The repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be felt far beyond Europe’s shores. MEI experts take a look at what some of the spillover effects will be for the Middle East and elsewhere.
PART III (14 March 2022)
Ukraine Could Provide the Platform to Launch Pax Sinica
By Bert Hofman
Director, East Asian Institute, NUS Professor in Practice, Lee Kuan Yew School
As the war in Ukraine is intensifying and the number of civilian casualties is rapidly rising, China has maintained its position of neutrality, as captured by State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s “5 points”. On the one hand, China sees sovereignty as fundamental to the international order it wants to see. On the other, it notes the “complicated history” of Ukraine, and has condemned the Eastward expansion of NATO in the past decade.
As a result, China finds itself in a position of “pro-Russian neutrality”, as Evan Feigenbaum of the Carnegie Endowment for the Peace put it. This position may be comfortable, and would leave the agreement with Russia signed on Feb 4 intact. At the same time, it risks putting China on the wrong side of history as the humanitarian costs mount.
From a realist perspective, it risks China passing on a major opportunity to shape a new world order. Beijing has argued for changes in the post-war order on the account that such order should better reflect the values of other countries, including China. Ukraine is an opportunity to demonstrate what this would mean.
An active role for China in mediating the conflict would make use of its sway over a now-isolated Russia, and use its traditionally good relationships with Ukraine, for which it guarantees support in case of a nuclear conflict as per agreement signed back in 2014.
How China would play such a role and which objectives it pursues in doing so is up to it, and up to what is diplomatically feasible. If it plays an active role in shaping the outcome of the conflict by using its capabilities and good relations, this may demonstrate how a multi-polar world with China as a major power would look like. If China chooses to engage, Ukraine could even be the beginning of a Pax Sinica. If it chooses to stand aside instead, the outcome of the conflict will no doubt be far worse, and an opportunity for China will be lost.
Ukraine is not Syria, and Russia’s Military is Finding That Out the Hard Way
Alessandro Arduino
Principal Research Fellow, MEI
Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad provided the Kremlin with an exorbitant return on investment. With limited use of military force, President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the Syrian civil war managed to get Russia back on the global powers’ chessboard. Syria represented the hallmark of Russia’s hybrid strategy, achieving limited and well-defined strategic objectives while operating in the shadows with mercenaries from the Wagner Group and Syrian paramilitary organizations. It also served as a springboard for future Russian expansion in Libya and Africa, providing access to sea lanes of communication and natural resources. Last but not least, the ongoing Syrian conflict offered Moscow the chance to battle-test new military hardware.
However, with the invasion of Ukraine just over two weeks old, President Vladimir Putin has managed to erase all the lessons he learned in Syria.
The Russian military’s use of unmanned combat vehicles and cruise missiles in Syria have not been replicated in Ukraine. Military analysts and pundits have been surprised by Russia’s failure to achieve air supremacy, as well as a lack of decisive armed UAS missions, and crippling cyber-attacks. The longest military traffic jam in modern history revealed the inadequacy of the logistics train, and led to more questions about Russia’s true military capabilities. In two weeks, the idea that the country has a reformed, modernised, and powerful armed forces has suffered a severe blow.
The media coverage of the Russian intervention in Syria was a boon for the country’s arms industry. However, the Ukraine conflict is reversing that perception quickly.
Russia-Ukraine Crisis will Make Climate Goals Harder to Reach
Aisha Al-Sarihi
Research Fellow, MEI
On 9 March, 14 days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US administration announced a ban on imports of Russian oil, natural gas and refined products. The UK and Australia followed suit. However, this ban is only symbolic as none of these countries are major importers of Russian hydrocarbons.
The EU, which is the major market for Russia, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of its crude exports, 40 per cent of its LNG, and nearly 70 per cent of its pipeline natural gas, has shown no signs of following the US, UK, and Australia.
Worse, the fear of a sudden cut of Russian supplies has triggered the EU to look for alternative sources of energy supplies, including increased imports of gas from countries like the US and switching on once-turned-off coal power plants.
In fact, in the US, coal-fired power generation was higher in 2021 than it was in 2019, despite the country’s determination to showcase climate action leadership under the Biden administration. Meanwhile, while the Russian-Ukraine crisis has renewed global attention to renewables as a cleaner and secure source of energy supply, securing short-term energy supplies has thus far been greatly dominated by hydrocarbons, pushing climate change concerns further down the agenda.
The United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report suggests that global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) need to fall by 7.6 per cent every year between 2020 and 2030 for the world to avoid catastrophic impacts of global warming beyond the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.
But historically, despite warnings of catastrophe, GHG emissions have been rising continuously rise. War, financial, and pandemic crises have been the only occasions that have led to a dent in global GHG emissions: The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the 2008 financial crisis and the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic . The rebound of energy demand as a result of economic recovery from COVID-19, coupled with a return of coal to offset Russian supply cuts will only mean a further increase in GHG emissions, and lower the chances of meeting the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.
Will Iran Sign a Nuclear Deal Without Russia?
Asif Shuja
Senior Research Fellow, MEI
Russia’s demand of written guarantees from the US allowing it to continue its financial cooperation with Iran after a potential resurrection of the JCPOA has effectively paused the Vienna negotiations. It should not be a surprise that Russia has inserted its own interests into what was supposed to be an effort to mitigate the differences between the US and Iran. Indeed, the Vienna talks have lately become a forum for geopolitical competition between regional and global powers under the pretense of discussions over a nuclear pact. The Ukraine crisis has exposed these pretensions, making Russia’s role as an opponent of Iran-US friendship more evident than what we knew through former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s leaked tape.
Going forward, the US and Iran may be more inclined to work out an agreement between themselves. American officials have already indicated that they might take a route outside the framework of the JCPOA, cutting Russia out. The ball is in Iran’s court now. Tehran will most likely make a decision on whether to do so after a final assessment of its relationship with Russia. In this respect, it is useful to examine if Israel’s growing closeness with Russia is directly proportional to the rate of its drift away from the US in the wake of latter’s recalibration of its involvement in the Middle East. If so, then Iran may be compelled to decide in favour of tilting itself towards US, and away from one of its few “friends”, Russia.
PART II (7 March 2022)
Israel Threads a Fine Line Between Russia and America
By Gedaliah Afterman
Head, Israel-Asia Policy Program, Abba Eban Institute of International Diplomacy
Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy Reichman University (IDC) Herzliya, Israel
The shockwaves that resulted from the invasion of Ukraine and the potential for a wider conflict between Russia and the West will be felt acutely in the Middle East. In Israel, they pose a thorny foreign and security policy challenge for the broad coalition government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
The Israeli government is walking on eggshells in trying to signal its status as a close and reliable ally of the United States without damaging the good working relationship it developed with President Vladimir Putin under former PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel initially declined to sponsor the American resolution to condemn Russia in the UN Security Council, but as violence in Ukraine escalated, it had little choice but to join the US and its allies, among many others, in condemning Moscow at the UN General Assembly.
Israel’s relations with Russia are central to the management of any potential spillover from the conflict in Syria and tensions with Iran. The Iranian regime is staging proxy militias in Syria and supplying them – along with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip – with Iranian weapons and equipment. Notably, these weapons include large stockpiles of rockets which have been used to attack civilian targets in Israel.
Israel has been coordinating closely with Russian forces deployed in Syria to avoid accidental clashes with them while carrying out military operations aimed at keeping Shi’ite militias in Syria at bay.
Given the Iranian regime’s threat to Israel and Arab Gulf states, Tel Aviv is also closely watching how the Ukraine conflict will impact the nuclear talks in Vienna. Europeans are now increasingly concerned about an impending shortage of Russian natural gas and oil supplies, given the heavy sanctions imposed on Moscow. As a result, it is likely that both the Western powers involved in the talks and Iran will be keen to quickly reach an agreement to lift sanctions and gain access to Tehran’s hydrocarbons.
Turkey Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
By A. Erdi Ozturk
Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer), Politics and IR at London Metropolitan University | Marie Curie Fellow at Coventry University (CTPSR) and GIGA
Higher Education Fellow (FHEA)
On the fifth day of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said again that his country could not abandon its ties with Russia or Ukraine.
At first glance, this seems a balance-based policy for a country that sits across the Black Sea from both sides in the war. However, Turkey has taken a couple of positions that could incur the wrath of Russia.
The first is closing the Bosporus Strait, which cuts access to the Black Sea for Russian warships from its Northern and Pacific Fleets – a right it has under the 1936 Montreux Convention. Turkey has also provided Ukraine with its acclaimed Bayraktar TB2 drone. There is some evidence to show that the Ukrainian military has had some success using the TB2 against Russian columns, in particular the 64-km convoy near Kyiv.
Ankara’s moves have put it between a rock and a hard place: Turkey is a member of Nato, but has increasingly leaned towards Russia in the security, economic, and energy domains – the most visible example of this was its decision to acquire the S400 missile system, putting it directly in the crosshairs of the US. Its ostensibly pro-Ukrainian positions will now likely be viewed unfavourably by Moscow.
China’s Partnership with Russia has Its Limits
By Alessandro Arduino
Principal Research Fellow, MEI
The newly-minted China-Russia “partnership without limits” is facing a severe test in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. The cornerstone of Beijing’s foreign policy is the inviolability of national sovereignty, and Russia’s actions are a direct contravention of this. China is now actively balancing its position: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has announced that all activities relating to Russia and Belarus are on hold and under review, but at the same time, the Chinese blogosphere is filled with pro-Russian anti-West diatribes.
This is the first major international crisis in which China can play a leading role, but Beijing is still playing it safe.
While speculation over whether President Xi Jinping was fully aware of President Vladimir Putin’s intentions is continuing, it seems clear that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was kept out of the loop. The Chinese embassy in Kyiv initially called on its nationals in the country to wave the flag, only to reverse its position a day later. As a result, only about half of the 6,000 Chinese nationals living in Ukraine have been able to leave the country. This presents some problems for Beijing as the conflict escalates and civilian areas are being increasingly targeted.
China has been calling for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but there has been no significant evolution on Beijing’s position towards Moscow. China’s balancing act is rooted in two mutually-incompatible positions: Maintaining its decades-old principle of non-interference, and supporting Russia’s security concerns. As a solution to the crisis recedes with each passing day, Beijing is evaluating the repercussions of the invasion on its own neighbourhood. Many Asian nations voted for a United Nations resolution demanding an end to the invasion, and already-high negative sentiment against China is set to rise. Perhaps more worryingly for Beijing, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called on Tokyo to consider hosting US nuclear weapons.
The world, with few exceptions, is ostracising Moscow on all fronts – cultural, sports, diplomatic, and financial. The biggest stick is cutting Russia off from the SWIFT network. China can help soften this blow, but it risks being caught in the blowback if it does. To divine which way it will lean, a look at Iran’s experience is instructive. Beijing threw Tehran an economic lifeline when the latter was hit with US sanctions, but there were limits to what it would do, for fear of inviting retaliation. For Russia, the message is clear: Partnership or not, Beijing will not follow Moscow to the ends of the earth.
View from the Gulf: It’s Not Our War
By Jean-Loup Samaan
Senior Research Fellow, MEI
Apart from Kuwait, Gulf states (like most of the Arab world) first opted for non-alignment regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, avoiding any statement explicitly condemning Moscow. Though they eventually voted on in favour of a resolution from the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to demand the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces, they remained largely silent on the issue.
The decision by the United Arab Emirates, a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), was perhaps most perplexing. It was one of three members of the Council – China and India were the others – to abstain on a draft resolution demanding the cessation of Russian operations on Feb 26, two days after the invasion.
Abu Dhabi is dependent on the security umbrella provided by the United States, but its abstention was less about grand strategy than mere diplomatic tactics: Another UN resolution had been scheduled two days later to sanction the Houthis in Yemen, and the Emiratis needed Russia’s support for that vote. The UAE thus had more to lose by antagonising Vladimir Putin than by disappointing Joe Biden. The fact that it shifted positions and supported the UNGA resolution against Moscow’s assault a few days later shows that the Abu Dhabi’s position was not driven by resolute strategic principles.
Overall, the Gulf states’ ambiguities should not be reduced to a balancing or hedging act. True, Russia plays a major role in energy diplomacy with OPEC, but it remains a secondary player in the Arabian Peninsula, compared to the US or China. The Gulf’s stance certainly illustrates deep, and mutual, frustration with the US, but does not imply a pivot to Russia. In the end, their lack of reaction reflected the idea that, whether seen from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, or Doha, this is simply not their war.
Ukraine May Upend Arab States’ Strategic Calculus
By Gyorgy Busztin
Visiting Research Professor, MEI
Middle East nations were for some time preoccupied with the rebalancing of the United States’ role in the region as it switched focus to the Indo-Pacific theatre as strategic competition with China sharpened. Some countries which were close to Iran, or dissatisfied with the US’ performance in defending regional allies, seemed content. Others were concerned. Iran looms large over the Gulf states’ horizon. The misconception that China would fill the security role vacated by the US lost traction quickly.
The question, then, was who would fill the role. Many took note of the growing activism of Russia in the region – apart from Syria, it has sent private military contractors to Libya. The Russian navy in the Mediterranean is also a factor neither Egypt nor Lebanon (and by extension, Iran) could ignore.
In the minds of many, a quasi-balanced security role played by three aspiring protagonists, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, would replace the decades-long US presence. At times, it seemed as if the US was itself not inimical to the idea of the regional states taking their fates in their own hands and building their own security architecture.
Russia was not seen as an outlier in a region where the cult of force has deep historic roots. Many Arab leaders admired Russia, a country led by a strongman which asserted itself forcefully on the international stage. Many countries which were hostile to, or disappointed with the US, openly or secretly cheered Moscow on as it challenged the US-led order.
All that changed after the Russian actions in Ukraine. Most Arab countries either remained silent or paid timid lip service to international law, legitimacy, and a rules-based international order. Syria, which is practically a Russian vassal, threw its support behind Moscow. Only Kuwait, which was invaded by Saddam Hussein, and Lebanon condemned the invasion. This after Tehran – self-appointed advocate of all victims of great power hegemony – was obliged to use mildly disapproving language over Moscow’s war of subjugation. Turkey took the strongest position, calling for talks, while supplying Ukraine with advanced drones and closing the Bosporus Strait to Russian warships.
The Arab governments have to contend with increasing pressure from abroad and even at home for their nebulous reactions to the invasion. For them, reality is dawning. The US’ security role in the region will not be filled by another nation. They cannot appease Moscow and remain committed to the UN Charter, and the collective trauma of the Kuwait invasion still haunts them.
It is difficult to presage how a Russia that is bogged down in Ukraine can sustain its role in Syria and Libya. Keeping Hmeim, Tartus, Lattakia, and a Wagner Army going in Eastern Libya is expensive business. Moscow has committed blood and treasure to gain permanent footholds in both countries through years of direct or proxy-based intervention. War on so many fronts may, however, prove to be an overreach not even the vast Russian war machine is capable of sustaining, particularly since Western sanctions aim to bankrupt the country. That could leave Turkey and Iran in charge – a thought that must roil the Arabs.
The Arab-Israeli rapprochement may gain new vigour if Russia remains preoccupied with Ukraine and loses traction in the ME theatre. Then, in extremis, the momentum towards an Arab-Israeli security pact – beyond the Abraham Accords – may accelerate. Predictably, Russia, regardless of how its Ukraine adventure will end, stands to lose its position of influence in the ME region, either due to force overstretch or sheer inability to finance a sustained military presence as its economy faces meltdown.
Arabs and Israelis have never had so many common interests and such an urgent reason to engage. A Russian drawdown or exit, should it happen, may change many strategic calculations and usher in a new phase in the fast-shifting realities of the Middle East. Despite their attempts to ignore Ukraine, the conflict may prove consequential for Arabs.
PART I (3 March 2022)
Are Russian Mercenaries Repositioning from the MENA Region to Ukraine?
By Alessandro Arduino
Principal Research Fellow, MEI
An increasing number of reports have highlighted the Kremlin’s commitment to using paramilitary groups, such as Wagner, to carry out attacks aimed at decapitating the Ukrainian leadership. Russian mercenaries have been the sharp end of the stick in Russian foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa over the last decade, proving their tactical value when Moscow needed plausible deniability. However, the invasion of Ukraine is different, and Russian special forces teams from GRU and Spetsnaz do not need to remove their uniform patches this time.
Since Soviet times, Russia’s proxy warfare doctrine has changed. Today, it cannot count on former Soviet satellite states to provide the proxy forces required for power projection abroad.
The annexation of Crimea, the hybrid conflict in Donbas, and the military interventions in Syria and Libya have showcased how volunteers and private contractors have replaced Russian proxy armies, such as the Cubans in the Angola conflict.
Today, Russian paramilitary groups are increasing their footprint in Africa, from Mali to the Central African Republic. While the regular Russian military is moving to lay siege to key Ukrainian cities, its mercenaries are a placeholder for Russian geopolitical interests elsewhere. The immediate advantages of having the Wagner Group expanding in the MENA region are related to operational flexibility, providing deniability and being a source of income for President Vladimir Putin’s cronies.
However, a sudden shift in Russian mercenaries’ deployment from the MENA region to Ukraine means that Mr Putin’s Plan A – a lightning campaign to seize the country – is not working. Instead, mercenaries will provide the cover for brazen human rights violations.
Sanctions May Hasten Shift Towards Renewable Energy
By Aisha Al-Sarihi
Research Fellow, MEI
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered widespread sanctions to pressure Moscow to stop the fighting and withdraw its military forces from Ukraine. On 2 March, in a rare emergency session, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to denounce the war.
Most of the sanctions have so far targeted Russia’s financial sector, but not its oil and gas exports, or financial mechanisms that target this trade. However, the current response does not necessarily mean that direct sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas exports are not an option. In fact, some oil and gas investors, such as BP and Shell, have already divested their Russian interests, selling stakes in Rosneft and Gazprom, respectively. British Gas, Centrica, Exxon Mobil and Norwegian Equinor are following suit.
If Moscow’s energy sector becomes a target – American President Joe Biden said on 2 March that “nothing is off the table” when asked about banning Russian oil and gas from the US – the effects will widespread.
Europe, which accounts for around 60 per cent of Russia’s total crude oil exports, and Asia, which takes up nearly 35 per cent, will be hardest-hit. However, this scenario is unlikely to happen, especially since any further supply disruptions will push oil and gas prices even higher, and heap political pressure on governments that are already grappling with sky-high inflation, an outcome no one wants.
But if Russia continues to up the ante and the civilian casualty count rises, the West might be forced into increasingly tougher measures, including banning oil and gas. If this happens, the shortage of Russian supplies will put pressure on producers like OPEC+ and the US to tap on their spare capacity and ramp up production to fill the demand.
The US is already increasing its exports of LNG to the EU, and OPEC+ members, in their latest Ministerial Meeting on March 2, have shown willingness to increase monthly overall production by 0.4 mb/d for the month of April.
In the long-term, the energy security crisis associated with geopolitical tensions will put more pressure on countries to hasten their transition away from hydrocarbons. For example, on February 28, Germany announced a plan to produce 100 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2035, advancing its target date by five years. The European Union is already rethinking its energy security and preparing a new energy strategy that excludes Russia. The question that remains is how quickly, efficiently, and affordably the spare capacity or renewables can substitute for Russian hydrocarbons.
Putin’s War Complicates JCPOA Talks, and Puts Iran’s Rulers in a Bind
By Asif Shuja
Senior Research Fellow, MEI
One aspect of the Ukraine war that will not be lost on countries like Iran is the fact that it agreed to give up its nuclear weapons after independence – in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States, and Britain. Today, it is under attack from one of the countries that provided that guarantee, while the other two have ruled out sending troops to help defend it.
The quick lesson will not be lost on Tehran. It will now be justifiably more motivated to attain a nuclear ability. The invasion of Ukraine has thus tilted the delicate balance in ongoing negotiations over a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) towards Iran, and may cause it to harden its stance.
However, Iran also has much to lose if the nuclear deal is not restored. Russia has helped it weather crippling American sanctions, but it is now seen as an international pariah. As sanctions bite, Russia’s economy, already anaemic in comparison to the West’s, will be further weakened, and it will not be able to do much to prevent Iran’s further isolation if a new nuclear deal is not reached. There are other repercussions, too: President Vladimir Putin’s move to place his nuclear forces on high alert has forced the world to once again contend with the unthinkable: Nuclear annihilation. Worse, with the Russian strongman all but a pariah internationally, authoritarianism has a become markedly more unpalatable around the globe. This will cast Iran’s iron-fisted rulers in worse light, both at home and around the world.
Image caption: People walk past the body of a relative outside a destroyed building after bombings on the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on 24 February 2022, as Russian armed forces tried to invade Ukraine from several directions, using rocket systems and helicopters to attack Ukrainian position in the south, the border guard service said. Photo by Aris Messinis / AFP.
About the Authors
Dr Alessandro Arduino is the Principal Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), National University of Singapore. He is the Co-director of the Security & Crisis Management International Centre at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science (SASS) and an Associate at Lau China Institute, King’s College London.
His two decades of experience in China encompasses security analysis and crisis management. His main research interests include China, Central Asia and Middle East and North Africa relations, sovereign wealth funds, private military/security companies, and China’s security and foreign policy.
Alessandro is the author of several books and he has published papers and commentaries in various journals in Italian, English and Chinese. His most recent book is China’s Private Army: Protecting the New Silk Road (Palgrave, 2018). He has been appointed Knight of Order of the Star of Italy by the president of the Italian Republic.
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Dr Aisha Al-Sarihi’s areas of research expertise and interest include clean energy policy and climate economics, policies and governance, with a focus on the Arab region.
Following her PhD, from 2016 to 2017, she was a research officer at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Middle East Centre. She was also a former visiting scholar at Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (2017) and Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (2018). Before joining MEI, Dr Al-Sarihi was a research associate in the Climate and Environment Program at King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) from 2019 to 2021.
She holds a PhD from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and a MSc and a BSc, with distinction, in environmental science from Sultan Qaboos University.
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Dr Asif Shuja is an Iran expert whose research focus include Iranian domestic politics, the Iranian nuclear issue, Iran’s foreign policy and Iran’s regional role. He was previously associated with the International Center for Strategic Studies, Abu Dhabi, as a non-resident fellow. His other research affiliations include the Indian Council of World Affairs, where he worked as a research fellow and the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi where he was attached with the Nuclear Security Project of the Department of Atomic Energy. Asif obtained his PhD on Iran’s political power struggle from the Centre for West Asian (Middle East) Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of the book, India‑Iran Relations under the Shadow of the Iranian Nuclear Issue.
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Dr Gedaliah Afterman is the Head of Israel-Asia Policy Programme at Abba Eban Institute of International Diplomacy. Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy Reichman University (IDC) Herzliya, Israel.
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Dr A. Erdi Ozturk is Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer), Politics and IR at London Metropolitan University | Marie Curie Fellow at Coventry University (CTPSR) and GIGA Higher Education Fellow (FHEA).
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Dr Jean-Loup Samaan is a Senior Research Fellow specialising in Middle East strategic affairs, with a particular focus on Israel–Hezbollah conflict and the evolution of the Gulf security system. Prior to joining MEI, he held various positions in the policy sector. He worked as a visiting scholar with the RAND Corporation (2007-2008) and as an advisor at the directorate for strategic affairs of the French Ministry of Defense (2008-2011). He then gained extensive experience in the domain of military education and training, first as a deputy director for the Middle East Faculty of the NATO Defense College (2011-2016) and as an associate professor in strategic studies with the UAE National Defense College (2016-2021).
Dr Samaan has written four books as well as various articles for academic and policy journals. He holds a PhD in political science from University of Paris La Sorbonne (2009) and an accreditation to supervise research (2017) by the doctoral school of Sciences Po, Paris.
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Dr Gyorgy Busztin is Visiting Research Professor at the Middle East Institute, NUS.
A career diplomat and an academic, he served, between 2001 and 2011, as Hungary’s ambassador to Indonesia and subsequently, Iran. In 2011, Dr Busztin was appointed deputy envoy of the United Nations in Iraq, responsible for the political, analytical, electoral and constitutional support components of the UN’s mission in Iraq. He served at the level of assistant secretary-general until October 2017.
Dr Busztin holds a degree in Arabic history from Damascus University, Syria and a Doctorate in Arabic language and Semitic philology from Lorand Eotvos University in Hungary. In addition to his native Hungarian, he speaks English, French, Arabic, Farsi/Dari (Persian), Malay (Indonesian) and Russian. He believes strongly in political and intercultural dialogue and has engaged leading politicians, intellectuals, religious leaders and representatives of civil society.
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Mr Bert Hofman is the Director of the East Asian Institute and a NUS Professor in Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School.
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