Regional Security Dialogue In The Middle East

At this time of considerable political turmoil in the Middle East, there is a pressing need to explore alternative frameworks for regional security. The book discusses the Helsinki Process as one potentially relevant historical model to learn from. The Helsinki Process began in a divided Europe in the early 1970s and, over 40 years, achieved major successes in promoting cooperation between the Warsaw Pact and NATO member states on social, human rights, security, and political issues. In this volume, established Middle East experts, former diplomats, and emerging scholars assess the regional realities from a broad range of perspectives and, with the current momentum for reform across the Middle East, chart a path towards a comprehensive mechanism that could promote long-term regional security. Providing a gamut of views on regional threat perception and suggesting ways forward for regional peace, this book is essential reading for students and scholars with an interest in Politics, the Middle East and Conflict Studies.

The Middle East is experiencing unprecedented political turmoil, violence, and state failure. It also suffers from a unique deficit in its peace and security architecture, even compared to other fractious or unevenly developed regions. Key stakeholders have failed to address the lack of formal structures, even though chronic conflict and sharp crises regularly underscore the deadly and destabilizing consequences. In this volume, established researchers explore the possibilities for creating security architecture and institutions to facilitate cooperation and mitigate the risks of conflict escalation. These studies examine past and current efforts to undertake regional security dialogue; approaches to collective security; confidence-building measures that can decrease tensions and establish precedents for security cooperation; non-Arab regional actors and outside parties and their role in regional security efforts; and the shape and scope of a future regional security system. A grim urgency marks the current historical moment. The Middle East gravely needs new ideas to advance regional security. While crisis and conflict have exacerbated threats and fears, they have also created opportunities for carefully crafted prescriptions and alternative security frameworks.

Discussions on regional security were initiated in the Middle East in 1992, as part of the Middle East peace process. The collapse of the Oslo process and other regional developments in the latter half of the 1990s have diminished hopes that the initial gains made in this direction might further develop, as violence has again become the primary mode of effecting political changes in the region. On the backdrop of this somewhat dismal current reality in the Middle East the rationale for this volume is that research into regional security structures should nevertheless be pursued. When looking at the long term process of creating regional security, setbacks are not unlikely. The articles that make up this collection focus on the problems that have been encountered, and possible directions for getting regional efforts back on track. A special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies

Middle Eastern politics of the 1990s have been characterized by a drive towards peace. Whether this is successful or not will depend on the negotiating process. These articles discuss the challenges, and provide some practical advice on how risks of failure could be avoided.

This book focuses on the Middle East arms control process as it unfolded during the years 1992-1995, as part of the multilateral track of the Arab-Israeli peace process initiated in Madrid, October 1991. This was the story of a regional process in the making: from the very concept of arms control as applied to the region, through the innovative regional forum and format for discussion that was devised for the talks, to the dynamics of the talks and the question of Egypt's position within this novel regional setting. The result was that what seemed at the outset to be a most likely unpromising forum became the setting of unprecedented regional dynamics. ... The in-depth examination of ACRS - Arms Control Regional Security working group - engenders important insights into a number of concepts that lie at the heart of international relations studies: the notion of the strategic game, the meaning of power, the definition of security threats, the notions of hegemony and leadership, state identity, the conduct of regional politics, and the significance of cooperative processes in international relations.

Sikkerhedspolitik i Mellemøsten. Israel og det palæstinensiske mindretal. Saudiarabiens sikkerhedspolitiske forhold. Regionens militære trusler mod Israel. Syriens sikkerhedspolitiske forhold. Sovjetunionens udenrigspolitik overfor Iran og den Persiske Golf. Tilstedeværelsen af atomvåben i regionen.

This is an accessible yet critical analysis of regional security in the Middle East. Using a non-realist approach, Bilgin provides a comprehensive study of the past, present and future of security in the region. She also considers the question of identity formation, explaining how and why various regional representations came into being, and explor