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This book examines Russia's re-engagement with the Middle East and North Africa through the historical drivers of Russian interest in the MENA region and current Russian policies. It unpacks key aspects of Russian presence in the area, including national interest, historical ties, economic, political and cultural cooperation.
The eyes of the world are on the Middle East. Today, more than ever, this deeply-troubled region is the focus of power games between major global players vying for international influence. Absent from this scene for the past quarter century, Russia is now back with gusto. Yet its motivations, decision-making processes and strategic objectives remain hard to pin down. So just what is Russia up to in the Middle East? In this hard-hitting essay, leading analyst of Russian affairs Dmitri Trenin cuts through the hyperbole to offer a clear and nuanced analysis of Russia's involvement in the Middle East and its regional and global ramifications. Russia, he argues, cannot and will not supplant the U.S. as the leading external power in the region, but its actions are accelerating changes which will fundamentally remake the international system in the next two decades.
This book discusses the role of political narratives in shaping perceptions of instability and conceptions of order in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The authors illustrate how, in times of socio-political turmoil and outbursts of discontent such as the Arab Spring, political entrepreneurs explain and justify their political agendas by complementing hard power solutions with attractive ideas and discursive constructions that appeal to domestic constituencies and geopolitical allies. The book is divided into two parts. The first focuses on non-state actors, such as confessional communities and ideological movements, who aim to develop narratives that are convincing to their respective polities. It also studies regional powers that seek to determine their positions in a competitive environment via distinctive narrations of order. In part two, the authors investigate the narratives of global players that aim to explain and justify their role in an evolving international order.
"Skillfully lays out Mr. Putin's approach to the Middle East." Wall Street Journal "Detailed and fascinating." Diplomatic Courier Putin intervened in Syria in September 2015, with international critics predicting that Russia would overextend itself and Barack Obama suggesting the country would find itself in a “quagmire” in Syria. Contrary to this, Anna Borshchevskaya argues that in fact Putin achieved significant key domestic and foreign policy objectives without crippling costs, and is well-positioned to direct Syria's future and become a leading power in the Middle East. This outcome has serious implications for Western foreign policy interests both in the Middle East and beyond. This book places Russian intervention in Syria in this broader context, exploring Putin's overall approach to the Middle East – historically Moscow has a special relationship with Damascus – and traces the political, diplomatic, military and domestic aspects of this intervention. Borshchevskaya delves into the Russian military campaign, public opinion within Russia, as well as Russian diplomatic tactics at the United Nations. Crucially, this book illustrates the impact of Western absence in Syria, particularly US absence, and what the role of the West is, and could be, in the Middle East.
This Open Access book analyses the emergence of Russia as a global food power and what it means for global food trade. Russia's strategy for food production and trade has changed significantly since the end of the Soviet period, and this is the first book to take account of Russia's rise as a food power and the global implications of that rise. It includes food trade policy and practice, and developments in regional food trade. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners in agricultural economics, international trade, and international food trade.
Focusing on language and media in Asian Russia, particularly in Buryat territories, Mixed Messages engages debates about the role of minority media in society, alternative visions of modernity, and the impact of media on everyday language use. Kathryn E. Graber demonstrates that language and the production, circulation, and consumption of media are practices by which residents of the region perform and negotiate competing possible identities. What languages should be used in newspapers, magazines, or radio and television broadcasts? Who should produce them? What kinds of publics are and are not possible through media? How exactly do discourses move into, out of, and through the media to affect everyday social practices? Mixed Messages addresses these questions through a rich ethnography of the Russian Federation's Buryat territories, a multilingual and multiethnic region on the Mongolian border with a complex relationship to both Europe and Asia. Mixed Messages shows that belonging in Asian Russia is a dynamic process that one cannot capture analytically by using straightforward categories of ethnolinguistic identity.
At the height of the Cold War, Soviet ideologues, policymakers, diplomats, and military officers perceived the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America as the future reserve of socialism, holding the key to victory over Western forces. The zero-sum nature of East-West global competition induced the United States to try to thwart Soviet ambitions. The result was predictable: the two superpowers engaged in proxy struggles against each other in faraway, little-understood lands, often ending up entangled in protracted and highly destructive local fights that did little to serve their own agendas. Using a wealth of recently declassified sources, this book tells the complex story of Soviet involvement in the Horn of Africa, a narrowly defined geographic entity torn by the rivalry of two large countries (Ethiopia and Somalia), from the beginning of the Cold War until the demise of the Soviet Union. At different points in the twentieth century, this region—arguably one of the poorest in the world—attracted broad international interest and large quantities of advanced weaponry, making it a Cold War flashpoint. The external actors ultimately failed to achieve what they wanted from the local conflicts—a lesson relevant for U.S. policymakers today as they ponder whether to use force abroad in the wake of the unhappy experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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.
After decades of intense interest and rivalry with the USA, the end of the Cold War and the dismantling of the USSR officially marked a period of significant retreat of Russia from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). However, with Russia’s economic recovery and the entrenchment of President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s interest in the region has risen anew. Once again seen as a battleground to contest US hegemony, Russia has expanded its political, military and (to a lesser extent) economic relationships across the region. Most apparent in the military intervention in Syria, Russia has also been engaged with traditional rivals Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, stepping into the vacuum left by the US Obama Administration. Is Russia’s reengagement part of a strategy, or is it mere opportunism? Authors with different backgrounds, experiences and origins examine this question via an analysis of the historical drivers of Russian interest in the MENA region and the factors underlying current Russian policies.
Less than twenty-four months after the hope-filled Arab uprising, the popular movement had morphed into a dystopia of resurgent dictators, failed states, and civil wars. Egypt's epochal transition to democracy ended in a violent military coup. Yemen and Libya collapsed into civil war, while Bahrain erupted in smothering sectarian repression. Syria proved the greatest victim of all, ripped apart by internationally fueled insurgencies and an externally supported, bloody-minded regime. Amidst the chaos, a virulently militant group declared an Islamic State, seizing vast territories and inspiring terrorism across the globe. What happened? The New Arab Wars is a profound illumination of the causes of this nightmare. It details the costs of the poor choices made by regional actors, delivers a scathing analysis of Western misreadings of the conflict, and condemns international interference that has stoked the violence. Informed by commentators and analysts from the Arab world, Marc Lynch's narrative of a vital region's collapse is both wildly dramatic and likely to prove definitive. Most important, he shows that the region's upheavals have only just begun -- and that the hopes of Arab regimes and Western policy makers to retreat to old habits of authoritarian stability are doomed to fail.