Middle Easts, old and new1

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Ghassan Salamé

This article is the text of an address given by Ghassan Salamé at the ‘Oil and Money’ Conference convened in London, UK, on 21 October 2009. In it, the author deals with what the ambiguous, amorphous, elastic and politically expedient term ‘Middle East’ has connoted historically and what it may or may not denote in political formulations of a given moment. In particular, American, European, Turkish, Iranian, Israeli and Arab views – and the serious implications of these – are examined with superb economy of style. Whether as part of the US-delimited region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) or whether as affiliated to the European Union via a Mediterranean Union based on trade relations, the exclusion or inclusion in the Middle East is not a simple matter where regional players such as Iran and Turkey have historical extraterritorial ambitions which would, yet again, appear to be coming to the fore – even when such may threaten internal balances. The author argues that Israel's position is increasingly problematic due not only to Palestinian demographics, but also to its recent experience against Hezbollah which has mastered asymmetrical warfare at a time when the ability of the United States to defend its primary ally in the region has been cast into doubt. The states of the Arab World have proved ineffectual and certain of them are looking to ‘escape’ from the Middle East into Africa (Libya) or looking to formulate a new regional constellation in which Turkey and Iran will play leading roles (Syria).

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Rett R. Ludwikowski ◽  

The main goal of this article is to present to the European reader the implications of the unstable relationships between the United States and an integrated Europe. The article focuses on the trade relations between the US and Europe in the globalization era. It explains the meaning of some basic terms used by trade experts, such as globalization, regionalization, glocalization, and strategic trade. The author also tries to explore the reasons for the recent crisis of global trade. The main part of the paper reviews the major disputes between these two regions which resulted in postponing of the negotiations of the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. As we have observed in the introduction of the article, the relationships between the European Union and the United States have always been complicated and the article presents the main reasons for these disagreements. In a time of renewed Trans-Atlantic negotiations, pro-American sentiments in Europe grew stronger, and European experts on trade and politics emphasized that the US significantly increased support for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). Still, with comments repeated by President Trump many times that “Europe needs its own army”, the European media began warning the readers that the crisis in US-EU relations may soon return.


Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Mauro G. Carta ◽  
Matthias C. Angermeyer ◽  
Silvano Tagliagambe

The purpose is to verify trends of scientific production from 2010 to 2020, considering the best universities of the United States, China, the European Union (EU), and private companies. The top 30 universities in 2020 in China, the EU, and the US and private companies were selected from the SCImago institutions ranking (SIR). The positions in 2020, 2015, and 2010 in SIR and three sub-indicators were analyzed by means of non-parametric statistics, taking into consideration the effect of time and group on rankings. American and European Union universities have lost positions to Chinese universities and even more to private companies, which have improved. In 2020, private companies have surpassed all other groups considering Innovation as a sub-indicator. The loss of leadership of European and partly American universities mainly concerns research linked to the production of patents. This can lead to future risks of monopoly that may elude public control and cause a possible loss of importance of research not linked to innovation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Biba

Abstract As the Sino-American Great Power competition continues to intensify, newly-elected US President Joe Biden's administration now seeks to enlist the support of its allies and partners around the world. As Europe's largest economy and a, if not the, leading voice within the European Union, Germany represents an important puzzle-piece for Biden. But Germany, at least under outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel, has been reluctant to take sides. It is against this backdrop that this article looks into Germany's past and present trilateral relationships with the US and China through the theoretical lens of the so-called strategic triangle approach. Applying this approach, the article seeks to trace and explain German behaviour, as well as to elucidate the opportunities and pitfalls that have come with it. The article demonstrates that Germany's recently gained position as a ‘pivot’ (two positive bilateral relationships) between the US and Chinese ‘wings’ (positive bilateral relations with Germany and negative bilateral relations with each other) is desirable from the perspective of the strategic triangle. At the same time, being pivot is also challenging and hard to maintain. Alternative options, such as entering a US–German ‘marriage’ directed against China, are also problematic. The article therefore concludes that Germany has tough decisions to take going forward.


1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (282) ◽  
pp. 110-122
Author(s):  
Karolina Adamska-Płocic

The objective of the article is to analyze the anti-American sentiment in international relations. A chronological systematization of particular stages of the development of anti-Americanism aims to illustrate its evolution and the constantly changing perception of the United States by representatives of different cultural circles. It is worth emphasizing that while European anti-Americanism is based mainly on the philosophical foundations, the Islamic anti-Americanism has its roots mainly in the negative assessment of US foreign policy towards the Middle East region. The first strong wave of anti-Americanism flooded the Middle East in 1967 when the US supported Jews during the six-day war. Each subsequent conflict in the Arab world with US involvement only deepens the antagonisms that have persisted since then. Followers of Islam also have objections towards the culture of the United States, which is to be shallow and expansive. It is worth emphasizing, however, that the anti-American sentiment grew and evolved simultaneously with the state that was being formed, which is why it is not possible to recall only one specific reason that causes the country to have as many opponents. While nineteenth century polemics consisted of almost purely theoretical considerations about the superiority of the Old World over the New World, the reality of twenty-first century terror based on hatred for the US, requires serious actions from American diplomacy.


Author(s):  
Sindre Bangstad

This chapter discusses the life and work of Bat Ye’or (Gisèle Littman), who is widely seen as the doyenne of “Eurabia”-literature. This comes in different varieties and formulations, but in Bat Ye’or’s rendering refers to an ongoing secretive conspiracy which involves both the European Union and Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and the Middle East, aimed at establishing Muslim control over a future Europe or “Eurabia.” Though Bat Ye’or did not coin the term “Eurabia,” she can be credited with having popularized the concept through quasi-academic titles such as Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis and Europe, Globalization and the Coming Universal Caliphate. Through its dissemination on various “counter-jihadist” websites and in the work of the Norwegian counter-jihadist blogger Fjordman, her work inspired the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. She also has long-standing relations with Serbian ultranationalists, the Israeli Far Right, and various radical Right activists in Western Europe and the US.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (01) ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
Mieczysław P. Boduszyński

Nearly nine years after a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in provincial Tunisia, a sense that the aspirations of the Arab Spring were always doomed to fail has set in among pundits and policymakers. The United States, and to a large extent the European Union, have all but given up on any pretense of democracy promotion in the region and have instead turned again to well-trodden policy repertoires emphasizing a realpolitik approach.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Xiong

The United States has surpassed Iran as the largest pistachio exporter to the European Union. Both lower prices and a less frequency of aflatoxin contamination have contributed to the success of the US pistachio industry. Using EU monthly imports and food safety alerts data, we estimate EU demand for US and Iranian pistachios. We find that EU demand for US pistachios is price-inelastic but the demand for Iranian pistachios is price-elastic. We also find that the income effect is positive for US nuts but negative for Iranian nuts. Most importantly, we find that EU imports of US pistachios decrease with aflatoxin alerts traced back to the US but increase with contamination incidents originated from Iran.


Author(s):  
Jean-Christophe Bureau ◽  
Luca Salvatici

Abstract This paper provides a summary measure of the possible new commitments in the area of agricultural market access undertaken by the European Union and the United States, using the Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI) as the tariff aggregator. We take the 2001 bound tariffs as the starting point and attempt to assess how much liberalization in agriculture could be achieved in the European Union and the United States as a result of the present negotiations. We compute the index for 20 agricultural commodity aggregates under the actual commitments assuming a specific functional form for import demand. We compare the present levels of the TRI with three hypothetical cases: a repetition of the same set of tariff cuts commitments of the Uruguay Round according to a EU proposal prior to the 2003 WTO ministerial meeting, a uniform 36% reduction of each tariff, an harmonization ( "Swiss" ) formula based on the initial US proposal.


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