The Changing Military Balance in the Gulf

By Andrew Rathmell
18 Jun 2004

The aim of this Whitehall Paper is to study the changing capabilities of the Gulf’s military forces and to assess what impact force building plans may have on the regional military balance. Although there is much talk of a regional security structure for the Gulf, a basic assumption of this paper is that work can only begin on such a project once a strategic balance is established between the three regional poles: Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The conventional military balance is only one component of the military balance of power, and the balance of power is only one component of strategic stability. Nonetheless, as a starting point, this study focuses on the conventional military balance. The purpose this study is to analyse the intra-regional military balances that are evolving beneath the umbrella of US military presence in the Gulf. The main focus of this paper is on ground forces and close air support.

The paper has two components. The first four chapters describe the force building and acquisition plans for Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the smaller GCC states. Chapter five trends in the current and future military balance by using two quantitative techniques—bean counting and net assessment with the Weapon Effectiveness Indices/Weighted Unit Value (WEI/WUV) methodology.

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