Insecurity Communities of South Asia and the Middle East: Consequences of US Foreign Policy

This book critically examines how US foreign policy has produced a regional regime of instability and insecurity in South Asia and the Middle East. It focuses on three interconnected zones of conflict—Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia, Iran and the Persian Gulf states, and Iraq and its neighbours. In a comprehensive historical survey, this work compares the governing behaviour of these states with that of the West, where the American foreign policy establishment has, in contrast, pushed for investing in collective security. The author studies various events throughout history such as the Taliban regime; the US-led war in Afghanistan; the Obama administration and Pakistan; the first and second Gulf wars; the Arab Spring, and the rise of ISIS to present a theoretical analysis of Washington’s consistent pursuit of multibalancing and regime change wars in the region.An important critical assessment of Western foreign policies, this book will be indispensable for students and researchers of US foreign policy, defense and security studies, strategic affairs, politics and international relations, political economy, nation-state building, identity studies, globalization studies, Middle East studies, and South Asian studies.

About the Author

Majid Sharifi is Professor of Political Science and the Director of International Affairs Program at Eastern Washington University, USA. He is the author of Imagining Iran: The Tragedy of Subaltern Nationalism (2013) . His book breaks new ground in connecting what he calls subaltern nationalism to the imperial nature of global governance. His research explores the intersection between security and violence on the one hand, and social movements on the other. As a postcolonial scholar, he has written on decolonizing humanism, an idea drawn from Frantz Fanon’s writings. His current research focuses on consequences of US foreign policy in the making of the insecurity communities of South Asia and the Middle East.