Introduction

The Middle East approach to regional security has its origins in the security concerns and interests of external actors. Opening up regional security to analyse the constitutive relationship between ‘region’ and ‘security’ allows considering myriad insecurities and referents as prioritised by different approaches to regional security. The ‘Middle East’ as a term and as a spatial conception is a product of the British search for security in this part of the world before and during first World War. During the Cold War, the Middle East approach to regional security was top down because threats were defined largely from the perspective of external rather than regional actors. In the wake of the Cold War, such a top-down approach to regional security was still prevalent in US security policy making toward the Middle East. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.