Contents

Washington Promotes New Defense Initiative in the Gulf and Advances Strategic Cooperation with Israel
The cooling U.S. commitment to the architecture of nuclear arms control, created over decades of painstaking negotiations with the Soviet Union, is no longer in question. Democrats and Republicans alike, driven by the technological innovations heralded in Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program and their own concerns about the reliability of the strategy of deterrence, have signaled an intention to move U.S. policy away from nuclear stability based on a policy of mutual assured destruction. Read more

Nuclear and Missile Developments Expand the Boundaries of the Middle East
Until recently, relationships between countries in the Middle East and their arms suppliers outside the region did not intrude upon the strategic, non-conventional calculations of either buyer or seller. Moscow could sell weapons to Syria or Washington could transfer arms to Israel in discreet, self-contained packages while pursuing, on a separate track altogether, policies of nuclear and missile restraint or expansion. Read more

Memorandum of Agreement
On October 31, 1998, a U.S. Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The agreement is the latest in a series of accords dating from 1975, but it is the first one to be signed by the president of the United States. Read more

Barak Works to Enhance Israel's Strategic Deterrent
Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, in a speech marking the Fall 1999 opening of the Knesset, reaffirmed his intention "to maintain [Israel's] strategic deterrent capability even in peacetime, for whatever geographical or time range is required." Read more

Israel-U.S. Strategic Cooperation: Reaffirmed and Reinvigorated
The creation of a mutually beneficial rationale for a dynamic post-Cold War strategic partnership has been high on the Israeli list of priorities since the demise of the Soviet Union as a superpower factor in the region. Read more

Clinton and Barak Build upon Strategic Alliance
In August 1999, Brig. Gen Amos Gilad, chief of Israel's Military Intelligence, submitted a briefing on MI's multi- year assessment of the regional strategic environment over the next five years to Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. Read more