Rethinking the Saudi Arms Deal

Last week the State Department and the Pentagon jointly announced the largest arms sale in U.S. history -- dozens of fighter planes and attack helicopters supplemented by transport helicopters, over 16,000 bombs, 10,000-plus laser guided missiles, machine guns, ammunition, night vision devices and other weapons systems too numerous to describe here. The total price tag of over $60 billion is three times as large as the next largest sale in U.S. history, a 1981 offer of AWACS radar planes to Saudi Arabia. The only difference: the earlier deal drew heavy fire from Congress, passing by a margin of 52 to 48. The current deal is likely to sail through without even a hearing, much less any serious effort to block it.

It's not just the Saudi deal. Conventional arms sales in general have received less scrutiny than they did during the arms sales booms of the 1970s through the early 1990s. Congress passed the Arms Export Control Act in the late 1970s in the midst of concerns over U.S. sales to rivals (as with the arming of both sides in the conflict between Greece and Turkey over Cypress), to one side or another of a civil war (as in Angola), or to repressive regimes (such as Iran under the Shah). The sheer size of the trade was also a concern, as newly rich members of the OPEC oil cartel went shopping for top-of-the-line weaponry, with the encouragement of the Nixon and Ford administrations. Jimmy Carter's administration almost came to a deal with the Soviet Union to curb sales to regions of conflict, and after the first Gulf War there were talks among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council about limiting arms sales to the Middle East and other regions of concern. The talks collapsed, in part because the U.S. was boosting its sales to the region even as it talked the language of restraint. The size of the trade eventually dropped off, more for economic reasons than due to effective regulatiion, but at least there were serious policy debates about the wisdom of individual sales and the direction of overall arms sales policy.

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