Geopolitical Shifts in West Asia: Trends and Implications
Contents: Introduction/Prasanta Kumar Pradhan. Part I. Geopolitical Trends in West Asia. 1. The Arab uprisings: the more things changed the more they stayed the same/Gencer Ozcan. 2. Arab uprising and changing geopolitical trends in the gulf/N. Janardhan. 3. A new paradigm in understanding the current evolutions in the Middle East/Mostafa Zahrani. 4. Geopolitics in West Asia: an Egyptian perspective/Mohamed Fathy Abdel Hamid El Shazly. 5. Geopolitical situation in the Middle East: a view from Yemen/Ahmed Salem Saleh Al Wahishi. Part II. Terrorism, Sectarianism and Regional Security. 6. Sectarianism and security implications for West Asia/Talmiz Ahmad. 7. The dynamics of regional security in the Middle East: A GCC perspective/Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar. 8. The present state of affairs in Iraq: Islamic state and prevailing political disorder/ Abdulwahab Al Qassab. 9. Gulf security architecture and the GCC: time to shed past baggage and start a new/Rajeev Agarwal. Part III. External Interventions in West Asia. 10. A love-hate relationship: external interventions and the Middle East/P.R. Kumaraswamy. 11. External intervention in West Asia: regional and global implications/Waiel Awwad. 12. US and ‘The Other Side of the World’/Jon B. Alterman. 13. How to deal with West Asia? commonalities and differences in the European and German approaches/Henner Furtig. Part IV. Regional Instability and Energy Security. 14. Changing text of energy geopolitics and West Asia/Girijesh Pant. 15. Safeguarding the SLOCs from West Asia as an energy security policy: A Japanese perspective/ Toshitaka Takeuchi. 16. The impact of regional instability on energy security: a perspective from South Korea/Jeongmin Seo. 17. West Asian turmoil and the future of the regional gas sector: implications for India/Shebonti Ray Dadwal. Part VI. India and West Asia. 18. India’s relationship with West Asia: facing the challenges of Arab Spring/Prasanta Kumar Pradhan. Index.
The West Asian region is undergoing a phase of massive turbulence since the outbreak of the Arab Spring. This period has been marked by popular protests, internal conflicts, civil wars, military interventions and involvement of external players. The regional security situation remains fragile with a new terrorist entity, the Islamic State, emerging to challenge the existing geographical boundaries of the region. There has been an enormous increase in terrorism and extremism, and the non-state actors have gained significant influence in regional politics. Sectarian conflicts in the region have manifested in places such as Iraq, Yemen and Syria. As the region is a major oil supplier for the Asian economies, continuing unrest has created concern among the major Asian oil importers over the possibility of disruption of oil supply to them.
This book contains in-depth analyses of the shifting geopolitical trends unfolding in West Asia. Critical issues such as geopolitics, regional security, sectarianism, extremism, energy security and India`s relationship with the region have been discussed by the scholars in this edited volume. In light of the evolving geopolitical and security situation in the region, this book presents opinions and analyses of scholars from different parts of the world on the evolving political, security and strategic dimensions of the turmoil in West Asia.
