The nuclear age is coming to the Middle East. Understanding the scope and motivations for this development and its implications for global security is essential. The last decade has witnessed an explosion of popular and scholarly attention focussed on nuclear issues around the globe and especially in the Middle East. These studies fall into one of four general categories. They tend to focus either on the security and military aspects of nuclear weapons, or on the sources and mechanisms for proliferation and means of reversing it, or nuclear energy, or the logics driving state policymakers toward adopting the nuclear option. The Nuclear Question in the Middle East is the first book of its kind to combine thematic and theoretical discussions regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear energy with case studies from across the region.
What are the key domestic drivers of nuclear behaviour and decision-making in the Middle East? How are the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council seeking to employ nuclear energy to further guarantee and expedite their hyper-growth of recent decades? Are there ideal models emerging in this regard that others might emulate in the foreseeable future, and, if so, what consequences is this development likely to have for other civilian nuclear aspirants? These region-wide themes form the backdrop against which specific case studies are examined.