The Middle East today epitomizes major global trends: international processes becoming more ungovernable, the resurgence of power as a factor in international relations, the greater roleplayed by contingency, the world’s periphery and semi-periphery gaining in strength amid a crisis in the concept of the nation state and national identity.
The region has been transformed over the last five years, giving rise to trends that pose a threat to the whole world: the weakening or destruction of state institutions, bloody civil wars, conflicts escalating and spilling over into neighboring territories, humanitarian crises, the spread of terrorism evolving into a global threat. New alliances have replaced the old ones in the reformatted system within the region.
Situation in the Middle East, its institutions and economy, terrorism, balance of forces and Russian interests in the region are examined in this report prepared on the basis of discussions which took place during the conference "The Middle East: From Violence to Security" (February 2016).
About the authors:
Vitaly Naumkin, Doctor of Science, History, Professor; Supervisor of the Team of Contributors; President of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS); Chair at the Department of Regional Problems of World Politics, Moscow State University; Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria; Editor-in-Chief of “Vostok (ORIENS)” Journal of the RAS
Vasily Kuznetsov, PhD in History, Head of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies RAS; Head of the Centre for Political Systems and Cultures, Faculty of World Politics, Moscow State University; Programme Director of International Middle Eastern Studies Club
Nikolay Soukhov, PhD in History, Researcher of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS; Senior Researcher of the Institute of African Studies RAS; Associate Professor of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia; Vice-President of International Middle Eastern Studies Club
Irina Zvyagelskaya, Doctor of Science, History; Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies RAS; Professor at the Moscow Institute of International Relations (University) and at the Institute of African and Asian Studies (Moscow State University)
