By Yuri Morozov, Professor,
Academy of Military Sciences

In the military and economic aspect Middle East is the main oil producing region and one of the biggest finance capital holder. It allows the countries of the region to be the largest capital investors and importers of the modern technique, equipment, goods, armaments and military equipment. The sea, land and air transit routs, the sea straits and the developed regional military infrastructure also have strategic significance.

The military and political situation in the region seriously affects not only the Caucasus region but also the whole geostrategical situation in the world. Assuming the fact that the multipolar world order is based on the mechanism for the collective resolution of the key regional problems Russia's policy will seek to support the stable peace in Middle East in the third millennium. Russia generally is very interested to stabilize the situation in Middle East especially in the neighboring regions that directly affect the situation in the Caucasus.

The Middle East region is still the largest AME consumer that takes 60% of the world armaments import for USD 10 billions annually. A lot of the armaments importer countries such as the United Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Turkey and Egypt are tightly attached to the Western AME producers. Purchasing arms from the Western countries the leaders of the Middle East states seek to get particular security guarantees in case of possible conflicts. According to the Western experts, Middle East will remain the one of the most perspective arms market in the 21st century. The typical features of this market are: its richness with AME, high dynamics, increasing competition between the traditional AME suppliers and the new exporter countries, diverse forms of the military and technical cooperation, permanently increasing quality of the military production and the military purpose services.

Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Sudan were the traditional partners of Russia on the Middle East armaments market. But now the Western governments, first of all the USA, undertake political, economic and military measures to strengthen own positions and to pull Russia out of the market. The United States take active efforts to increase its own export of the modern armaments to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait.

The offensive strategy of Russia in the MTC field supposes to analyze the successes and the failures, to determine goals and priorities of the cooperation and to conduct a flexible, coordinated policy by both the legislative and the executive powers and the MTC subjects. Specific steps must be taken in order to strengthen and consolidate Russia's positions on the armaments markets. The MTC strategy is a part of the Russian foreign policy strategy.

The MTC strategy is advisable to be conducted in five directions simultaneously. The first direction concerns armaments and military equipment supplies. We should refrain from AME supplies on the free-of-charge basis. On the Middle East armaments market we must offer only what our partners are really interested in. The priority cooperation partners should be determined among the countries of the region. The second strategic direction of the Russia's cooperation with the Middle East states includes sending the Russian specialists to the region and preparing the foreign students in the military colleges of Russia in order to promote pro-Russian influence inside the regional elite. The technical assistance is also a very important part of our military cooperation strategy. The Middle East countries need to maintain and to modernize their Soviet- and Russian-made AME, to receive ammunition for the artillery and the small arms. Joint military training exercises can bring economic benefits too. The Defense Ministry should expand this kind of cooperation by renting its testing fields to the foreign military units and conducting joint military exercises in the Middle East region. Taking into account the Arabic mentality the exchange of the military delegations plays an important role in MTC and can favor the development of the relations and the speeding-up of the contract realization.

But to fulfill these tasks Russia will have to face some specific problems peculiar to the Arab states only. On the one side, since the military cooperation with these countries started as far back as in the 50's and the 60's we can say about the rich experience and the formed traditions. On the other side, the leadership of some Arabic states got used that for many years the AME supplies were free of compensation and now they aren't ready for the cooperation on commercial basis. Besides one should mention very slow bureaucratic system of the Middle East countries.

Realization of the MTC strategic directions as well as the resolution of the internal problems that prevent to implement this strategy will allow Russia to reach on the foreign armaments markets the sales level of USD 5 billions a year. The Middle East region must really become our priority partner in the military cooperation field in the third millennium.