Introduction: The Regional Order in the Gulf Region and the Middle East

Abstract

Contemporaries face a daunting task when trying to understand the complex and fluid dynamics in the Gulf Region and the broader Middle East, which has been witnessing turbulences since 2010. This period has been one of uprisings and counter-uprisings, of civil wars and proxy wars, and of deliberate and destabilizing ideological and strategic crises. This book thematically explores this unfolding regional system. It addresses the major security alliances (i.e., subsystems); the most vigorous regional great powers, and non-state militant actors in the Gulf Region and the broader Middle East; in addition to the role of external actors, and ecological factors in regional dynamics.