No area of the world has been more involved in military matters during the last half century than has the Middle East. The region has seen seven Arab-Israeli wars; three wars involving Iraq and two more in Afghanistan; as well as civil wars in Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, and among Palestinians; and insurgencies in several other places. Several of these wars—most notably the last one in Iraq and the Afghan ones—involved direct Western intervention.
In addition, however, the military has been either the direct ruler of many countries, including Turkey among others, or the main pillar of the regime. Military coups, successful or otherwise, took place in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Algeria, and Jordan. Thus, the armed forces, their equipment, demands, goals, and other seemingly purely military issues have also become prime political determinants of Middle Eastern history.
This new Routledge collection offers a survey of the scholarly work across the range of twentieth- and twenty-first-century regional history that puts these events together in a systematic context and provides a wide range of views and opinions. Comprehensively covering military history of the past hundred years, this title includes such topics as both world wars, the Turkish-Greek conflicts, Arab nationalism, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and the post-2003 fighting in Iraq.
Volume I: Formation of the Modern Middle East, 1900–50
1. Uzi Rabi and Nugzar Ter-Oganov, ‘The Military of Qajar Iran: The Features of an Irregular Army from the Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century’, Iranian Studies, 2012, 45, 3, 333–54.
2. Bruce Vandervort, ‘Turco-Italian War (1911–1912)’, The Encyclopedia of War.
3. David Pizzo, ‘Greco-Turkish War, 1919–1922’, The Encyclopedia of War.
Part 1: World War One and the New Regional Order
4. Eliezer Tauber, ‘Rashid Rida’s Political Attitudes During World War I’, The Muslim World, 1995, LXXXV, 1–2, 107–21.
5. Mark Jacobsen, ‘"Only by the Sword": British Counter-insurgency in Iraq, 1920’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 1991, 2, 2, 323–63.
6. N. E. Bou-Nacklie, ‘Tumult in Syria’s Hama in 1925: The Failure of a Revolt’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1998, 33, 2, 273–90.
7. James S. Corum, ‘The Myth of Air Control: Reassessing the History’, Aerospace Power Journal, Winter 2000, 61–77.
Part 2: World War Two
8. Michael J. Cohen, ‘From "Cold" to "Hot" War: Allied Strategic and Military Interests in the Middle East After the Second World War’, Middle Eastern Studies, 43, 5, 2007, 725–48.
9. James W. Spain, ‘Middle East Defense: A New Approach’, Middle East Journal, 1954, 8, 3, 251–66.
10. N. E. Bou-Nacklie, ‘The 1941 Invasion of Syria and Lebanon: The Role of the Local Paramilitary’, Middle Eastern Studies, 1994, 30, 3, 512–29.
11. Saul Kelly, ‘A Succession of Crises: SOE in the Middle East, 1940–1945’, Intelligence and National Security, 2005, 20, 1, 121–46.
Part 3: The 1948 War
12. Meir Zamir, ‘"Bid" for Altalena: France’s Covert Action in the 1948 War in Palestine’, Middle Eastern Studies, 2010, 46, 1, 17–58.
13. Moshe Naor, ‘Israel’s 1948 War of Independence as a Total War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 2008, 43, 2, 241–57.
14. Hanna Yablonka, ‘Holocaust Survivors in the Israeli Army During the 1948 War: Documents and Memory’, Israel Affairs, 2006, 12, 3, 462–83.
15. Eliezer Tauber, ‘The Army of Sacred Jihad: An Army or Bands?’, Israel Affairs, 2008, 14, 3, 419–45.
16. Avraham Sela, ‘Transjordan, Israel and the 1948 War: Myth, Historiography and Reality’, Middle Eastern Studies, 1992, 28, 4, 623–88.
Volume II: The Nationalist Era, 1956–67
Part 4: The 1956 War
17. Michael B. Oren, ‘Escalation to Suez: The Egypt-Israel Border War, 1949–1956’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1989, 24, 2, 347–73.
18. Jack S. Levy and J. R. Gochal, ‘Democracy and Preventive War: Israel and the 1956 Sinai Campaign’, Security Studies, 2001, 11, 2, 1–49.
19. Zach Levey, ‘Israel’s Pursuit of French Arms, 1952–1958’, Studies in Zionism, 1993, 14, 2, 183–210.
20. David Tal, ‘Israel’s Road to the 1956 War’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1996, 28, 1, 59–81.
21. Raymond Cohen, ‘Israeli Military Intelligence Before the 1956 Sinai Campaign’, Intelligence and National Security, 1988, 3, 1, 100–40.
22. Motti Golani, ‘Shall We Go to War? And if We Do, When? The Genesis of the Internal Debate in Israel on the Road to the Sinai War’, Israel Affairs, 2000, 6, 3/4, 22–42.
23. Motti Golani, ‘Chief of Staff in Quest of a War: Moshe Dayan Leads Israel into War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 2001, 24, 1, 49–70.
24. Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Israel Caught Unaware: Egypt’s Sinai Surprise of 1960’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 1995, 8, 2, 203–19.
25. Michael Eisenstadt and Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘Armies of Snow and Armies of Sand: The Impact of Soviet Military Doctrine on Arab Militaries’, Middle East Journal, 2001, 55, 4, 549–78.
26. David Rodman, ‘Armored Breakthrough: The 1965 Sale of American Tanks to Israel’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2004, 8, 2, 1–15.
Part 5: Yemen’s Civil War
27. Clive Jones, ‘Where the State Feared to Tread: Britain, Britons, Covert Action and the Yemen Civil War, 1962–64’, Intelligence & National Security, 2006, 21, 5, 717–37.
28. David M. Witty, ‘A Regular Army in Counterinsurgency Operations: Egypt in North Yemen, 1962–1967’, Journal of Military History, 2001, 65, 2, 401–39.
29. Rory Cormac, ‘Coordinating Covert Action: The Case of the Yemen Civil War and the South Arabian Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 2013, 36, 5, 1–26.
Part 6: The 1967 War
30. Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘Air Power in the Six-Day War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 2005, 28, 3, 471–503.
31. Haim Benjamini, ‘The Six Day War, Israel 1967: Decisions, Coalitions, Consequences, A Sociological View’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 1983, 6, 3, 64–82.
32. Ami Gluska, ‘Israel’s Decision to Go to War, June 2, 1967’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2007, 12, 2.
33. Laura James, ‘Nasser and His Enemies: Foreign Policy Decision Making in Egypt on the Eve of the Six Day War’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2005, 9, 2.
34. Michael B. Oren, ‘The Revelations of 1967: New Research on the Six Day War and its Lessons for the Contemporary Middle East’, Israel Studies, 2005, 10, 2, 1–14.
Volume III: Conventional and Sectarian Conflicts, 1973–91
35. Avi Kober, ‘Great Power Involvement and Israeli Battlefield Success in the Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948–1982’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 2006, 8, 1, 20–48.
36. Daniel Vekstein and Abraham Mehrez, ‘Technology Policy and Defense Conversion in Israel, 1967–1995’, Journal of Technology Transfer, 1997, 22, 1, 47–56.
Part 7: The 1973 War
37. David Rodman, ‘The Israel Air Force in the 1967 and 1973 Wars: Revisiting the Historical Record’, Israel Affairs, 2010, 16, 2, 219–33.
38. Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Strategic Surprise or Fundamental Flaws? The Sources of Israel’s Military Defeat at the Beginning of the 1973 War’, Journal of Military History, 2008, 72, 2, 509–30.
39. Ephraim Kahana ‘Early Warning Versus Concept: The Case of the Yom Kippur War 1973’, Intelligence and National Security, 1992, 17, 2, 81–104.
40. Charles S. Liebeman, ‘The Myth of Defeat: The Memory of the Yom Kippur War in Israeli Society’, Middle Eastern Studies, 1993, 29, 3, 399–418.
41. Talia Winokur, ‘The Soviets Were Just an Excuse: Why Israel Did Not Destroy the Egyptian Third Army’, Cold War History, 2009, 9, 1, 59–78.
42. Ephraim Inbar, ‘Israeli Strategic Thinking After 1973’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 1983, 6, 1, 36–59.
Part 8: Lebanese Civil War
43 Marwan George Rowayheb, ‘Political Change and the Outbreak of Civil War: The Case of Lebanon’, Civil Wars, 2011, 13, 4, 414–36.
44. Rami Siklawi, ‘The Dynamics of the Amal Movement in Lebanon, 1975–90’, Arab Studies Quarterly, 2012, 34, 1, 4–26.
45. Tony Badran, ‘Lebanon’s Militia Wars’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2008, 12, 2.
Part 9: Iran-Iraq War
46. Javed Ali, ‘Chemical Weapons and the Iran-Iraq War: A Case Study in Noncompliance’, Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2001, 43–58.
47. Joana Dodds and Ben Wilson, ‘The Iran-Iraq War: Unattainable Objectives’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2009, 13, 2, 72–94.
48. F. Gregory Gause, III, ‘Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War, 1980 and 1990’, Middle East Journal, 2002, 56, 1, 47–70.
Part 10: 1991 Gulf War
49. Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, ‘Passive Belligerency: Israel and the 1991 Gulf War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 1992, 15, 3, 304–29.
50. Barry Rubin, ‘An Essay on Arab Lessons from the 1991 Kuwait Crisis and War’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2001, 5, 2.
Volume IV: The Islamist Era, 1979–2013
51. Barry Rubin, ‘The Military in Contemporary Middle East Politics’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2001, 5, 1.
52. Gal Luft, ‘Palestinian Military Performance and the 2000 Intifada’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2000, 4, 4.
53. Eyal Zisser, ‘Hizballah: New Course or Continued Warfare?’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2000, 4, 3.
54. Joshua Teitelbaum, ‘Terrorist Challenges to Saudi Arabian Internal Security’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2005, 9, 3.
Part 11: Afghan War with the Soviets
55. Lester W. Grau, "The Soviet–Afghan War: A Superpower Mired in the Mountains’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2004, 17, 1, 129–51.
56. Rafael Reuven and Aseem Prakash, ‘The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union’, Review of International Studies, 1999, 25, 4, 693–708.
57. Paul Robinson, ‘Soviet Hearts-and-Minds Operations in Afghanistan’, The Historian, 2010, 72, 1, 1–22.
58. Anton Minkov and Gregory Smolynec, ‘4-D Soviet Style: Defence, Development, Diplomacy and Disengagement in Afghanistan During the Soviet Period Part 1: State Building’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2010, 23, 306–27.
59. Artemy Kalinovsky, ‘Decision-Making and the Soviet War in Afghanistan’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 2009, 11, 4, 46–73.
Part 12: Military Aspects of the Iranian Revolution
60. M. Mahtab Alam Rizvi, ‘Evaluating the Political and Economic Role of the IRGC’, Strategic Analysis, 2012, 35, 4, 584–96.
61. Ali Alfoneh, ‘All the Guard’s Men: Iran’s Silent Revolution’, World Affairs, 2010, 173, 3, 73–80.
62. Rebecca Cann and Constantine Danopoulos, ‘The Military and Politics in a Theocratic State: Iran as Case Study’, Armed Forces & Society, 1997, 24, 2, 269–88.
63. Mahan Abedin, ‘Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: Ideological But Not Praetorian’, Strategic Analysis, 2011, 35, 3, 381–5.
Part 13: The 2006 Second Lebanon War
64. Efraim Inbar, ‘How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War’, Middle East Quarterly, 2007, 14, 3, 57–65.
65. Jonathan Spyer, ‘Lebanon 2006: Unfinished War’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2008, 12, 1.
66. Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Israel’s Military Intelligence Performance in the Second Lebanon War’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 2007, 20, 4, 583–601.
67. Yagil Levy, ‘The Second Lebanon War: From Republican Control to Market Control Over the Army’, Democracy and Security, 2008, 4, 1, 48–68.
68. Pierre C. Pahlavi and Eric Ouellet, ‘Institutional Analysis and Irregular Warfare: Israel Defense Forces During the 33-Day War of 2006’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2012, 23, 1, 32–55.
Part 14: Military Aspects of the Arab-Spring Events
69. Sharon Erickson Nepstad, ‘Mutiny and Nonviolence in the Arab Spring: Exploring Military Defections and Loyalty in Egypt, Bahrain and Syria’, Journal of Peace Research, 2013, 50, 3, 337–49.
70. Kenneth F. McKenzie and Elizabeth Packard, ‘Enduring Interests and Partnerships: Military-to-Military Relationships in the Arab Spring’, PRISM Security Studies Journal, 2011, 3, 1, 99–106.
71. Jon. D Michaels, ‘Private Military Firms, the American Precedent, and the Arab Spring’, Stanford Journal of International Law, 2012, 48, 2, 277–88.
72. Hillel Frisch, ‘The Egyptian Army and Egypt’s "Spring"’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 2013, 36, 2, 180–204.
73. Michael Knights, ‘The Military Role in Yemen’s Protests: Civil-Military Relations in the Tribal Republic’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 2013, 36, 2, 261–88.
Part 15: Israel’s Changing Military
74. David Rodman, ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the Service of the Israeli Air Force’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2010, 14, 3, 77–84.
75. Arie Perliger, ‘The Changing Nature of the Israeli Reserve Forces: Present Crises and Future Challenges’, Armed Forces & Society, 2011, 37, 2, 216–38.
