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редкол. А.В. Торкунов; отв. ред. А.Д. Воскресенский. – М.: Изд-во МГИМО-Университет, 2005. – 576 с.54This definition of the region, as an independent spatial system, takes intoaccount the socio-historical, territorial-economic and national-cultural criteria. Inaddition, according to the classical spatial organization of the eastern regions, it isprecisely such a politico-geographical space that is implied by the majority of modernresearchers using the term "Middle East".The Middle East region plays a decisive role in the system of moderninternational relations.
This significance is determined by a number of factors ofeconomic, social, political, religious, cultural and military nature.The region has also gained economic weight, first of all, owing to the impressivehydrocarbon reserves, which are now an indispensable component of the existence anddevelopment of virtually any country in the world that claims to be significant andindependent. Only in the territory of the Arabian Gulf states more than half of all worldoil and gas reserves are concentrated171. Such concentration of valuable raw materialshas a double effect on the positioning of exporting countries on the international scene:on the one hand, the dependence of many developed world economies on oil and gassupplies from the region forces the importing countries to take into account the opinionof suppliers, to allocate technical and human resources to ensure the safety of energyroutes; on the other hand, the region is in a state of permanent danger to be undersomeone's control, because due to its unstable development in the past, today it cannotcompete in power terms with the main “architects” of international relations, buildingabsolutely autonomous control systems.The Middle East at the present stage of the development of the world order isone of the most important geostrategic areas on the political map of the world.
In thisregion, the vectors of interests of several centers of power intersect; they secretly orofficially declare this subcontinent a zone of their national aspirations. Figurativelyspeaking, engagement in the Middle Eastern affairs of a great power have become anindicator of the true direction of its policy and the means that it is ready to use to171География отраслей мирового хозяйства [Электронный ресурс] // Вести. Экономика.http://www.vestifinance.ru/articles/60550/print– URL:55implement this policy.
For example, at the time of the adoption of the UN SecurityCouncil resolutions on Syria that China acted as an active part of the negotiations172.One should not forget about the favorable geographical location of the countriesof the Middle East from the point of view of the international trade and transportsystem. Convenient access points to the World Ocean in the south and in the north notonly make the region one of the most strategically important communication corridors,but also makes its transport and logistical infrastructure targets for pirates, terroristgroups and smugglers. The Middle East through its sea and air routes links the OldWorld with the increasingly powerful powers of southern and Southeast Asia.
The Straitof Gibraltar and Hormuz account for up to 90% of the supply of Europe, South Asia andthe Far Eastern countries to hydrocarbons falls on (the main consumers being China,Japan, India, Korea)173.The Suez Canal plays an important role not only in abstract world shipping, butin a very concrete Egyptian economy, which annually receives impressive dividends forgranting the right to use it. The transport importance of the Mediterranean Sea forWestern Europe is also increasing steadily since the beginning of the 20th century, dueto the increasing dependence of the main indicators of welfare and development ofcountries on oil and gas supplies.
The oil route requires a certain infrastructure. Hence,it is no coincidence that the number of southern ports and pipelines orientated towardssupplying raw materials to the customer countries is growing, which through high pricesfor Arabian Super Light and direct investments prove their interest in this. From thepoint of view of organizing the supply of hydrocarbons to the world markets, it is alsoimportant that the main deposits of the region are competently correlated andconcentrated relative to the objects of transport infrastructure. For this reason, theattempts of extra-regional corporations to intercept the control over the transportation ofhydrocarbons continue to be undertaken.
We constantly observe attacks from marketmanipulators on economically one-sidedly developed states of the region.172Session Four: Regional Consequences: The Geopolitics of the Changing Middle East [Electronic resource] //Council on Foreign Relations.
– URL: https://www.cfr.org/event/session-four-regional-consequences-geopolitics-changingmiddle-east173Симония Н. Нефть в мировой политике [Электронный ресурс] // Журнал «Международныепроцессы». – URL: http://www.intertrends.ru/nineth/001.htm56The Middle East region is located at the junction of three continents and is theconductor of the Arab-Muslim culture in Western European civilization, includingthrough the emigration processes from the countries of the Maghreb and the Levant tothe states of the European Union. It is here, in this multinational / religious / ethnic area,that the principles of tolerance and mutually beneficial cohabitation are tested on a parwith interfaith conflicts and nationalist wars over territory and the right to cultural selfidentification.This region is one of the most unstable in the world conjuncture, in manyrespects the clashes go back to the colonial legacy and then the satellite history of somecountries in the Middle East.
In the era of bipolar organization of the world order, whenthe system of international relations was based on the confrontation between the twosuperpowers, the region was a theater of ideological struggle between the USSR and theUS. Trying to expand their sphere of influence, both superpowers provided support tointraregional actors in the social, military, scientific and industrial spheres: theysupplied specialists, equipment and goods, which subsequently led to the dependencystrategy of the latter on the world stage, dependence on the “metropolitan state” in theneocolonial fashion.Later, from the donors' point of view, the opportunity and desire to provide suchactive support withered away, however, the host country could not get rid of the needfor assistance, which in turn was transformed into the Weimar Syndrome, namely, asense of non-competitiveness in comparison with the states that succeeded indevelopment in conditions of global rivalry in the contemporary, tightly integratedworld, which reveals their inability to adapt to new geopolitical realities174.As already mentioned, the Middle East geopolitical region is extremelycontroversial, and the consequences of clashes of interests of various structures, likecircles on water, go far beyond the region: the Arab-Israeli confrontation, the conflictsin Iraq and Syria, the maturing Kurdish issue, which, should it erupt, will directly affectseveral states (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria).
In the subcontinent, the number of potentialand actual conflict zones, where, due to one careless step on the part of the authorities or174Byman D. Sectarianism Afflicts the New Middle East // Survival. 2014. Vol. 56, No. 1. P. 79–10057a tactical move by extra-regional players, an acute internal political crisis that spills overinto a civil war can break out. Meanwhilethe processes of interdependence in theregion intensify175. And this is not always a good thing.
For example, the danger of aseries of civil wars cannot be dealt with in view of the high terrorist activity in theregion, the fragility of regimes and the relatively close ties between states that are atapproximately the same stage of development, can all lead to terrible consequences bythe “bush fire” scenario and engulf this whole territory.Additional difficulties for reaching political decisions arise from deep-seatedmutual distrust.
The decades-long crises (border-territorial, social, economic,demographic) lead to the emergence of generations who are not familiar with life in apeaceful environment and regard violence as a norm of existence. That complicates thepossibility of a dialogue on the issues of an inclusive region-wide security system176.All of the above reinforces an increasing desire of states to ensure their securitythrough the buildup of military capabilities, that is, by means of the ubiquitous armsrace. In the postwar period only in the Near and Middle East weapons of massdestruction (chemical weapons: Iraq-Iranian, Syrian conflicts) were used.
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