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| Volume IX, December 2002, Number 4 |
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| EXCERPT: Arab-U.S. Strategic Cooperation: A Net Assessment |
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| Anthony H. Cordesman |
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Dr. Cordesman is the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The following is the text of his address to the "Policymakers' Conference" convened in Washington on September 9, 2002, by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.
U.S.-Arab military relations are
ultimately founded on the
perception of common strategic
interests. The technical aspects of military cooperation -- arms transfers, training, coalition warfare and interop-erability -- are only means to an end. They are tools that can only be successful to the extent that both the United States and Arab countries perceive they have common strategic goals and can achieve them through military cooperation. To paraphrase Clausewitz, military cooperation exists to serve common strategic interests by other means.
There are always limits to the extent to which such interests are truly common. There arguably are 22 countries in the Arab world, and the United States has never had common strategic interests with all of them. Moreover, the fact that the United States and a number of Arab states have some common strategic interests has never been an indication that the United States and any Arab state have identical strategic interests.
Alliances based on truly identical interests have never existed at any point in history. Nations always differ at least somewhat in their goals and needs. Military cooperation is a matter of temporary common necessity -- a matter of having higher priorities for cooperation than for pursuing different interests that lasts as long as a given conflict or given threat. The rhetoric of alliance can disguise this, but sensible political leaders never act on rhetoric; they act on the basis of underlying strategic realities. |
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