Jon B. Alterman

Mellanöstern har alltid varit en central plats för handel och erövringar. Läget har medfört enorma rikedomar, kulturellt utbyte och intellektuell vitalitet – men också konflikter, instabilitet och ihållande geopolitiska spänningar. Att förstå regionens förflutna är avgörande för att förstå dess nutid. Antologin Empires of Faith utforskar Mellanösterns långa historia – från Mesopotamien, de persiska kungarikena och Alexander den store till kristendomens och islams uppkomst, det bysantinska och ottomanska riket, och 1900-talets dramatiska omvandling av regionen. Hur har religion, civilisation och imperialistiska ambitioner format regionen? Vilka arv lämnade de stora imperierna efter sig och hur påverkade de lagstiftning, kultur, styre och undersåtarnas vardagsliv? Och i vilken utsträckning är historiens efterverkningar fortfarande synliga i dagens politiska och religiösa landskap? Boken utkommer även på svenska våren 2027.

The importance of environmentally sustainable public utilities in the Middle East is an improbable topic for a Washington think tank study. Yet, many countries in the Middle East face serious challenges providing utilities in any manner to their populations, and the failure to do so is an increasing flashpoint for public dissatisfaction. This study finds that providing more environmentally sustainable services in the Middle East would be an effective way to address many citizens’ grievances which go beyond the reliability of those services. It would also help ameliorate deep dissatisfaction with the quality of governance and help build trust between citizens and their governments. This study examines three sectors—power, water and sanitation, and solid waste—in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. While the three countries are different in many ways, each faces increasing challenges providing services to their citizens. Providing these services in an environmentally sustainable way would also crucially increase each country’s resilience and diminish their vulnerability in a chronically unstable region.

This study examines the potential for a “federated defense” approach to U.S. action in the Middle East, the constraints to closer military cooperation in the region, and specific capability areas that would benefit from federated defense. Stabilizing the Middle East requires continued attention and investment from the United States and its global allies and partners. Federated defense involves building partner capabilities in a way that shares the burden of providing security in a more effective and efficient manner. Federated defense would, over time, create partner capabilities that augment and complement U.S. capabilities. Doing so requires identifying discrete areas of cooperation between the United States and its allies and partners that would leverage partner capabilities in pursuing common security objectives.

This new edited volume analyzes the Middle East’s political, strategic, and economic realities in 2015, looking at both old and new challenges, how political actors are evolving, and how policymakers can think strategically about the region.

This volume explores the complex interrelationships among China, the United States, and the Middle East—what the authors call the “vital triangle.” There is surely much to be gained from continuing the conventional two-dimensional analysis—China and the United States, the United States and the Middle East, and China and the Middle East. Such scholarship has a long history and no doubt a long future. But it is the three-dimensional equation—which seeks to understand the effects of the China–Middle East relationship on the United States, the U.S.–Middle East relationship on China, and the Sino-American relationship on the Middle East—that draws the authors’ attention. This approach captures the true dynamics of change in world affairs and the spiraling up and down of national interests. Central to this analysis is a belief that if any one of the three sides of this triangular relationship is unhappy, it has the power to make the other two unhappy as well. The stakes and the intimacy of the interrelationship highlight not only the importance of reaching accommodation, but also the potential payoff of agreement on common purpose.