When: Wednesday, April 10, 2024, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PMWhere: Montagu Lecture Theatre (GC601), Graduate Centre, Mile End
Hear from Professor Christopher Phillips in conversation with Chatham House's Renad Mansour for the launch of Battleground: 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East (Yale University Press).
This event will be followed by a drinks reception from 19:00 in the Graduate Centre 7th floor common room and terrace.
The essential guide to geopolitics in the modern Middle East
The Middle East is in crisis. The shocking events of the war in Gaza have rocked the entire region. More than a decade ago, the Arab Spring had raised hopes of a new beginning but instead ushered in a series of civil wars, coups, and even harsher autocracies. Tensions were exacerbated by the meddling of outsiders, as regional and global powers sought to further their interests. The United States, for so long the dominant actor, had stepped back, leaving a vacuum behind it to be fought over.
Christopher Phillips explores geopolitical rivalries in the region, and the major external powers vying for influence: Russia, China, the EU, and the US. Moving through ten key flashpoints, from Syria to Palestine, Phillips argues that the United States’ overextension after the Cold War, and retreat in the 2010s, has imbalanced the region. Today, the Middle East remains blighted by conflicts of unprecedented violence and a post-American scramble for power – leaving its fate in the balance.
About the speakers
Christopher Phillips is professor of international relations at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of Battle for Syria, now in its second edition, and coeditor of What Next for Britain in the Middle East?
Renad Mansour is a senior research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and the project director of the institute’s Iraq Initiative. He is also a senior research fellow at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, and a research fellow at the Cambridge Security Initiative based at the University of Cambridge. Renad was previously a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he taught the international relations of the Middle East. He is the co-author of Once Upon a Time in Iraq, published by BBC Books/Penguin (2020) to accompany the award-winning BBC series.