Intervention and the nuclear firebreak in the Middle East
This article discusses the danger of having a nuclear war between the superpowers in the Middle East since the U.S. has nuclear-armed ships in the eastern Mediterranean that are within range of the Soviet-supplied SS21s in Syria, and since there are also Soviet submarines in the Mediterranean that could, according to the author, attack U.S. nuclear-armed carriers. The article argues that an indigenous local conflict with its very high level of conventional violence will bring in the superpowers; then, finding themselves facing possible defeat, they will escalate rather than withdraw; and if unable to escalate in the conventional arena, they will do so in the tactical nuclear arena, thereby setting off the chain reaction leading to World War III.