West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East

At the end of the twentieth century, the United States birthed a new Middle East order built on realpolitik and a stable balance of power. Three decades later that order has been destroyed. America's disastrous invasion of Iraq along with the failed Arab Spring created a vacuum that has allowed revisionist powers to extend their influence across the region.

In West Asia, Mohammed Soliman argues that it is time for the United States to move decisively away from nation-building and get back to the business of order-building. To do so will require zooming out, in both geographical and historical terms, to build a new regional order across 'West Asia' – from the Middle East to South Asia, connecting Europe to the Indo-Pacific via the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Working with India, Italy, Greece, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan, the UK and the United Arab Emirates, among others, he shows how the U.S. could lock in a new balance of power in the Eurasian supercontinent to offset China and Russia's efforts to disrupt the status quo and create a rival system. This new strategy rests on three layered coalitions — geostrategic, hard-power, and geo-technological — that together can anchor a stable order stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. But this will require a fundamental shift in U.S. grand strategy, with 'West Asia' at its core.

The Middle East is no more. Welcome to West Asia.