The Middle East as the Key to the New International Order

Summary

The second panel of the 2nd edition treated the Middle East as a hub of Eurasia's overland trade routes and a region whose control confers an advantage in the international system. The organiser announced a discussion of the vacuum left by the fall of the so-called Islamic State, Russia's involvement in the interplay of Turkish and Iranian interests, China's New Silk Road and the American response; the recording's tags point to Iraq, Iran, Kurdistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The panel brought together a diplomat with hands-on experience of military missions, a war reporter, historians and political scientists specialising in the region, and the cultural security researcher Magdalena El Ghamari.