More than ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, none of the major powers, including Russia, has developed a cohesive geopolitical strategy for dealing with the countries and regions that once made up the USSR. Even after September 11 and the sudden importance of Central Asia in the struggle against global terrorism, the United States continues to deal with the region in fragmented and incomplete ways.
The Middle East remains one of the world's most volatile regions. Stretching from Morocco to Iran, the area has seen numerous international and internal conflicts over the past decades. Understanding the dynamics of these conflicts requires detailed information on the military capabilities of the region's countries.The Middle East Military Balance is prepared annually by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is based on data from many sources, including some that are unavailable to other institutes.
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in the hands of both states and terrorist networks, is considered by many to be the greatest threat to global security today. Contemporary Nuclear Debates discusses the key issues surrounding that threat.
The explosion of violence between Israelis and Palestinians that began in late 2000 is a tragic reminder of the potential for armed conflict in the Middle East. Although many developments in the 1990s appeared to have reduced the likelihood of war in the region, stability between Israel and its Arab neighbors remains tenuous. Security in the Persian Gulf also remains uncertain, as Iran and Iraq have continued their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
This encyclopedic book provides comprehensive data about Soviet and Russian strategic weapons, payloads, and delivery systems and on the nuclear complex that supports them. The data are drawn from open, primarily Russian sources. All the information is presented chronologically, arranged by individual systems and facilities, and is not available elsewhere in a single volume.
Soldiers and Civilians analyzes the emerging civil-military "gap" in the United States, drawing on a major survey of military officers, civilian leaders, and the general public. The book's contributors, leading scholars of defense policy, find that numerous schisms have undermined civil-military cooperation and harmed military effectiveness.
Although Israel and its Arab neighbors have taken many steps toward peace in recent years, the Middle East remains an uncertain and volatile region. Stretching from Morocco to Iran, the area has seen numerous international and internal conflicts in recent decades. Understanding the dynamics of these conflicts requires detailed information on the military capabilities of the region's countries.
In the "information age," information systems may serve as both weapons and targets. Although the media have paid a good deal of attention to information warfare, most treatments so far are overly broad and without analytical foundations. In this book Gregory Rattray offers a comprehensive analysis of strategic information warfare waged via digital means as a distinct concern for the United States and its allies.
Most national security debates concern the outcomes of policies, neglecting the means by which those policies are implemented. This book argues that although the US military is the finest fighting force in the world, the system that supports it is in disrepair. Operating with Cold War-era structures and practices, it is subject to managerial and organizational problems that increasingly threaten our military's effectiveness.
Since the end of the Cold War, the US military has reduced its combat forces by 40 percent, closed about 20 percent of its bases, and withdrawn from many overseas posts. Even after these changes, the US military is by far the strongest in the world, with huge advantages in training, equipment, and technology. Despite cutting its annual spending by about 30 percent, the United States spends more than the countries with the six next-largest military budgets combined.