MER Article The Era of Super-Violence Ever since the end of World War II, the world has been sliding in and out of battles which have killed more than 10 million people. Even in the shadow of this bloody chronicle, 1982 represents something of a watershed: In addition to the two major international conflicts in the Falklands/Malvinas an Michael Klare • 5 min read
MER Article AirLand Battle Doctrine The US Army has recently adopted an aggressive new warfighting doctrine called AirLand Battle. Its precepts now constitute the Army’s basic “how to fight” principles for a decade of “intense, deadly, and costly” battles. The Middle East is one of three major theaters—along with Europe and Korea—in w Martha Wenger • 13 min read
MER Article On the Beach There are two kinds of beaches in US defense planning. The first is the shoreline that US Marines typically storm in a real or rehearsed military intervention. The second belongs to the domain of the nuclear strategists. When their “limited” nuclear war games go astray, simulating escalation into al Christopher Paine • 24 min read
MER Article US and Israeli Weapons in Lebanon I visited Muhammad Sannoun, fourteen and a half years old, at his home in Burj al-Barajna to ask him why he had touched the triangle-shaped cluster bomb that had blown off his right arm. “It looked like some kind of aluminum cup painted red on the top, yellow on the bottom, with a black casing on th June Disney • 7 min read
MER Article Egypt's Military Egypt’s armed forces number well over 300,000 men, the largest in the Arab world or in Africa. Some two thirds are in the army, and most of the rest in the air force. Since 1952, the top political leadership has been drawn from the armed forces. Since 1968, there has been a “demilitarization” of the Joe Stork • 4 min read
MER Article Challenge from Israel's Military The Israeli army -- or the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) -- has assumed since the 1967 war an increasingly prominent role in Israeli society. Today the IDF is the single largest factor in Israel’s economy. Its officer corps, once a highly motivated and ideologically cohesive elite trained in the ideol Joel Beinin • 7 min read
MER Article Chronology: US-Egyptian Military Relationship 1974 February 28 Kissinger and Sadat, in Cairo, announce US-Egyptian diplomatic relations to resume, following June 1967 rupture. March 18 State Department announces US Navy will help clear mines from Suez Canal. April 18 Sadat announces Egypt ending 18 years of reliance on Soviet arms. April 19 Danny Reachard, Joe Stork • 9 min read
MER Article War Games for the Eighties For most of the 1970s, the possibility of US military intervention in the Persian Gulf region inspired military training exercises designed to simulate combat experience in a hot, desert environment. The course of events in Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in 1979 has lent a new urgency to these int Michael Klare • 6 min read
MER Article The Carter Doctrine and US Bases in the Middle East On Thursday, July 10, a squadron of 12 brown and green camouflaged F-4E Phantom fighter-bombers landed at Cairo West Air Base after a non-stop 13-hour flight from Moody Air Base in Georgia. A week earlier five C-141s and 28 C-5s airlifted some 4 million pounds of equipment and supplies and more than Joe Stork • 38 min read
