The Atlantic Alliance and the Middle East

The Atlantic Alliance and the Middle East
Author: Joseph I Coffey
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2016-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1349102504

Annotation This work attempts to define the interests of members of the Atlantic Alliance with regard to the Middle East, to indicate some of the threats that may arise, to outline the most important military and political factors and describe the institutional structures, relationships and procedures which will also affect decisions on the use of force.

Allies Divided

Allies Divided
Author: Robert D. Blackwill
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1997
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780262522441

Many Transatlantic security concerns in the coming decades will originate not in Europe, but in the Greater Middle East, which encompasses the area from the Maghreb to the Caspian basin. This volume juxtaposes essays from U.S. and European scholars on selected areas and issues: the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Persian Gulf, Turkey and the Caspian Basin, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and military force projection. Each author considers American and European strategies toward a particular issue and makes suggestions for future policy collaboration between the countries on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Challenge to NATO

The Challenge to NATO
Author: Michael O. Slobodchikoff
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1640124977

The Challenge to NATO is a concise review of NATO, its relationship with the United States, and its implications for global security.

NATO 2030

NATO 2030
Author: Jason Blessing
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1947661116

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the world’s largest, most powerful military alliance. The Alliance has navigated and survived the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the post-9/11 era. Since the release of the 2010 Strategic Concept, NATO’s strategic environment has again undergone significant change. The need to adapt is clear. An opportunity to assess the Alliance’s achievements and future goals has now emerged with the Secretary General’s drive to create a new Strategic Concept for the next decade—an initiative dubbed NATO 2030. A necessary step for formulating a new strategic outlook will thus be understanding the future that faces NATO. To remain relevant and adjust to new circumstances, the Alliance must identify its main challenges and opportunities in the next ten years and beyond. This book contributes to critical conversations on NATO’s future vitality by examining the Alliance’s most salient issues and by offering recommendations to ensure its effectiveness moving forward. Written by a diverse, multigenerational group of policymakers and academics from across Europe and the United States, this book provides new insights about NATO’s changing threat landscape, its shifting internal dynamics, and the evolution of warfare. The volume’s authors tackle a wide range of issues, including the challenges of Russia and China, democratic backsliding, burden sharing, the extension of warfare to space and cyberspace, partnerships, and public opinion. With rigorous assessments of NATO’s challenges and opportunities, each chapter provides concrete recommendations for the Alliance to chart a path for the future. As such, this book is an indispensable resource for NATO’s strategic planners and security and defense experts more broadly.

Treacherous Alliance

Treacherous Alliance
Author: Trita Parsi
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2007-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300138067

This award-winning study traces the shifting relations between Israel, Iran, and the U.S. since 1948—including secret alliances and treacherous acts. Vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of Iran and Israel are a disturbingly common feature of the news cycle. But the real roots of their enmity mystify Washington policymakers, leaving no promising pathways to stability. In Treacherous Alliance, U.S. foreign policy expert Trita Parsi untangles to complex and often duplicitous relationship among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present. In the process, he reveals shocking details of unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle Eastern peace and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region. Parsi draws on his unique access to senior American, Iranian, and Israeli decision makers to present behind-the-scenes revelations that will surprise even the most knowledgeable readers: Iran’s prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini; Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War; the United States foils Iran’s plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah; and more. Treacherous Alliance not only revises our understanding of the recent past, it also spells out a course for the future. An Arthur Ross Book Award Silver Medal Winner A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title

Black Wave

Black Wave
Author: Kim Ghattas
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250131219

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 “[A] sweeping and authoritative history" (The New York Times Book Review), Black Wave is an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy. With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979. She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of countless intellectuals, the birth of groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS. Ghattas introduces us to a riveting cast of characters whose lives were upended by the geopolitical drama over four decades: from the Pakistani television anchor who defied her country’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the way to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is both an intimate and sweeping history of the region and will significantly alter perceptions of the Middle East.

The MENA Region: a great power competition

The MENA Region: a great power competition
Author: AA.VV
Publisher: Ledizioni
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 8855260731

The volume deals with competition among regional and external players for the redistribution of power and international status in the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on Russia’s renewed role and the implications for US interests. Over the last few years, a crisis of legitimacy has beset the liberal international order. In this context, the configuration of regional orders has come into question, as in the extreme case of the current collapse in the Middle East. The idea of a “Russian resurgence” in the Middle East set against a perceived American withdrawal has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars alike, warranting further examination. This volume, a joint publication by ISPI and the Atlantic Council, gathers analysis on Washington’s and Moscow’s policy choices in the MENA region and develops case studies of the two powers’ engagament in the countries beset by major crises.

How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs

How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs
Author: Elizabeth F. Thompson
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2020-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 161185900X

When Europe's Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on the promise of an independent Arab state. In October 1918, the Arabs' military leader, Prince Faisal, victoriously entered Damascus and proclaimed a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. Faisal won American support for self-determination at the Paris Peace Conference, but other Entente powers plotted to protect their colonial interests. Under threat of European occupation, the Syrian-Arab Congress declared independence on March 8, 1920 and crowned Faisal king of a 'civil representative monarchy.' Sheikh Rashid Rida, the most prominent Islamic thinker of the day, became Congress president and supervised the drafting of a constitution that established the world's first Arab democracy and guaranteed equal rights for all citizens, including non-Muslims. But France and Britain refused to recognize the Damascus government and instead imposed a system of mandates on the pretext that Arabs were not yet ready for self-government. In July 1920, the French invaded and crushed the Syrian state. The fragile coalition of secular modernizers and Islamic reformers that had established democracy was destroyed, with profound consequences that reverberate still. Using previously untapped primary sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts, reports of the Syrian-Arab Congress, and letters and diaries from participants, How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs is a groundbreaking account of an extraordinary, brief moment of unity and hope - and of its destruction.

The Middle East and the Western Alliance

The Middle East and the Western Alliance
Author: Steven L. Spiegel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2015-07-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317411455

This volume, first published in 1982, provides a comprehensive analysis of the problems affecting the interests of the Western Alliance (the North Americans, the Europeans and the Japanese), the Middle East states, and the Soviet Union. The authors, all internationally recognized experts in their fields, bring together different and distinctive perspectives on such central issues as the Arab-Israeli dispute, the dynamics of the energy crisis, alliance unity and the role of the Soviet Union, and the effect of growing Middle East instability on the interests of individual allied countries. The chapters address the major issues both historically and in terms of current events; and they seek to examine relationships both from the perspective of the various countries and of the Alliance as a whole.