The Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński, known as Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. As a scholar, Brzezinski belonged to the realist school of international relations, standing in the geopolitical tradition of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas J. Spykman, while elements of liberal idealism have also been identified in his outlook. Brzezinski was the primary organizer of The Trilateral Commission.
The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. It was a response to the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, and it was intended to deter the Soviet Union, the United States' Cold War adversary, from seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf region.
Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: de facto independent states with limited international recognition and relations between sub-national geopolitical entities, such as the federated states that make up a federation, confederation, or a quasi-federal system.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in 1910 by Andrew Carnegie, the organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between countries, reducing global conflict, and promoting active international engagement between the United States and countries around the world. It engages leaders from multiple sectors and across the political spectrum.
A United States presidential doctrine comprises the key goals, attitudes, or stances for United States foreign affairs outlined by a president. Most presidential doctrines are related to the Cold War. Though many U.S. presidents had themes related to their handling of foreign policy, the term doctrine generally applies to presidents such as James Monroe, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, all of whom had doctrines which more completely characterized their foreign policy.
Geostrategy, a subfield of geopolitics, is a type of foreign policy guided principally by geographical factors as they inform, constrain, or affect political and military planning. As with all strategies, geostrategy is concerned with matching means to ends Strategy is as intertwined with geography as geography is with nationhood, or as Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan state it, "[geography is] the mother of strategy."
Strategic geography is concerned with the control of, or access to, spatial areas that affect the security and prosperity of nations. Spatial areas that concern strategic geography change with human needs and development. This field is a subset of human geography, itself a subset of the more general study of geography. It is also related to geostrategy.
The state of Democracy in Middle East and North Africa can be comparatively assessed according to various definitions of democracy. According to The Economist Group's Democracy Index 2023 study, Israel is the only democratic country in the region, qualified as a "flawed democracy". According to the V-Dem Democracy indices, the Middle Eastern and North African countries with the highest scores in 2024 are Israel, Tunisia and Iraq.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region. While still referring to most of the Middle East and North Africa together, it is widely considered to be a more defined and apolitical alternative to the grouping of countries that is known as the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world.
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) is one of the major works of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski graduated with a PhD from Harvard University in 1953 and became Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University. He was later the United States National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981, under the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower is a 2007 book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter's National Security advisor and a scholar of American foreign policy as a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. The book discusses the 15 years of American foreign policy where the U.S., emerging as the "victor" in the Cold War, has been the lone "superpower." Brzezinski writes about how United States presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush have demonstrated leadership and wielded power throughout a decade and a half as the leaders of a virtually unchallenged world power.
Criticism of United States foreign policy encompasses a wide range of opinions and views on the perceived failures and shortcomings of American foreign policy and actions. Some Americans view the country as qualitatively different from other nations and believe it cannot be judged by the same standards as other countries; this belief is sometimes termed American exceptionalism. This belief was particularly prevalent in the 20th century. This belief became less dominant in the 21st century as the country has become more divided politically and has made highly controversial foreign policy decisions such as the Iraq War. Nevertheless, the United States is an extremely powerful country from an economic, military, and political point-of-view, and it has sometimes disregarded international norms, rules, and laws in its foreign policy.
Adam M. Garfinkle is an American historian and political scientist and the founding editor of The American Interest, a bimonthly public policy magazine. He was previously editor of The National Interest. He has been a university teacher and a staff member at high levels of the U.S. government. He was a speechwriter to more than one U.S. Secretary of State. Garfinkle was a speechwriter for both of President George W. Bush's Secretaries of State, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. He was editor of The National Interest and left to edit The American Interest in 2005. Francis Fukuyama, Eliot Cohen, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Josef Joffe, and Ruth Wedgwood were among the magazine's founding leadership.
Tharwa Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan grassroots organization that encourages diversity, development and democracy in Syria and the broader Middle East/North Africa. The Foundation derives its name from the Arabic word, tharwa. Founded in 2003, the Tharwa Foundation is an offshoot of the Tharwa Project, an initiative launched in Damascus Syria by Ammar Abdulhamid and Khawla Yusuf. Abdulhamid is a blogger, human rights activist and author. Yusuf is an author, politician, and human rights activist.
The U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is a United States State Department program that fosters meaningful and effective partnerships between citizens, civil society, the private sector, and governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to resolve local challenges and promote shared interests in the areas of participatory governance and economic opportunity and reform.
Morton Isaac Abramowitz is an American diplomat and former U.S. State Department official. Starting his overseas career in Taipei, Taiwan after joining the foreign service, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and Turkey and as the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. He retired from the State Department with the rank of Career Ambassador. He then became president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and founded the International Crisis Group.
Democracy promotion by the United States aims to encourage governmental and non-governmental actors to pursue political reforms that will lead ultimately to democratic governance.
Paul Thomas Haenle is an American analyst and China specialist currently serving as Maurice R. Greenberg Director’s Chair at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
