Competing for Resources: Middle East Divided between Arms and Development

In search to depict the problems which have forced the Middle Eastern nations to acquire conventional arms and the ramification of militarization on regional and international levels, the present article examines three categories of: Regional (driven by the need to fight wars or guarantee security against specified external threats); Systemic (driven by supplier-client relationships, technological factors, or the pursuit of statusand hegemony); and Internal (driven by the need to secure the regime against internal threats or the desire to use military development as a vehicle for social and economic modernization) as the significant factors which force theses nations to buy arms from various sources. It concludes that each category results in varying conclusions and these results vary in intensity with respect to each nation in the Middle East.