Word: sidra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When fighting breaks out, the first instinct of a good journalist is to get close to the action. But as TIME correspondents found in reporting this week's stories on the clashes in the Gulf of Sidra and Central America, the best seats are usually hard to come by. Says Middle East Correspondent John Borrell, who has covered numerous wars: "All too often you are either too far away or too close...
...timing was a publisher's dream. Just a day after the U.S. Navy went up against Soviet SA-5 missiles in the Gulf of Sidra, the Pentagon issued the 1986 edition of its annual review, Soviet Military Power. So when Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger held a press conference to publicize the Pentagon's latest assessment of Kremlin armed might, he had a full and attentive audience. But after being peppered with questions about the missile exchange off Libya, the Secretary asked plaintively, "I thought maybe I would like to talk about my book now. Would that be all right...
...past 20 years. But Soviet arms merchants are hard pressed by U.S. competition ($98 billion in arms sales abroad between 1964 and 1983). And Soviet allies could not have been reassured last week as U.S. jets and HARM missiles outclassed Soviet antiaircraft batteries in the Gulf of Sidra...
...battle of Sidra was thoroughly modern warfare, fought on both sides by forces aiming at over-the-horizon targets and using highly sophisticated equipment. For the U.S., the encounter offered battle testing for two Navy missiles and the first opportunity to see how its planes could elude Soviet- built SA-5 ground-to-air missiles. A guide to the principal hardware...
...size and significance of the invasion remained in dispute, and even some Administration officials conceded that it had been somewhat exaggerated, given that Sandinistas and contras regularly tangle along the border. Nevertheless, like Muammar Gaddafi's fitful missile attack on the U.S. fleet in the Gulf of Sidra, the Nicaraguan incursion provided a suitable pretext for showing U.S. military might in the region...