Arms Control and National Security: New Horizons

Preface

This collection of articles on arms control and national security is the outgrowth of a multi-year project launched at INSS under the auspices of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program, which aims to cultivate expertise and encourage new research in the field of arms control. The project is supported by a generous grant from the Hewlett Foundation, and this is the second volume published in this framework.

The articles compiled here probe some prominent current and emerging proliferation-related challenges and dilemmas, both regional and global, and propose directions for dealing with them. The articles cover a wide range of issues, from the Pakistani nuclear situation to weapons trafficking in Sinai. Other articles focus on European efforts to confront Iran's nuclear ambitions, the threat of autonomous unmanned robots in future warfare, the phenomenon of complex deterrence equations on the basis of new research into the US-Israel-Iraq deterrence triangle in the 1991 Gulf War, and the possibility of devising an arms control treaty to curb cyber warfare.

As editors, we made a conscious attempt to identify those areas where the authors were already developing expertise, and then direct their attention to an arms control perspective that is worthy of inquiry. We felt that this type of synergy would reap the most from the research products. The authors selected for inclusion in this collection, researchers who are grappling with arms control issues in a new way, are not a homogenous group. Some are taking their first steps in the world of research, while others are mid-career researchers with a proven track record of research who are entering the field of arms control for the first time.

In addition to the work on the articles, preparation of this volume included a seminar, held after the initial drafts had been completed, where the authors presented their papers to a select audience for feedback and critical discussion.

We would like to thank a number of individuals who played an important role in bringing this project to a successful conclusion, including Shlomo Brom, Yair Evron, Ephraim Asculai, Shimon Stein, and David Friedman for their insightful comments on all of the articles, and the discussants at the workshop, in particular, Gallia Lindenstrauss, Nir Reichental, and the members of the INSS Arms Control team. Our final thanks go to the authors, who took it upon themselves to widen their perspective and enter into the intriguing world of arms control.

Emily B. Landau and Anat Kurz

Tel Aviv, March 2014