MER Article The Middle East Arms Race Andrew J. Pierre, The Global Politics of Arms Sales (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982). Paul Jabber, Not By War Alone: Security and Arms Control in the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). Steve Weissman and Herbert Krosney, The Islamic Bomb: The Nuclear Thr Eric Davis, James Paul • 7 min read
MER Article Anthropologists Condemn US Lebanon Policy The Council of the American Anthropological Association passed two motions concerning the Middle East at its annual meeting on December 5, 1982, in Washington, DC. With 7,500 members, the Association is the principal professional association for anthropologists in the United States. Motion on Leban (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Saudi Arabia and the War in Lebanon People here responded to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in a typically quiet fashion. In my day-to-day business contacts with Saudis, the subject of the war rarely came up unless I raised it. One Saudi friend commented, “We don’t yell and shout, but when we’re among ourselves we talk about it and w A Special Correspondent • 3 min read
MER Article Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue One of the lesser known aspects of Palestinian politics over the last eight years has been the steadily growing contacts between a number of Palestinian and Israeli progressive groups and individuals in the occupied territories. Though unreported, those contacts have not always been clandestine. The Salim Tamari • 4 min read
MER Article Current Soviet Policy and the Middle East This report summarizes impressions of Soviet foreign policy gained during a study visit to the USSR in July 1982. During this visit, under the auspices of the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences, I was able to meet a wide range of experts working in the institute, as well as journalists an Fred Halliday • 14 min read
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 From the Editors (January 1983) Judging from events of the past year, the 1980s will be a time for survival. The scale and intensity of “small” wars, the priorities of militarism, the plans for military intervention by the big powers and the escalation of the nuclear arms race afflict virtually the entire planet. These threats gro The Editors • 2 min read
