- 26 Feb 2014
HOW AMERICA’S GROWING TIES WITH ASIA WILL SUSTAIN AMERICA’S TIES WITH THE MIDDLE EAST
Abstract
Commentary in the Middle East and Asia often analyze how a rebalancing of U.S. attention toward Asia will necessitate a turning away from the Middle East. In fact, Asia’s growing reliance on the Middle East means that a U.S. commitment to Asia will requite an ongoing U.S. commitment to the Middle East. The new U.S. commitment, however, may represent a departure from the twentieth century norm, however. For much of the last century, the United States came to the Middle East through Europe, and it maintained a large commitment to the Mediterranean basin, to democratization and human rights, and to international norms. A more Asia-based approach to the Middle East is likely to be more Gulf-focused and have a more mercantilist perspective.
About the Speakers
Jon B Alterman holds the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy and is director of the Middle East Program at CSIS. Prior to joining CSIS in 2002, he served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. He is a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel and served as an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group (also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission). In addition to his policy work, he teaches Middle Eastern studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the George Washington University. Before entering government, he was a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1993 to 1997, Alterman was an award-winning teacher at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in history. He also worked as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-NY), responsible for foreign policy and defense. Alterman has lectured in more than 30 countries on five continents on subjects related to the Middle East and U.S. policy toward the region. He is the author or coauthor of four books on the Middle East and the editor of two more. In addition to his academic work, he is sought out as a consultant to business and government and is a frequent commentator in print, on radio, and on television. His opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Times, and other major publications. He is on the Board of Advisory Editors of the Middle East Journal, is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Arab Media and Society, and is a former international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is now a life member. He received his A.B. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
