MESOPOTAMIA NEWS BOOK RECOMMENDATION : MILITARY ORIENTALISM
WASHINGTON, June 26, 2019 – We are pleased to offer a preview of the featured essay from the new Summer 2019 edition of Middle East Policy: “Military Orientalism: Middle East Ways of War.” The essay is written by Dr. Ahmed Salah Hashim, associate professor of Strategic Studies, RSIS, at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. To access the full essay, click here.
The essay provides historical context on how the West has distorted the ways of war in the Middle East. Dr. Hashim links this distortion to military orientalism: “the centrality of orientalist representations in the construction of oriental enemies and their warfare traditions.” This enables military regimes in the West to denounce violence by militaries in the Middle East and Orient, while at the same time glorifying (and legitimizing) Western methods, even if they are equally or more violent.
Dr. Hashim provides a historical overview of how military orientalism developed beginning with Greco-Roman views of Iranians through more contemporary Islamic and Arab models of military organization. To read the full essay, click here.
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In addition to editor Anne Joyce’s new editorial and seven new book reviews, this edition of Middle East Policy also features new scholarship on Iran, Turkey and North Africa:
- Essays exploring whether proliferation will follow the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal and prospects for Iran’s transition to renewable energy (preview here).
- Analysis of the Ankara-Moscow relationship and an evaluation of Erdogan’s political standing in Turkey (preview here).
- Geopolitics and key takeaways from recent political developments in Libya and Mauritania (preview here).
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Save the date for Friday, July 19th for our 97th Capitol Hill Conference “The United States – Saudi Arabian Relationship.” Details on this event will be forthcoming later this week.
Interviews or other queries: Contact MEPC Media: (202) 296 6767 — mepc.press@gmail.com