The Middle East Military Balance, 1988-1989

There has been deterioration in The Middle East Military Balance since the 1987-88 volume appeared (reviewed in ORBIS, Winter 1989, pp. 142-43). To begin with, the size has gone down by 20 percent while the price has jumped by almost 50 percent. The newest volume reaches the public seven months behind the schedule of the previous one. Most serious is the change in the essays. While the 1987-88 volume covered a wide range of topics touching on strategic developments and the military balance, the 1988-89 volume concentrates on one topic, the Palestinian uprising, and pays only meager attention to a few other matters. There are two problems with this. First, the survey entirely omits any discussion of what surely was the most significant development in the period under review, namely the rapid buildup in ballistic missiles, chemical warfare, and biological warfare. There is no hint here of the Iraqi aggression to come. Second, despite the book's title, the section on the military balance has been dropped altogether. Third, intense coverage of the intifada (fought with stones and knives) seems out of place in a study traditionally devoted to conventional warfare.

These criticisms aside, the bulk of the volume remains the country-by-country information on infrastructure and weaponry, and here The Middle East Military Balance remains without peer.

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