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This text examines the causes and consequences of each of those dynamics, both individually and collectively, that have made this small waterway and its surrounding areas one of the most volatile and tension-filled regions in the world. This pervasive insecurity, the book argues, is largely a product of four interrelated developments.
The South Caucasus region, comprising the former Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia occupies a key strategic location, squeezed between the Black and Caspian Seas, Iran, Russia and Turkey. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the region has become an arena of geopolitical confrontation with regional powers such as Russia, Turkey and Iran vying for influence in the face of growing Western involvement. The Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008 not only raised questions about Moscow's intentions towards its 'Near Abroad' and the future direction of its foreign policy, it also demonstrated that ostensibly local separatist disputes have serious ramifications for regional relations and the wider international community. In this book, German explores the extent of regional cooperation in the South Caucasus, analyses the reasons for the relative lack of regional cooperation and assesses the potential for deeper cooperation in the future.
This book explores the diplomatic, security and energy relations of Turkey and Iran, analysing the impact of religious, political and social transformation on their bilateral relationship. It examines Turkey and Iran’s security relations with the wider Middle East - including the Kurdish-Turkish War, the Kurdish-Iranian War and the Kurdish-Arab War - and their impact on regional politics.
Examining Syrian foreign policy during the Ba’th years from 1963 to 1989, this book traces the alliances of the Levantine country from a historical perspective and in the context of recent political developments. Syrian Foreign Policy analyses the pivotal alliances of Damascus using a theoretical framework based on neoclassical realism, an approach which incorporates domestic factors succh as the role of ideology within a realist perspective. Covering Syria’s relations with Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Soviet Union, it asks the question: what led to the formation of each alliance and what has caused either its break up or its continuation? Belcastro seeks to answer this questions, but also reflects on the country’s foreign policy today and its broader implications for Syria and the whole region. Making use of case studies to build upon a strong theoretical analysis, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, as well as politics and International Relations more generally.
This highly controversial and topical book provides the first full, balanced account of how Iraq cheated the UN inspectors on disarmament and how the US manipulated and infiltrated the UN inspection teams and other staff to gather intelligence on Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Aimed at the general reader, it follows and assesses the role of Saddam Hussein who became president of Iraq in 1979. Dilip Hiro, an experienced journalist who has written extensively on the region, provides a historical and accessible perspective to the relationship between Iraq and Iran and examines the consequences of internationally significant events such as the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran a year after ...
Focusing on the interplay between domestic-level changes and region-wide interaction, this book provides a comprehensive analytical and theoretical survey of Iranian foreign relations in the Middle East from Antiquity until the Islamic Republic. It charts developments from the earliest regimes in Persia, including the Median kingdom and the Sassanid Empire, through rule by, amongst others, Abbasids, Mongols, Safavids and Qajars, up to the modern states of the Shah and the Islamic Republic. Throughout the author reflects on the enduring factors which have shaped Iran’s relations with the rest of the region, factors such as geography, culture, the belief systems of policy makers, the structures of decision-making and government, and sub-regional systems. Overall, the book provides a deep analysis of Iranian foreign relations in the Middle East over 4,700 years.
This paper argues that from the fallen edifice of the Cold War have emerged four major Asian powers of considerable potential and influence, each possessing varying types of assets. These four land-based continental powers - China, India, Iran and Russia - are well-placed to shape this vast continent's destiny in the next millennium. Each of the four actors has stepped onto the Asian scene anew, each having been affected very differently by the region's changing geography and by the passing of bipolarity. These four actors have the power and the authority, as well as the means to shape Asia's political map in the next millennium. Each has been a party to Asia's fluid and dynamic inter-state ...
Having been ruled, more or less continuously, by a range of monarchical dynasties for three millennia, the end of the monarchy in Iran was relatively sudden, taking place in two short years. Since then, Iran has gone through tumultuous change, yet is still apparently caught in a cycle of transition. Iran has now created a complex but unique and non-transferrable system of government, but the question to be asked is whether the Islamic republic has lived up to its founding expectations, serving the Iranian people and helping them to realize their aspirations. This book is the first comprehensive analytical study of the forces which have been shaping and changing modern Iran and its relations ...
Today the regional landscape is changing more rapidly than at any time since World War II and the dynamics of that change are more complex than ever. Inter-Arab rivalries – between rich and poor or moderate and radical or Islamist and secular actors – have not gone away, and these rivalries have become more nuanced as power among the Arab actors themselves has become more defuse. In the absence of a single or a strong coalition of Arab powerhouses guiding the regional agendas, not only are more Arab actors (and not just states) increasingly daring in their involvement in high politics, but more disturbing from their point of view is the ease with which the non-Arab members of MENA can pe...
Examining globalization in the Middle East, this book provides a much needed assessment of the impact of globalization in the ‘greater’ Middle East, including North Africa, in the context of the powerful geopolitical forces at work in shaping the region today. Written by a well-known authority in this area, this book demonstrates that, unlike in other regions, such as East Asia, geopolitics has been a critical factor in driving globalization in the Middle East. The author argues that whereas elsewhere globalisation has opened up the economy, society, culture and attitudes to the environment; in the Middle East it has had the opposite effect, with poor state formation, little interregional trade, foreign and interregional investment, and reassertion of traditional identities. This book explores the impact of globalization on the polities, economies and social environment of the greater Middle East, in the context of the region’s position as the central site of global geopolitical competition at the start of the twenty-first century.