European arms sales and military alliances in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are overwhelmingly fueling conflicts and instability for strategic and commercial gain, rather than achieving genuine long-term regional stability.

While often publicly justified with the vocabulary of "stabilization," "counterterrorism," and "deterrence," these policies function primarily to secure European economic interests, project influence, and ensure the survival of highly lucrative defense industries, inadvertently escalating regional arms races and perpetuating internal conflicts.

I. Arms Sales as a Destabilizing Force for Commercial Gain

The massive flow of European weaponry into the MENA region—which is the most heavily armed region in the world—is a primary driver of instability, serving immediate commercial needs over strategic peace.

A. Fuelling Regional Arms Races and Security Dilemmas

European nations like France, the UK, Germany, and Italy are major global arms exporters, with Gulf states being among their most important customers. This continuous supply creates a security dilemma in the region.

• The Vicious Cycle: When one regional power (e.g., Saudi Arabia) purchases sophisticated European fighter jets or missile systems, its rival (e.g., Iran or Qatar) feels less secure and is compelled to purchase similar or superior weapons from Europe or other global suppliers (Russia, China). This competitive cycle increases the lethality and scale of future conflicts rather than preventing them.

• The Commercial Imperative: For European states, the priority is often the survival and profitability of their national defense industrial base. Large, multi-billion-dollar contracts guarantee high-skilled jobs, advance domestic military technology, and provide geopolitical influence. This commercial incentive often overrides ethical and security guidelines, leading to the sale of weapons to states engaged in active conflicts or those with poor human rights records, such as the Saudi-led coalition's intervention in Yemen.

• Contradictory Policy: The severe lack of EU unity on arms export controls—as seen when Germany suspended sales to Saudi Arabia over the Yemen conflict and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, while France and the UK continued sales—demonstrates that national economic interest consistently trumps a unified, stabilizing European foreign policy.

B. Weapons in Internal and Proxy Conflicts

The arms sales enable and prolong proxy wars, which are the main form of conflict in the MENA region.

• Yemen and Libya: European-supplied weapons, including aircraft, bombs, and naval vessels, have been directly implicated in the devastating wars in Yemen and Libya. The sales empower local actors and regional powers to pursue military solutions over diplomatic ones. In Libya, weapons flow to opposing factions, often via regional allies of European states (e.g., French support to Field Marshal Haftar vs. Italian support to the GNA), which simultaneously deepens the civil war and transforms it into a proxy conflict for external powers.

• Repression: Arms and surveillance technology are also frequently used by authoritarian regimes to crush internal dissent, thus exacerbating the very root causes of instability—unrest, exclusion, and human rights abuses—that breed extremism and future conflict. By propping up regimes with military support, Europe postpones inevitable crises, making them potentially more violent when they erupt.

II. Military Alliances for Strategic Leverage, Not True Stability

European military alliances and deployments—such as in Iraq and Syria for counterterrorism, or naval missions in the Mediterranean—are primarily tools of strategic leverage aimed at preserving the influence of the intervening powers, not at establishing an impartial, sustainable peace.

A. Securing "Reverse Leverage"

The nature of these military alliances often grants the regional partner a form of "reverse leverage" over the European patron.

• The "Partner" Dependency: Middle Eastern states receiving European training or security guarantees can exploit European fears of an emerging strategic vacuum that might be filled by China or Russia. The recipient state can demand more weapons, fewer conditions, or support for controversial policies by subtly threatening to shift their allegiance to a European rival or another great power. This dynamic forces European states to maintain ties and arms flows that are demonstrably destabilizing to avoid a geopolitical loss.

• France and Regional Allies: France's deep security and military ties with certain Gulf and North African states, reinforced through arms deals and joint training, are designed to maintain its great-power status and ensure favorable access to regional markets. The "alliance" is less about collective security and more about Paris preserving its strategic footprint in its historical sphere of influence against competing actors.

B. Externalizing Border Security

Military partnerships in the MENA region, particularly in North Africa, serve the geopolitical goal of externalizing European border control, a strategic objective dressed as an alliance.

• Migration Containment: Alliances with states like Libya and Turkey, often involving military aid and training for coast guards, are designed to contain migration flows before they reach European shores. While this addresses a European security concern, it does little for regional stability and, in some cases, empowers local actors—including armed groups linked to smuggling networks—to act as Europe’s proxy border forces, thereby entrenching the conflict economy and bypassing long-term political solutions.

III. The Illusion of Deterrence

The argument that European arms sales provide stability through deterrence is largely undermined by the reality of low-intensity proxy wars and internal collapse.

• High-Tech vs. Insurgency: European weapons are high-tech, high-cost systems designed for conventional warfare between states. However, the dominant forms of conflict in the region are civil wars, proxy wars, and insurgencies fueled by non-state actors and internal political fragmentation. Massive spending on sophisticated deterrence systems does little to solve the underlying social, political, and economic grievances that lead to destabilization.

• The Syrian Case: The intervention in Syria, while framed as counterterrorism against ISIS, became entangled in the larger geopolitical struggle over the country's future. European military efforts, while effective against ISIS as a territorial entity, did not stabilize Syria because they were not backed by a unified, long-term political strategy to address the war's core issues, leaving the field open for other, more committed powers like Russia and Iran.

In conclusion, European arms sales and military alliances are not instruments of pure stability; they are the machinery of geopolitical competition. They achieve the short-term strategic gains of securing commercial contracts, maintaining alliances, and projecting influence, but at the cost of long-term regional peace. By prioritizing the economic and strategic benefits of arms exports, European states risk making the region more volatile, ensuring a perpetual cycle of conflict that will inevitably spill back over their borders in the form of terrorism and migration.