Anthony H. Cordesman and Nicholas Harrington December 12, 2018 The military balance between Iran, its Arab neighbors, and the United States has been a critical military issue in the Middle East since at least the rise of Nasser in the 1950s. The risks this arms race presents in terms of a future conflict have not diminished [...]
By Anthony H. Cordesman August 13, 2018 The U.S. has now reached the point where the third Administration in a row is fighting wars where the U.S. often scores serious tactical victories and makes claims that it is moving toward some broader form of victory but cannot announce any clear strategy for actually ending any [...]
By Anthony H. Cordesman August 8, 2018 The United States has now been at war in Afghanistan for some seventeen years and been fighting another major war in Iraq for fifteen years. It has been active in Somalia far longer and has spread its operations to deal with terrorist or extremist threats in a [...]
By Jon B. Alterman July 12, 2018 In 1967, the Middle East was transformed. Egypt’s president, Gamal Abd al-Nasser, was mired in a pitiless war in Yemen that was draining his military and his treasury. Regardless, he led the Arabs into a swift but disastrous war, leading to Israel’s capture of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza [...]
Source: CIE As part of a twenty-six day visit to the United States (May 1951), Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion spends the day touring some of the projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The main purpose of the Prime Minister’s trip, the first by an Israeli premier to the United States, is the launch of “The Development [...]
By Anthony H. Cordesman May 31, 2018 The Iraqi election in May 2018 has highlighted the security challenges the United States now faces in Iraq and the Middle East. One key concern is the level of future U.S. confrontation with Iran. The United States faced grave uncertainties regarding Iran's influence in Iraq even when it [...]
By Anthony H. Cordesman January 30, 2018 History is never particularly merciful, especially in the case of failed leaders. One cannot help but wonder therefore, how will future generations of Arabs judge their current leaders? How will they judge their leaders’ focus on personal power and regime survival, on choosing one group of national factions [...]