Middle East (West Asia) Security Framework

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The Middle East – West Asia – is one of the world’s most strategically significant regions. Unstable and conflict ridden, this regional theatre is plagued by acute security dilemmas. Strangely, the Middle East remains one of the only theatres in the world without a comprehensive regional security framework for managing, preventing and defusing conflict.

21CQ is keenly interested in the vision of transforming the Middle East into one of this century’s vibrant, stable and productive regions. It supports the proposition that the region’s challenges – from war to the threat of nuclear proliferation and international terrorism – demand new thinking, and calls for a collaborative approach to regional security in the Middle East.

To this end, building on the 2012 Global Brief classical article, “A New Security Order for the Middle East,” 21CQ will be pushing for a comprehensive regional security framework for the Middle East through the following major streams of initiatives:

1. a strategic blueprint for the establishment of a regional security framework in the Middle East, which will include,inter alia, a conceptual design and its modus operandi, as well as a catalogue of trust-building measures.
2. mainstreaming the idea of an inclusive regional security framework for the Middle East – first and foremost in the region (at the government level, but also with the involvement of academia, the media and civil society).
3. building bridges between regional states, the EU, Asia and North America, and also cultivating support in these theatres for the regional security framework.
4. encouraging and supporting the organization of a first comprehensive diplomatic conference in the region to discuss the prospects of creating a regional security framework for the Middle East.
5. promoting and creating a permanent regional forum for security dialogue to be hosted in Middle Eastern capitals on a rotating basis.

21CQ is in active consultations with partners – state and non-state actors alike – to promote the establishment of a Middle East Security Framework, and will be making its arguments and interventions, more generally, in support of this major project’s goals through conferences (diplomatic or otherwise), briefings, publications, private and public interventions, as well as Track 1, Track 1.5, Track 2, and Track 3 initiatives across the region and in major world capitals.