Drags in all global powers.

More importantly, America’s position has changed in the world, allowing a resurgent Russia, rising China, and awakening India to challenge each other and American hegemony. The Middle East has become an important arena of their competition, especially because of oil. Half of China’s oil comes out of the Persian Gulf to fuel the economic rise of what is now the world’s largest oil importer. India, the world’s third-leading oil importer, gets more than half of its oil from the region, and India is also the world’s leading recipient of labor remittances from overseas workers, primarily from laborers employed in the Persian Gulf. The second-leading oil exporter in the world, Russia is interested in Middle Eastern oil primarily for what its availability and pricing do to the market for Russian oil. Other Russian interests in the Middle East include arms sales, base access (its only bases outside of the traditional Soviet zone are in Syria), and the creation and expansion of an anti-access/area-denial zone in the Black Sea region. Meanwhile, this is happening as the global position of the United States has slipped during an Obama Administration that struggled to “lead from behind” and a Trump Administration marked by erratic swings from foreign policy adventurism to “America First” neo-isolationism. Powerful nations with competing interests often find that the collision of those interests leads to war. Having so many great power interests converge in a part of the world that has historically been an active arena of conflict is worrisome. Since the late 1970s, the region has had the highest number of fatalities due to war. Three of the world’s top five countries in military spending per capita are Middle Eastern (Saudi Arabia is first, Israel is third, and Kuwait is fifth). Middle Eastern countries have also developed or pursued weapons of mass destruction, with Israel widely known to have nuclear weapons and a robust delivery capability, while seven Middle Eastern countries have or have had biological or chemical weapons. Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq currently occupy the bottom three spots on the Global Peace Index. As great power competition resurfaces and now takes place in a conflict-prone, unstable Middle East, the question seems not to be if great power conflict will occur, but when.