Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world
A talk by Mansour Salsabili, CIS Research Fellow and Belfer Center Associate in the International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom.
A talk by Mansour Salsabili, CIS Research Fellow and Belfer Center Associate in the International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom.
Abstract:
Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two major players in the Persian Gulf, are members of all key disarmament conventions against weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and has not yet accomplished any zonal arrangement to abandon WMD in the Persian Gulf. Here I explain how the pattern of “exchange relations” or the particular network of external relations work at the heart of the willingness of states to cooperate, which leads regimes of action in high or low drive to approach a WMD free zone. “Exchange relations” may optimize the dynamics for the States to enter into a free zone trough three different patterns of regional cooperation. this study substantiates the priority of exchange relations in the regional politico-cultural arrangements to the other two military and economic settings, as the most effective pattern of institutionalized networking. Politico-cultural arrangements may formulate how to approach a WMD free zone. To offset the lack of exchange in politico-cultural relations, this study suggests holding a regional negotiation-based discourse, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, to enhance cooperation in security matters to encompass a free zone by establishing a region of peace and security. Introducing “Persian Gulf as a Region of Peace and Security”, while facilitating the whole disarmament process in the Middle East free zone, may work as a general framework to integrate a new comprehensive security arrangement, as recommended by the UN Security Council resolution 598 (1987) too.
Location:
MIT, Center for International Studies
Lucian Pye Conference Room, E40-496 (map)
1 Amherst Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
Free and open to the public