In Collaboration with The Carnegie Middle East Center.
Beirut, October 24-25, 2008. The conference aimed at looking at the Middle East as a focal point of overlapping and competing interests of established and emerging powers, and hence, as an arena where new rules and parameters for a still nascent multi-polar world order are being developed and acted out. It also seeked to look at sub-state or trans-national actors and flows that often remain invisible to purely strategic analysis, but create powerful crosscurrents that may affect or even derail attempts to project national or imperial power, and create patterns of influence of their own. Finally, it intended to explore the perspectives of the region to become a partner in an emerging multi-polar system, rather than a stomping ground or even a battlefield for the interests and the prestige of others. To this end, it brought together Chinese, Indian, Russian, Western and Middle Eastern specialists on international relations, who were encouraged to merge their perspectives into a comprehensive vision.
Download Conference Report.