; and its reformulation by Spiegel, op. cit, p. 16.
page 227 note 1 These are orders of magnitude. Figures on the arms trade vary, these are derived from The Military Balance 1973-1976 (London: IISS, 1975), SIPRI Yearbook 1975 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), p. 211Google Scholar and AID figures cited by Senator Kennedy in 'The Persian Gulf, op. cit. p. 25.
page 227 note 2 Edward Kennedy, a critic of the arms influx into the Persian Gulf notes the diverse purposes for which the states arm, e.g. Iran for the U.S.S.R., Baluchistan, the Indian Ocean, as contrasted with the quite different security goals of the other states. See especially, 'The Persian Gulf, pp. 20, 21, 29.
page 227 note 3 See H. Haykal's interview with the Shah, Kayban International, 16 Sept. 1975.
page 228 note 1 See especially Kemp, Geoffrey, ‘The Military Build-Up: Arms Control or Arms Trade in the Middle East and the International System’, Adelphi Paper, no. 114 (London: IISS), 1975Google Scholar, and, The International Transfer of Conventional Arms (Washington: Arms Control and Disarmament Agency), 1973Google Scholar.
page 229 note 1 Not without some success in the case of Afghanistan. See, International Herald Tribune, 19 Nov. 1975.
page 230 note 1 See the statement submitted by John Duke Anthony on PDRY-U.S.S.R. relations to the U.S. Congress, House, Committee on International Relations, Diego Garcia, 1975: The Debate Over the Base and the Island's Former Inhabitants, Hearings, before the Special Subcommittee on Investigations, House of Representatives, 94th Congress, 1st Session, 1975.