ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of water in cross-regional dynamics for the past decade, through a combination of hydropolitical and geopolitical lenses. The lens is applied to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, as well as Israel and Iran. The main emphasis is on the rapidly changing power dynamics in both regions, and its economic, political and security implications – namely increasing levels of intra-regional trade and investment, but also new patterns of political alliances and ever-changing spheres of influence and power balance. In brief, the chapter attempts to understand if the growing involvement of external actors from the Middle East in the Nile Basin is contributing to the emergence and/or consolidation of new regional/hydropolitical settings, and how ultimately this is affecting or might affect in the near future the management and allocation of the Nile water resources.
