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Critics argue that the case against a generous arms sale policy is as compelling as the one for it. The most vivid example of the limitations of weaponry to win friends and influence countries is Iran: after $10 billion of arms deliveries, the Shah was deposed and replaced by Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's violently anti-American regime. The occasional success that the Soviets and Americans have had in wooing each other's clients proves that the influence secured by sales can be less than lasting. As Andrew Pierre puts it: "Longterm weapons are sold to what may be short-term friends."
Notes Richard Betts, who teaches defense policy at Columbia and Johns Hopkins universities: "More often, the significant supplier influence precedes rather than follows the sale. Once a sale is final the supplier's leverage declines." The recent U.S. experience with Turkey shows how customers can exert leverage on their suppliers. When Congress voted to ban all military sales to Turkey after its 1974 invasion of Cyprus, the Ankara government promptly shut down some U.S. bases and listening posts, many of which provided valuable intelligence surveillance of the Soviet Union. Mindful of Turkey's importance to NATO's Eastern flank, the U.S. felt compelled to continue military sales, including Phantom fighter jets, even while the embargo was technically still in effect. The U.S. bases were reopened in 1978 in exchange for a repeal of the ban on military shipments.
Arms sales can saddle a supplier with embarrassing clients. The U.S. has reinforced a reputation in parts of the Third World as an ally of rightist repression by proffering weaponry to Guatemala and El Salvador. Moreover, all the advance guarantees in the world cannot ensure a seller's control over the way its weapons are used. When the Israelis bombed civilian areas of Beirut with American-made jets, in evident violation of an agreement that the planes were to be used for defensive purposes only, the U.S. had to share the blame but had none of the responsibility. Vigorous export policies can also lead to procurement problems at home. Overseas sales of the F-16 will slow deliveries to the U.S. Air Force and NATO, the Pentagon concedes. Soviet sales of the new T-72 battle tank to the Third World have delayed its deployment within the Warsaw Pact.
For arms importers, security concerns can lead to a new type of dependency as they become impoverished pawns in the superpower struggle. Weapons shipments tend to promote regional arms races (India and Pakistan, for example), with the ante raised every time a more advanced item of technology, such as the F-16 jet or the MiG-25, is introduced into a region. Says House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Clement Zablocki: "Reagan's new policy could result in destabilizing arms races in sensitive areas of the world." If only in financial terms, the Third World can ill afford it: the aggregate debt of developing nations has doubled in the past four years to $280 billion.
The competitive forces that dominate the global arms bazaar create a complex dilemma. If the U.S. turns down Venezuela's request for F-16s, what is to prevent the French from selling it Mirage fighters? If the Senate rejects the AW ACS sale, the Saudis have warned they will simply