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the Assyrians/Babylonians were important powers in the middle east. ܐܵܬܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ 01:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Outside of Wikipedia, I have only ever heard Middle East conflict to mean "Arab-Israeli conflict" or "Israeli-Palestinian conflict". Does it really mean "any conflict which occurs in the middle east?" Is that a concept which deserves reification? If so, why not call it " List of conflicts in the Middle East"? djk

Here's what I found searching google for "Middle East conflict"

• http://www.thenation.com/special/2002middleeast.mhtml Seems to be synonymous with "Israeli-Palestinian conflict"

Another thing - The article makes some pretty bold statements that only a grouping of all the Presidents of the United States, CIA chiefs and Pentagon chiefs could really be justified to make. It shouldn't be assumed that the U.S. always interfered in the Middle East because of oil, combatting the Soviet Union was the primary goal of a lot of Cold War era politics. This bland simplification of U.S. post-WW2 strategy needs a big expanding on - then again, I'm with whoever wrote the above, I think this should be List of conflicts in the Middle East. The idea there's some big "Middle East conflict" perpetuated by Uncle Sam's lust for oil is fallacious at best, downright propagandistic at worst.

You are correct. What you read was some recent vandalism by an anti-American radical who calls himself Stevertigo. He literally makes up things off the top of his head, and demands that they be accepted as facts. Worse, in a view that I consider hatefully bigoted, he refers to all views by Arab historians and Arab scholars as "Zionist" or "Western", except for the views of anti-American Arabs. I am not sure whether it is a problem of honestly, or just bias to the point of blind idiocy, but he literally cannot admit that many Arabs exist that have views that differ from his own. He sees himself as the last defender of the Arab cause, even if he himself knows nothing about the subject. An analysis of his posts indicates that He is not so much pro-Arab as anti-Western and anti-Israel. RK

This article, of course, does need expansion. But the truth is that I have never read an analysis of these conflicts by an Arab scholar or historian that agrees with Stevertigo's conspiracy theories. Arabs themselves are quite willing to admit that internal politics and religion exist in their own nations, and not just in Europea and America. Most Arabs admit that they sometimes go to war against each other for their own reasons. Outside of Al Qaeda terrorists, one just doesn't find Arabs making the kinds of claims that Stevertigo does. That should tell us a something about his credibility. Finally, note that his favorite "authority" is a linguist who specializes in the development of syntax and grammar. That by him is a non-biased expert on the middle-east? RK

--- To the anonymous commenter: log in with a name, and chose an identity, Please. Its still anon, but at least it gives people an understanding of who they are dealing with. As for RK, he has gotten into the bad habit of being unreasonably defensive, ( who knows why ), and his ignorance is demonstrable with each and every entry he makes. He's human, though, and has the capacity to learn - however, he needs to experience some revelation of Goodliness in his life in order to gain perspective. But lets not dwell on him.

The truth is, that There are no Arab-Israeli conflicts now, outside of those conflicts which are part of the Middle-East conflict - Orchestrated by a political and military control system, nearly a hundred years in the making. Israel is incidental. They wanted a state, western interests said, well back you up maybe... Israel does some military jobs for western intrests, America and the west say : brother!... Its all very simple, its about oil, and these surface issues of cultural differences, and anti-semitism, and terrorism, yadda yadda... are all just deliberately derisive code-words to keep people dumb. Thats all.

Read this for a good primer. Ive been referring to this quite often, because its truth thats not often said or heard. RK has decided to become an example of a very typical archetype - the kind that is all-too-quick to call anything Anti-Israel as anti-semitic. I should also say that this inlcudes defacto anti-Israel comments - in the form "anti-US" (Israel's employer )- comments.

He jumps on anything I edit to include a quote by Noam Chomsky or anyone else "who is not an expert"... he is a fool. Of course by arguing with him, I take the great chance that that you might not know the difference. --- Stevert

When did Libya, Chad, and Sudan get moved into the Middle East? -- zero 13:16, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Good points. Chad and Sudan aren't there. However, Libya is commonly discussed in regards to the middle-east conflict, funding of militant groups in the middle-east, etc. A related terminology problem may be that Americans (and maybe Europeans?) use the term "middle east" to cover a set of nations that includes what used to be called the "near East". RK 22:02, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, what's Libya, Chad, Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Western Sahara doing here? They should be moved to, say, List of conflicts in the Maghreb (since the Chad and Sudan ones involve Libya.) In fact, I think I'll do that. - Mustafaa 07:58, 2 May 2004 (UTC) reply

Thanks Mustafaa, that War On Terrorismphrasing is good.-- Samuel J. Howard 08:39, 2 May 2004 (UTC) reply

Should the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and U.S. invasion of Afghanistan be included here, or is that considered more within the realm of India and Pakistan? I don't think the Kashmir conflict falls into the "Middle East" region, but Afghanistan is in a gray area.

For that matter, should internal conflict, such as the Iranian Revolution be considered? How about the Kurdish-Ba'athist conflict in Iraq prompting the creation of the Iraqi no-fly zones?

-Peter

Fair questions. I wouldn't count Afghanistan as Middle Eastern, but I know some do. And internal conflict could certainly be worth adding, though the current format of the page militates against it. - Mustafaa 07:04, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A lot of [1] might be good to add... as perhaps would this obscure border clash. - Mustafaa 07:58, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I removed the Gulf War I link from the Arab Israeli conflict list. Is there a part of the Gulf War I've overlooked? Was it an Arab-Israeli conflict in some fashion? - Flockmeal 06:23, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

Someone was obviously thinking of the Scuds aimed at Tel Aviv, but I don't think it's a particularly significant point one way or another. - Mustafaa 06:32, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Who put the 2003 Invasion of Iraq section as the US/UK/Australia/Poland Iraq conflict. Sorry shouldn't it be US/UK/Australia/Poland/Denmark/South Korea/Italy/Spain (formally)/Thailand (formally)/Japan (formally)/Netherlands (formally)/etc.-Iraq conflict. It should be US Allied invasion of Iraq, Second Gulf War, Iraq-US/Coalition war but we don't really need to list all the participants in the subheading like that it is to POV, as not all the countries involved are mentioned. Italy initially sent more troops to Iraq than Australia, why does the section mention Australia and not Italy? In short it really shouldn't list all the nations like that or else the header will look rediculous and

Why does this list omit the war in Yemen, in which Egypt played a major role?

Is there a reason for starting the list with the foundation of modern Israel? People have been fighting in the Middle East for probably as long as they've been there, and over it since at least 1274 BC—hardly surprising, since it's the strategic juncture of two major landmasses (Eurasia and Africa) and two major bodies of water (the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean), and it contains large amounts of one of the most important resources of the modern era. Unless there are objections I'm going to start expanding the scope of this page. — Charles P._ (Mirv) 16:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC) reply

-Yeah I was hoping for a more historical list

Good idea. I'll try to expand the scope of this article back to ancient and medieval times. Jagged 85 ( talk) 06:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC) reply

These sections either need some sort of content (ie an explanation of what happened in the Middle East during these wars and how it fit into the overall conflict), or direct links to that information in the WW1 and WW2 articles. A general link to the articles isn't good enough, IMO. -- Me ^Holla! 21:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC) reply

I'm adding the 1978 South Lebanon conflict to the list, as although it was brief, its impact was great in that it marked a major invasion of Lebanon by Israel and set the stage for the major war that began in 1982 involving all of Lebanon and a host of foreign powers. I've also cleaned up this talk page a bit, though I did not remove or alter any discussion whatsoever. BostonFenian ( talk) 05:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC) reply

Clear definition should be applied for this section to reflect importance of conflicts. I suggest only conflicts with 1,000+ casualties should be included (similar to List of modern conflicts in the Middle East). Greyshark09 ( talk) 22:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC) reply

Also i suggest defining Middle East in its traditional form (since most conflicts here are historical). Meaning Middle East is stretching from Egypt and Cyprus in the West to Iran in the East, and from Arabia in South to Turkey (Anatolia) in the North. ME is not including Caucasus, central Asia and countries South of Egypt. Greyshark09 ( talk) 07:06, 2 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Since this is a list (defined in title), it should include dated events alone (without expension on each and one of them, unless this article nominated for title change). This is especially important since this list covers thousands of years of civilisations in what is now Middle East, thus the article shall become huge and unusable if all conflicts are provided with supplementary info. Please add relevant info with references to the article History of the Middle East, or history pages for relevant countries and periods. Greyshark09 ( talk) 15:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC) reply

The added information was used as an introduction to a specific section in the list. So far as I know there is no specific prohibition from doing so.

The information is relevant, but sourced from someone who simply added up reported casualties for the conflicts using Wikipedia articles. I am searching for an external source for same statistical information, however, this is unnecessary given that the articles are brought together here. The added information therefore serves as a useful summary on the lethality of the conflicts dated from 1945.

It seems to me the information is too specific for a general article such as History of the Middle East Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 14:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Your paragraph is also a violation of WP:WEIGHT, since it emphasizes a specific conflict in comparison to "all others". This is against the policy of wikipedia. In addition, the sources show no separation of modern history period (in Middle East)at 1945, 1948 or any other year since the end of Ottoman period (1918). If you think of making subdivision, please provide sources for such periodic division by scholars. Greyshark09 ( talk) 18:51, 5 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Think again. Arab-Israeli wars are in general overemphasized in media, published sources, and Wikipedia. Want me to quote statistics on that? It therefore only reflects the global subject perspective.

The reason "the sources show no separation of modern history period" is because there are precious few sources in this article, and the periodisation used is not one used throughout Military History Project, or for that matter by most military historians.

I'll be back Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 21:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Since you are not cooperating in discussion and performing POV pushing prior to any agreement and making WP:OR and WP:WEIGHT additions, i revert your edits. Most of your additions contain information not belonging to list, but to general history or military history articles. Please restrain yourself from entering irrelevant info avoid edit-warring. Greyshark09 ( talk) 11:45, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

In case you haven't noticed, this list is part of the MilitaryHistory Project, which is itself a part of General History. There is no prohibition in adding explanatory content to lists. Moreover, which part of what I added is OR? And what is it that you think is WEIGHT? And, please, keep to the established and widely used periodisation throughout Wikipedia historical articles. Resists OWNing the article, Irrelevant in who's opinion? Y are the one who reverts first and asks questions later! Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 12:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Please notice that not all of your edits were reverted by me, and i appriciate the contribution to this article (which was not created by me, by the way). Your edits are largely redundant to the list type article. A list doesn't need large expansions, which create distortions and problematic, considering WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOTABILITY. I would be glad if you discuss your edits here and we can find a way to sutisfy the needs of Wikipedia. Regarding your Original research - World War II is not a period of 1939-1947, but clearly 1945. Greyshark09 ( talk) 12:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Doesn't matter who created this article. You are acting as if you own it.

I'm merely trying to protect it from vandalism and disastrous editing. You have no idea what a mess it was 3 months ago. I welcome you to join me and upgrade it, it requires plenty of contribution, but we need to agree on how to do it. Greyshark09 ( talk) 14:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Ok, but which class did you put my editing in, vandalism and disastrous editing? And if neither, why did you not ask me before reverting?

Have you read the guidelines to WP:LIST? This is an encyclopaedia, and as such it should contain articles not lists. Lists have been accepted, but they are not desired. A much better way to go about it, if I was doing this, is to develop the list into a prose article called Military history of the Middle East. There is however a very obvious problem, speaking from historical point of view. Middle East is a relatively recent Eurocentric concept that at best applies to the region only in the Modern period. Other articles already exist that cover parts of the rest, such as the Military history of the Ottoman Empire. And there, we have same problem of periodisation inconsistency (see History of Ottoman Empire) Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I didn't contribute to the article for your appreciation. Its an encyclopaedia, and some readers may come to read it at some stage.

Nothing is redundant to a list. Read WP:LIST. There needs to be an intro, and sections can, and in this case should have their own intros. Many conflicts listed here are obscure to say the least, and need somewhat more than just a date. A list is also and article.

Redundancy is a problem, i agree there might be intro to each period, but i ask you to make it short and to a point. Greyshark09 ( talk) 14:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

There is no need to keep it short. As I said above, lists are tolerated, but not desired. If the list gets too big, it is split into more lists. The ideal is to develop the list into a fully fledged prose article because editing is writing while compilation of lists is accounting. Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

How do you know what this list needs?

What WP:WEIGHT are you talking about??? What WP:NOTABILITY?

World War II may have finished in Europe in 1945, but it was a global war, and it didn't finish "on time" everywhere. Sorry to break this news to you. At least thats how greater majority of military historians see it. Just like the Fist World War didn't quite finish ion 1918 btw. There are not a few well known military and even general historians that have asserted the 20s and 30s were just "breathing space" due to general economic exhaustion. Soviet Union begun preparing for a new war as soon as the Russian Civil War ended. Even in the USA the Congress made the US Army buy military aircraft in 1930s during' the Great Depression.

I would suggest that you do this in a sandbox, however, if you continue editing here, I will stay away. A suggestion though. Structure the list first to be consistent with other military history articles. If a reader goes from one article to another, and the periodisation is visually different (here very different) they become confused. Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Keep it simple - do you have a source for this claim? Greyshark09 ( talk) 14:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

People don't open an encyclopaedia because they want simple. Simple is what the article lede is for.

Which claim? Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Please add periods before you add conflicts. For example I was about to add Roman, then luckily read your talk page. Where are the Caliphates, Seljuks, Mamlukes, etc.? Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I agree, you are welcome to add period division according to the mainstream historian view. Before i edited this list, it had 'no period separation at all. This is the best to begin with it. Actually i didn't want to revert your period separation, but your edit was so extensive, and so widely applied (with many things, i thought are irrelevant or mistaken), that i reverted all together. Again, i support you to begin with proper period separation. Greyshark09 ( talk) 14:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Unfortunately most editors do not follow suggested process of article creation.

First comes foundation where references are found that support the article's notability, and generally support its content. Then the outline structure is constructed to reflect prior research. Then the outline is fleshed-out with more detailed information, backed by references every time a new idea is presented to the reader. Finally, every ambiguity in the article is clarified with more references. Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Lists are bad because they fail to show relationships between parts of article content. In a sense its like a building site with all the necessary materials and tools there, but no building, so the casual onlooker has no idea what all this stuff is for.

In this particular list many modern and contemporary conflicts are related, and many are not. Some are related to the strategic concept of Middle East as defined in the late 19th century, and some will have no relationship to this concept at all, particularly in the earlier periods. Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Unfortunately when one finds an article which has bad foundations and structure, one of the options is to pull it down and start all over. Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Why do you think there were "Middle Ages" in the "Middle East"? I was going to change it later, but was looking for a source. However, will wait now. However, Middle Ages is generally used a period in Europe only because it used to come between the (not less-accepted) "Dark Ages" and Renaissance. When was there a "Middle Eastern" Dark Age, and when was the Renaissance? Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 13:39, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Agreed, i used middle ages, when the main topic was crusades. Of course you may change it to regional period separation. Greyshark09 ( talk) 14:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

But the crusades were not a "Middle Eastern" period. It was a period in the Byzantine Empire's history when the Western Church interfered in its sphere of influence, though it wasn't able to do so itself. The crusades were a major part of medieval Christian history, but seen from the Islamic perspective it was one of the theaters of war that included Spain, Caucasus and the frontiers of modern India. The threat to Islam at the time though were the Mongols and not Christian armies because the later had fairly limited resources and limited goals. Mongols wanted the World, and had far greater resources. So how do you explain all this in a list without writing prose? Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

There is also a redirect problem where articles that would have helped here are redirected to modern armed forces articles such as Lebanese Armed Forces (redirect from Military history of Lebanon) or History of Afghanistan (redirect from Military history of Afghanistan). Just do a search for "Military history of" Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Koakhtzvigad, you lost me here. Too many unsigned comments in one thread, please make yourself clear. Anyway, as far as i understand you want to change this list into history article, but why don't you just start a new article in the first place, instead of completely changing this list? This is what i meant by disastrous editing. I support you to start a new article named Military history of the Middle East, and i offer my help there. Greyshark09 ( talk) 16:25, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

So read again.
Signing comments during same response is not necessary as long as conventional separation is followed.

Greyshark09, I don't need your support (approval?) for converting a list to a prose article, which is neither forbidden, nor "disastrous editing".

Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content as are paragraphs and articles, and they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies such as Verifiability, No original research, Neutral point of view, and others.

It is therefore far more preferable to have a prose article than a list because it conveys more information to the reader without the need to constantly navigate the linked articles. The Modern period part of this list will definitely one day become Military history of the Middle East article in its own right
As I explained above, there are major problems with this list. Commonly, when something is listed there is a presumption of linkage between the entries. As it says in WP:LIST

List articles are encyclopedia pages consisting of a lead section followed by a list (which may or may not be divided by headings). The items on these lists include links to articles in a particular subject area, and may include additional information about the listed items.

Ostensibly the subject area here is Middle East, but this didn't exist until the Modern period as the article would inform the reader. When I tried to include the explanation of this in the lede per WP:LIST advice that

the precise inclusion criterion of the list should be spelled out in the lead section (see below), not the title

, you removed it.
Moreover, this list is also a

A Timeline is a graphical representation of a chronological sequence of events.

, but not all the events on the timeline in this list are related, i.e. they are not sequential. Therefore it is deceptive to those readers that are not familiar with general history of the region. This is also covered in WP:LIST where it says

The lists of related topics give an indication of the state of Wikipedia, the articles that have been written, and the articles that have yet to be written...as Wikipedia is optimized for readers over editors

For now I'm not able to focus on this article, but please take heed of my suggestions and the WP:LIST guidelines. Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I didn't say you did something against regulations, i just had a hard time to understand your response because of the complex structure of your thread. It is better we communicate by organized comments. That's all. Regarding my support to create a page Military history of the Middle East, i didn't say anything like i allow you or anything. I merely said i support your proposal, and i offer my help. I don't understand how you become insulted of this clearly civil reply. Regarding your dilemma with geographic definition, then i think this is a minor problem, since Middle East is a common geographic term, and it doesn't matter it became widespread 150 years ago or even 100. If you take America - no body knew what is America until it was called so by foreigners in 16th century after Amerigo Vespucci sailed there. Even Europe and Asia were Phoenician inventions in 2nd millenium BCE, but it doesn't mean these terms have limited usage. Geographic terms change over time, but currently we stick to common ones like Middle East, North Africa ( Maghreb), Levant and so on. Specifically Middle East (without North Africa and central Asia, as some suggest) is bound historically and geographically to such an extent, that we can easily relate to it as a geographic-historic unit. Greyshark09 ( talk) 16:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Use of common names is not a blanket permission to use them at every opportunity. It has to be contextualized. In the context of geographic and historical articles use of common names dumbs the articles down, besides being completely wrong because places had names specific to their own periods. No one called the area middle of anything, much less East, give the East was where the Sun rises for those that live there!

I don't know why I have to explain things that you can read yourself, but Americas originally referred to South America, and should not be use to refer to United States because there are at least two other states located in North America. Europe was a Greek borrowing from Akkadian that they used to refer to (it is thought) a specific coastline. However, in Akkadian it meant 'place where Sun sets', while Asia meant 'where Sun rises'. Maghreb, from Arabic Gharb, the West, refers to the western North Africa, and not the entire North Africa, and not even Libya as the article says. Middle East is only a reference to the European world-view which did not exist in every era, and certainly not even in Europe before the Modern period. There is a great difficulty for example in reconciling Middle East and Near East which are almost identical in area, and Far East, located in East Asia. According to this quasi-geography, Middle East should be in Central Asia. Middle East is therefore a modern media reference to politico-economic reporting, and not a geographical or historical one; this is what children are taught in schools today, and I see no reason why Wikipedia should contradict this Koakhtzvigad ( talk) 23:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Sorry, but this is a case of involuntary comedy, or excessive WP:SYNTH. The Battle of Kadesh is not a "conflict in the Middle East".

1. you can find a reference confirming that the Battle of Kadesh took place in what is now Syria
2. you can find a reference confiriming that Syria is in the Middle East
3. 'but you cannot find a reference confirming that the Battle of Kadesh was a "Middle Eastern conflict".

Please try to apply some WP:UCS. Yes, the Battle of Kadesh is just an example. This goes for all pre-modern clutter which has accumulated here. It should be split to lists dealing with the respective historical periods. -- dab (𒁳) 13:37, 11 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Why not just rename it to list of conflict in West Asia, and cover it all? And why did you disrupt the chronological timeline (it doesn't make sense now)? Greyshark09 ( talk) 19:17, 11 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Here goes your WP:SYNTH - the Battle of Kadesh in the book "Ancient Armies of the Middle East" is described here [2] Greyshark09 ( talk) 21:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Considering previous criteria of 1,000+ casualty conflicts - the list section has grown too big for the modern times, and actually was suggested to be merged with "List of modern conflicts in the Middle East", which includes conflicts of 100+ casualties. This list also includes historic events, thus 1,000 casualties might be to low for modern times (inflates too much). Maybe we make it 5,000 or 10,000 for better readability? ideas? Greyshark09 ( talk) 16:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Recently, i have restructured the article List of modern conflicts in the Middle East, to include description of sub-conflicts (within spanning conflicts), and thus, the "post-Ottoman conflicts" section here became virtually identical to the "list of modern conflicts in the Middle East". Hence, we need to solve the doubling issue as following:

• as proposed earlier by Dbachmann, we might consider merging the pages "List of modern conflicts in the Middle East" and "List of conflicts in the Middle East"
• make the section of "post-Ottoman conflicts" blank, keeping only the "main" subject direction to "list of modern conflicts in Middle East" and consider renaming "List of conflicts in the Middle East" -> "List of conflicts in Western Asia" (or "List of conflicts in the Near East")
• other ideas? Greyshark09 ( talk) 18:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC) reply

The current division of M.E. conflicts into two lists (modern and older) seems reasonable to me (the fall of the ottoman empire and post WWI settlement constitute a clear watershed in terms of the geopolitical landscape in the region). This division offers two advantages 1/ it keeps the size of lists manageable 2/ it allows differential thresholds for inclusion – ie most people would agree that the threshold of notability grows higher as we move back in time (all other factors being equal, a conflict which kills a hundred people last year will be more relevant and noteworthy to us than such a conflict which took place more than a hundred years ago). I would say that the current thresholds for mention, in terms of casualty numbers, in each of the existing lists, are reasonable (I don't see the current lists as unmanageably large, and setting the casualty threshold higher would exclude some quite significant conflicts). Re. "Middle East" v "Near East" v "Western Asia", all of them have problems in terms of a clear definition, but (in my judgement) "Middle East" is the more commonly used term. As long as both lists are linked to appropriately, then I would say, "if it ain’t broke don't fix it". Prunesqualor billets_doux 11:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC) reply

So, if i understand correctly, you say keep it the same? Greyshark09 ( talk) 12:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Well I would be happy if someone wants to remove most of the information from the "Post-Ottoman era conflicts" section of this article (thus removing unnecessary duplication) and clearly signpost where that information can be found eg "For conflicts after 1918 please go to List of modern conflicts in the Middle East". + The " Unification of Saudi Arabia (from 1902-1932)" information should probably appear on both pages (as it spans the older/modern divide line). Other than that - yes I would leave things as they are. Prunesqualor billets_doux 13:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC) reply

PS If the above suggestion is followed then I suppose we could also rename this article "List of conflicts in the Middle East (pre 1918)" to make things clearer. Prunesqualor billets_doux 13:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC) reply

I think if we make this one "List of conflicts in the Near East", it clears up the definition of pre-WWI (pre 1918), when Near East had been the common term. Then we can also delete all the post 1918 conflicts, making it only a wikilink. Greyshark09 ( talk) 19:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC) reply