In 1902, the American Admiral Alfred Mahan formalised the concept of the Middle East — a tricontinental entity in the ‘middle’ of Europe, Asia and Africa — and deduced from its central position that “whoever controlled it would control the world”. Though this formulation expresses an outdated vision of the world, it has the merit of reminding how much world geopolitics is shaped by events in the Middle East, and how important are the stakes of an influence strategy in the region. For those who doubt this, recent events are a reminder.
Filiu Jean-Pierre, Le Moyen-Orient en 2050 : un essai de prospective, Paris: Institut Diderot, January 2024, 59 p.
This is undoubtedly why, in January 2024, the Institut Diderot, which describes itself as a think tank dedicated to “understanding and predicting the results of major upheavals”, asked Jean-Pierre Filiu, a renowned specialist in the Middle East, to hold a conference on the possible futures of this region in 2050. The exercise is risky, as he himself admits, because of the extreme instability that characterises this part of the world, but also because the time allotted is very short given the complexity of the task.
What geographical area are we talking about exactly? A founding triangle made up of Iraq, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, into which the Anatolia of present-day Turkey, the Persia of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Arabian Peninsula are wedged.
Jean-Pierre Filiu’s presentation in this publication — entitled Le Moyen-Orient en 2050 : un essai de prospective [The Middle East in 2050: a Foresight Essay] — highlights three key ideas. The first is that, in the Mi...
