SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The major European powers have played a key role in the development of authoritarian rule in the Middle East, not least by equipping various autocratic states with the means of violence necessary to sustain themselves. This chapter begins by charting European involvement in the region since the end of the Ottoman Empire, showing how direct rule evolved into support for the local regimes’ security forces after formal independence and through the crucial early years of state formation. There then follows an overview of European arms sales to the Middle East, which reveals the extent to which European powers have penetrated these markets. The relevant dynamics and wider political-economic context are then illustrated through the case study of UK arms sales to (and military cooperation with) the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is argued that the long-established role of European powers (alongside that of the United States) enables state violence in the Middle East – including during and since the Arab uprisings – and provides a challenge to some commonly held assumptions about the nature of Western powers in the world.