Armies of Arabia is the first book to comprehensively analyze the armed forces of the Gulf monarchies. Zoltan Barany explains the conspicuous ineffectiveness of Gulf militaries with a combination of political-structural and sociocultural factors. Following a brief exposition on their historical evolution, he explores the region's six armies of the region comparatively, through the lenses of military politics, sociology, economics, and diplomacy. The book'sthemes come together in the last chapter that critically evaluates the Saudi and Emirati armed forces' record in the on-going war in Yemen.

CMH Publication 70-30. Edited by Frank N. Schubert and TheresaL. Kraus. Discusses the United States Army's role in the Persian Gulf War from August 1990 to February 1991. Shows the various strands that came together to produce the army of the 1990s and how that army in turn performed under fire and in the glare of world attention. Retains a sense of immediacy in its approach. Contains maps which were carefully researched and compiled as original documents in their own right. Includes an index.

A study of the Saudi Arabian monarchy’s efforts to construct and disseminate a historical narrative to legitimize its rule. The production of history is premised on the selective erasure of certain pasts and the artifacts that stand witness to them. From the elision of archival documents to the demolition of sacred and secular spaces, each act of destruction is also an act of state building. Following the 1991 Gulf War, political elites in Saudi Arabia pursued these dual projects of historical commemoration and state formation with greater fervor to enforce their postwar vision for state, nation, and economy. Seeing Islamist movements as the leading threat to state power, they sought to de-center religion from educational, cultural, and spatial policies. With this book, Rosie Bsheer explores the increasing secularization of the postwar Saudi state and how it manifested in assembling a national archive and reordering urban space in Riyadh and Mecca. The elites’ project was rife with ironies: in Riyadh, they employed world-renowned experts to fashion an imagined history, while at the same time in Mecca they were overseeing the obliteration of a thousand-year-old topography and its replacement with commercial megaprojects. Archive Wars shows how the Saudi state’s response to the challenges of the Gulf War served to historicize a national space, territorialize a national history, and ultimately refract both through new modes of capital accumulation. Praise for Archive Wars “An instant classic. With incredible insight, creativity, and courage, Rosie Bsheer peels away the political and institutional barriers that have so long mystified others seeking to understand Saudi Arabia. Bsheer tells us remarkable new things about the exercise and meaning of power in today’s Saudi Arabia.” —Toby Jones, Rutgers University, author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia “There are now two distinct eras in the writing of Saudi Arabian history: before Rosie Bsheer’s Archive Wars and after.” —Robert Vitalis, University of Pennsylvania, author of Oilcraft “Archive Wars explores with conceptual brilliance and historical aplomb the various forms of historical erasure central not just to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but to all modern states. In a finely-grained analysis, Rosie Bsheer rethinks the significance of archives, historicism, capital accumulation, and the remaking of the built environment. A must-read for all historians concerned with the materiality of modern state formation.” —Omnia El Shakry, University of California, Davis, author of The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt

At the dawn of the twentieth century, British intelligence agents began to venture in increasing numbers to the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire, a region of crucial geopolitical importance spanning present-day Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. They were drawn by the twin objectives of securing the land route to India and finding adventure and spiritualism in a mysterious and ancient land. But these competing desires created a dilemma: how were they to discreetly and patriotically gather facts in a region they were drawn to for its legendary inscrutability and by the promise of fame and escape from Britain? In this groundbreaking book, Priya Satia tracks the intelligence community's tactical grappling with this problem and the myriad cultural, institutional, and political consequences of their methodological choices during and after the Great War. She tells the story of how an imperial state in thrall to the cultural notions of equivocal agents and beset by an equally captivated and increasingly assertive mass democracy invented a wholly new style of "covert empire" centered on the world's first brutal aerial surveillance regime in Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources--from the fictional to the recently declassified--this book explains how Britons reconciled genuine ethical scruples with the actual violence of their Middle Eastern empire. As it vividly demonstrates how imperialism was made fit for an increasingly democratic and anti-imperial world, what emerges is a new interpretation of the military, cultural, and political legacies of the Great War and of the British Empire in the twentieth century. Unpacking the romantic fascination with "Arabia" as the land of espionage, Spies in Arabia presents a stark tale of poetic ambition, war, terror, and failed redemption--and the prehistory of our present discontents.

Twenty years ago, the Persian Gulf War captured the attention of the world as the first test of the U.S. Army since the Vietnam War and the first large-scale armor engagement since World War II. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and his subsequent ouster by the U.S.-led coalition are keys to understanding today's situation in the Middle East. The coalition partnerships cemented in that initial operation and in the regional peacekeeping operations that followed provided the basis for a growing series of multinational efforts that have characterized the post-Cold War environment. Moreover, the growing interoperability of U.S. air, sea, and land forces coupled with the extensive employment of more sophisticated weapons first showcased in Desert Storm have become the hallmark of American military operations and the standard that other nations strive to meet.

While today the military of the United Arab Emirates is described admiringly as a 'little Sparta', just 60 years ago the only security forces in the Emirates were the armed retainers of the Ruling Sheikhs and a small British-led, locally-raised Arab force. Through a combination of direct oversight by rulers, investment in its nationals, engagement of expatriates and the purchase of cutting edge military hardware, the UAE Armed Forces has become, arguably, the most capable Arab military. In the last decade, it has also gained considerable experience through its military operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. This book traces the little-known history of the country’s military from 1951 to 2020. It provides unparalleled detail on the constituent forces that evolved into the UAE Armed Forces in 1976, and how that unified force has evolved to the present. It provides essential background information on how the country’s geography, demographics and political system have shaped its military, the enduring roles of the military and the history of each military service. It also details the political and command structure governing the military, and its manpower and materiel characteristics. The book concludes with an explanation of how the UAE has been able to develop such a highly capable military for its size in a relatively short period of time.

Saudi Arabia is a wealthy and powerful country which wields influence in the West and across the Islamic world. Yet it remains a closed society. Its history in the twentieth century is dominated by the story of state formation. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Ibn Sa'ud fought a long campaign to bring together a disparate people from across the Arabian peninsula. In 1932 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was born. Madawi al-Rasheed traces its extraordinary history from the age of emirates in the nineteenth century, through the 1990 Gulf War, to the present day. She fuses chronology with analysis, personal experience with oral histories, and draws on local and foreign documents to illuminate the social and cultural life of the Saudis. This is a rich and rewarding book which will be invaluable to students, and to all those trying to understand the enigma of Saudi Arabia.