This Blog is written by Siddhi Agrawal, a Third Year Law Student of Manikchand Pahade Law College Aurangabad, Maharashtra

Introduction

This protracted war between Russia and Ukraine has left irreparable marks on the world landscape, including the redefining of international relations, balance of power, and rearrangement of alliances. But the conflict is rather a political ballet between Russia and the United States and Europe in a quite complex battle. The US is taking advantage of this situation to further maintain hegemony, while other nations have a great reaction both against the US and Russia. The countries who are the allies of the US in the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and the rest emerging nations haven't equaled the US strategy or even stood for or against the US-Russia rivalry. It clearly shows the waning influence of the US and Western powers in global political affairs.

Shifting Global Power Dynamics and the Middle East

The Middle East is characteristically defined by dependence on the Western world for progress, continued conflicts, and issues within the region forming a volatile setting that serves as a roadblock for regional progress and cooperation. The "Arab Spring" of 2011 and the previous years have established a new balance of power with influence dispersed more diversely and equitably among major powers, and national autonomy growing in self-confidence all-positive development for the Middle East as a whole.

And that wasn't without a "price tag" that would be uncontested in the form of the exhausting "War between Russia and Ukraine" that hit the Middle East, besides raising energy costs and lack of food. This challenged the internal management and process of development projects. It is no longer occurring in countries that have lived through the experience of two major "Arab Spring" movements, causing much concern that there may be a third wave due to the tide from the conflict rippling outwards. However international relationships in the Middle East are rarely imagined to be constructed independently.

This is a strong message India will take to the G20 Leaders' Summit at Rio de Janeiro, the biggest of its kind, amidst gigantic geopolitical tensions, like the Russia-Ukraine war, and continued uncertainty in the Middle East. The Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India, which is likely to curb inflation from October 7-9, will have these heightened tensions on top of the agenda.

US Strategy and Influence in the Middle East Post-Arab Spring

Since the Arab Spring of 2011, international powers' influence over the Middle East has changed in a radical way that shifted from the unipolar period-a time essentially dominated by the US to a much more complicated multipolarity, involving most of the world's major players. This shift was instigated by a change in the US approach toward foreign and security policies whereby these increasingly weigh the rivalry between the major world powers. With this, the US has retreated from the region of the Middle East whereas all those budding world economies such as Russia, China, India, and many more have emerged to take their big share of the area.

Actually, with the end of the Cold War and more so during the global economic meltdown of 2008, the US ability and preparedness to impact the Middle East have been reduced. The US gradually phased the transition of its global approach from waging war on terror in the Middle East to becoming positioned as managing strategic competition with other major world powers, thereby slowly withdrawing from the region step by step. A pattern that exists continuously through every administration but there exist differences in the particular strategies between the administrations.

Thus, while the Arab Spring has been a turning of Middle East politics, with its aftermath representing new momentum under which such critical developments could take place, there would be further investment from the US in strategies required for this shift. However, there is tension to this trend with the direction in which the US wants to move away from its previous Middle East strategy. With the Biden administration, the US has continued down a path of reduction in strategic engagement in the region and has begun changing policy to reduce strategic entanglements with the Middle East.

The US's handling of the Middle East since the Ukraine-Russia conflict throws the internal contradictions of the US's strategy for the Middle East into sharp relief. For such a strategic race with Russia over the conflict, it is but natural that the US needs the support of the Middle Eastern nations, especially the ones that are more well-endowed with energy resources, for carrying out sanction measures against Russia. The member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council have therefore followed a policy of maintaining strategic balance between major powers as much as they have lost confidence in their power counterparts. This balanced policy is portrayed by the Middle Eastern nations in terms of reaction to the war with Russia.

This set the United States on a path of competition for power, and coupled with the developments following the Arab Spring of 2011, made the Middle Eastern nations hurry up in development and modifications to their policies. Interchange of Strategic Rivalry: The US-Russia strategic rivalry is now being interchanged by the policies and strategies used by Ukraine and the Middle East. While there has been a slight improvement in the Middle East international relations, the US's negative impact has only resulted in fragile improvement in the relations among the major powers and relegated areas of conflict within the region to the periphery. Thus, this rise of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has posed unprecedented challenges to the present regional situation, wherein economic and social problems are getting worse in several countries in the Middle East.

CONCLUSION-

The war that has been ongoing between Russia and Ukraine is inflating the number of major world powers who are not controlled by the Middle East, and in fact, their war on each other has made their competition more intense since the war broke out. This development in the region steered further away from more conflict, towards better international relations, and towards strengthening local nations and their changes in growth. However, the devastating impact of war upon the Middle East is yet very huge with developing rivalry of the great powers, disagreements on the crucial regions, and additional stresses on local control.

Reference-

● https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10239536/

● https://inss.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/3794932/the-middle-east-and-the-ukraine-war-between-fear-and-opportunity/

● https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/market-insights/geopolitical-risk

● https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/escalating-middle-east-crisis-heres-how-its-impacting-india-448594-2024-10-03

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-wars-ukraine-middle-east-weakening-uss-grip-tmche/